A.J. Pollock featured in MLB Network commercial

The Diamondbacks’ A.J. Pollock appears in the second season of the MLB Network promo campaign “Closer to the Game,” which demonstrates how “MLB Tonight” gives viewers the most access to the game. The 30-second spot includes MLB Network host Greg Amsinger and analysts Harold Reynolds and Eric Byrnes utilizing a drone instead of Ballpark Cams to get up close and personal with Pollock mid-game. [If you’re looking at this story on Google AMP, here’s the video]

Yeah, this is not intended to be taken seriously. Yet it’s actually a kinda interesting idea, thinking about it. It would certainly be fun to experience the game from just over the shortstop’s shoulder, say. Though there are obvious issues too: MLB would need to establish ground rules for what happens if, say, a drone gets taken out by a ball in play. [they can use “Skycam” cameras in the NFL, as long as they stay safely behind the ball - although they are not without issues, even there]

Maybe, sometime down the road, the players will have VR cameras embedded in their caps, and the audience will be able to switch between the perspective of each participant. That’d be cool. Though for a number of reasons, I suspect they would probably need to skip having microphones on them, and just replace the audio with general stadium sounds...