Anybody who’s ever dropped a lens is aware of the sound—the crunch of glass, the moment nausea, the sinking considered cash disappearing in shards. However what occurred in Cleveland throughout at this time’s Wild Card matchup takes that acquainted dread and multiplies it by six figures.
Within the first AL Wild Card sport at this time between Cleveland Guardians and Detroit Tigers, Tarik Skubal, uncorked his thirty eighth pitch of the day, a 100.2 mph four-seam fastball. Middle fielder Ángel Martínez fouled it off, however as a substitute of ricocheting harmlessly into the stands, the ball had different plans. Its subsequent cease: a broadcast digicam lens.
Baseball is cruel on fragile glass, and when that rock-hard projectile finds a lens, it’s like a hammer assembly stained glass. The consequence: catastrophic.
We have got a SHATTERING digicam within the first sport of the playoffs. Sound up! pic.twitter.com/IJbZ9pXgLh— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 30, 2025
And catastrophic is pricey. Broadcast crews don’t shoot with on a regular basis lenses. They use behemoths just like the Canon XJ72 or Fujinon Digipower 76, glass monsters that stretch from 9.3mm to over 700mm of zoom. Retail? The Canon can run greater than $60,000 used. The Fujinon? North of $100,000. In different phrases, that foul ball didn’t simply dent steel. It obliterated the worth of a sports activities automotive.
Damaged cameras are an unlucky however not unusual casualty of baseball. A minimum of a few occasions every season, a foul or house run takes out a lens. However when it occurs on the nationwide stage of the postseason, it’s particularly brutal to look at. Fortunately, most of those broadcast lenses have a protecting glass component on the entrance, so hopefully, that was the one harm.
So, the subsequent time you drop a lens cap and curse your clumsiness, keep in mind this: someplace, an MLB broadcast group is tallying up six figures of shattered glass, all thanks to 1 misplaced swing.
