Good morning!
Earlier this spring I was searching for a Sinatra song on YouTube when a Pioneer Valley Regional School baseball game popped up in the sidebar, broadcast live for the world to see on Bernardston-Northfield Community Television. Who knew?

The production was a throwback to the 1939 New York World’s Fair when onlookers kibitzed around an exhibit called “television” and saw the Brooklyn Dodgers playing the Cincinnati Reds at Ebbets Field with announcer Red Barber describing the play-by-play.

Like that first MLB telecast, BNCTV production manager Tyler Bourbeau relies on two cameras — one in right field and the other in centerfield— and his man in the catbird seat is Lou Bordeaux. “In my eyes I consider Lou to be a pro,” he said.

On Tuesday at MacKenzie Field in Holyoke where the Panthers lost to Ware High School in the WMass Class D championship, Bourbeau added a third camera behind home plate. “You wanna talk about professionalism,” said Bordeaux, “Tyler tried getting the shot as tight as he could but kept getting the chain link in the frame, so I fed the shot back to him until he had a clear shot.”

Bourbeau and operations manager Otis Wheeler store their equipment in an office near the PVRS auditorium. Their first Pioneer sports broadcast was in 2011 when the Panthers football team won the MIAA Super Bowl. “We had one camera and all we did was follow the ball,” said Bourbeau.

Bordeaux knows the BNCTV crew from his days as a Bernardston selectboard member and town coordinator. “Tyler and Otis are absolutely the best. It was a joy to have them come in and do town meetings. They consider it their professional obligation.”

Whereas most town meetings will draw only a few dozen viewers, Pioneer’s games can reach upward of a thousand. “You’ve got players sending the links to their parents and grandparents in Florida,” said Bourbeau.

Twelve years ago Bordeaux and his brother Steve founded the Springfield Hockey Heritage Society which reunites fans and players to the era when Eddie Shore’s Springfield Indians skated onto the Big E Coliseum ice to the strains of Bill Haley’s “Shake, Rattle and Roll.”

“I’d been doing Green Wave ice hockey for FCAT (Frontier Community Access Television), but one day Tyler asked me if I wanted to do Pioneer sports. ‘There’s a girls basketball game,’ he texted, and I said sure even though I knew nothing about basketball. I was fortunate to have (former PVRS athletic director) Gina Johnson doing the color with me.”

Between batters and during pitching changes, Bordeaux will fill dead air time with stories about driving through the snow to Montreal and paying $223 for a ticket to watch the Canadiens at the Bell Centre. When a train rumbled past he chalked it up to ambiance: “It wouldn’t be a Panthers game without some locomotive action on the side.”

He’ll challenge fans’ baseball knowledge with references to players like Ryne Duren, a 6-foot-2 reliever with Coke bottle glasses and a 100 mph fastball that often sailed to the backstop and terrified opposing hitters. In 10 years with the Angels and Yankees, Duren threw 38 wild pitches and hit 41 batters.

Bourdeaux’s sidekick is Alex Sabin, a Pioneer junior who attended UMass sports broadcasting school last summer. (This year’s class cost $2,167 and is already sold out.)

“My dream is someday being a sports announcer, maybe work for ESPN,” he said during a recent game.

“It’s a passion of his,” said Bordeaux. “I’m trying to give him the opportunity to shine. How exciting it is to be 16 or 17.”

Every live broadcast has blooper potential, such as between innings against Turners Falls when Bordeaux spoke into a hot microphone. “A spider’s crawling up my leg,” he said, “and it’s going to bite me in the thigh. Those rascals…. There he is!” (Slap)

The MIAA playoff brackets have been posted and Pioneer will begin its quest for a Division 5 state baseball title on Sunday at 4 p.m. in Northfield. Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, BNCTV invites you to hop on the bandwagon. 

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Kudos to the BC women’s lacrosse team (20-3) for storming back from a 6-0 deficit and beating Northwestern, 14-13, to win the NCAA championship on Sunday at Wake Forest.

The Eagles didn’t take the lead until Andrea Reynolds of Sudbury and Holderness scored with less than 10 minutes left to play.

BC’s season opener was a 20-9 win against UMass. Eagles coach Acacia Walker-Weinstein had been an associate head coach at UMass under Alexis Venechanos, who is now a Northwestern assistant coach.

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SQUIBBERS: Amherst’s Terry Kennedy on going to his first Worcester Red Sox game at Polar Park: “Tickets were about the same as a hot dog and beer at Fenway. They have a plate umpire on weekends, but players can appeal a call to the AI video. Not one of the calls were overturned.” …. Boomer Esiason on ESPN’s inadequacies: “Somebody has got to talk to them about how to shoot a hockey game. I am sick and tired of watching people going to the bench while the game is still on.” … Taking shelter from the storm, it’s beginning to look like UNH, William & Mary, Villanova and other I-AA schools made the right move by staying in the FCS. … According to sportico.com, players from whichever team wins the NBA title will each get an $804,000 playoff share. … Hockey’s not as profitable given equipment overhead and roster numbers. Consequently, last year’s Stanley Cup champs each received $163,000, according to thehockeywriters.com. … I never knew why European soccer fans rioted until Americans got what they had, legalized sports betting. … Alex Verdugo must be happy he left Boston and those god awful yellow-and-blue “City Connect” uniforms. The Yankees don’t have them, and they don’t need them. … NY Post columnist Phil Mushnick writes that Spike Lee is the “New York Knicks’ self-appointed, self-entitled, intrusive pixie-costumed, attention-starved, scene-stealing court wart.” … Sirius-XM Jim Memolo on his favorite 1970s TV show “Mannix” with Mike Connors as Joe Mannix: “Somebody broke it down that in real life he would have been concussed at least 50 times. Knocked out every other episode.” … Oliver Platt delivers a profanity-laced Steve Bartman soliloquy in Season 2, Episode 9 of “The Bear” on Hulu. The scriptwriter blames Alex Gonzalez and not Bartman for the implosion that was to follow. … O’s prospect Jackson Holliday is batting .250 (27-107) with four home runs and 12 RBIs since he was returned to the minors on April 27. … It couldn’t be going any worse for the Mets, who’ve lost Pete Alonso (broken hand) and Edwin Diaz (shoulder impingement) and released Jorge Lopez after he was ejected from Wednesday’s game against the Dodgers and hurled his glove over the net and into the crowd. … The NY Times’ Richard Sandomir ended Bill Walton’s obituary with a quote that typified Walton’s exuberance as an NBA commentator: “That was no foul! It may be a violation of all the rules of human decency, but it’s not a foul!” … Happy June. Summer is here. “If it could only be like this always,” wrote Evelyn Waugh. “Always summer, always alone, the fruit always ripe and Aloysius in a good temper.” 

Chip Ainsworth is an award-winning columnist who has penned his observations about sports for decades in the Pioneer Valley. He can be reached at chipjet715@icloud.com