Before Jacob Misiorowski sniped an apple off Cooper Pratt’s head with a fastball, to the internet’s confusion and joy, the same thing happened to a tin can of habanero barbecue almonds in the terrace level of American Family Field.
A few weeks before they left for spring training in Arizona, the Milwaukee Brewers’ video team produced a proof-of-concept video, editing a clip to make it appear a pitch from senior editor Cody Oasen had successfully struck the tin of almonds off the head of helpless bystander Jake McHugh, a team videographer sitting some distance away.
Once edited, they had something to show Misiorowski in Arizona. He loved the chance to recreate the idea. The Brewers’ post Feb. 24 that appears to show Misirowoski successfully drilling an apple on Pratt’s head from the mound to the batter’s box has been viewed more than seven million times on X.
“We set the camera up in a consistent spot, and the whole thing took four or five minutes to film,” said Ezra Siegel, the Brewers’ manager of digital content, about to embark on his ninth season with the organization.
“We got a shot of Miz throwing a ball, not his hardest, with no one in the batter’s box. Then, we got another shot where Pratt was in the batter’s box. We tried an apple and a soda can. We had Miz in the background, pretending to throw his hardest with nothing in his hand. Carter just smacked the baseball off Pratt’s head, and it worked out well.”
“Carter” is Carter Green, the team’s senior videographer and creative lead whom Siegel credited as the driving force behind the operation. It took Green two to three days to edit the shots together in Adobe.
“You’re just staring at it for so long (in the editing bay), you don’t even know if it looks real or not,” Green said. “The apple fragments are tough. I became an expert on apple fragments and how they explode.”
It certainly looked real enough. Fan reaction evolved from wonderment to disbelief to the suspicion that artificial intelligence had been involved.
“The reaction was a lot of fun to see,” said Green, originally from Waukesha and in his third season with the club. “The whole AI thing nowadays, it’s almost a little motivating in a way. I think the majority of people who call it AI really have no clue what they’re talking about, when people immediately resort to AI (as being the likely culprit).”
There is a tell in the video that something’s up, however, with clouds overhead shifting ever-so-slightly before and after the pitch.
“To be honest, I didn’t even notice the clouds move when I edited, and that’s an easy fix, which is a little frustrating but, at the same time, it doesn’t make or break the video,” Green said.
Said Siigel, “As he was smacking the ball, Pratt kind of winced. That authentic reaction really helped sell it. Carter really just worked his magic on the back end, stitching those two shots together, making it seem real. Our whole video team is incredibly talented.”
Green has used this type of stitching before. He condensed the action from a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2024 into something that looked like one continuous shot.
“The (Boston) Celtics did that concept, and it’s been replicated a lot, but we didn’t really see it anyone do it with baseball,” Green said. “I just set a camera up randomly one day and it happened to be the perfect game for it.”
With a group of about nine employees, the Brewers video and social-engagement team spends a lot of time brainstorming ways to reach younger and more casual fans, and they know well that short-form video like this can have viral potential. That was also true of the Sal Frelick-themed “Grand Theft Auto” spoof from Feb. 22.
“Both of those videos had appeal beyond our Milwaukee fanbase,” Siegel said. “A lot of what we put out there is intentionally targeted at Brewers fans because that’s our following, but there are certain things we do that could have a national appeal. It’s a good opportunity to expand our following and reach people who aren’t normally tuned into the Brewers.”
Siegel mentioned that the Brewers did try something similar to this last spring training, with video of Nestor Cortes seemingly playing catch with a pitching machine.
“That one caught on fairly well last year, but we were looking for was to up the ante with the trick-shot illusion concept,” Siegel said. “With Miz being such a hot name, and obviously one of the potential faces of the franchise going forward, we wanted a way to highlight him. As hard as he throws, it’s a no-brainer.”
So what’s next, you might ask?
“There’s one more video game-centric thing coming,” Siegel teased. “We have this genre of creative (material) that we put out on social (media), what we call ‘Arthouse Baseball’ internally, more like experimental artsy out-of-the-box edits. We have some really cool stuff in that vein coming, more of that film-making and interesting techniques that you don’t see a lot from sports teams.
“We pride ourselves on showcasing baseball in ways that people haven’t seen before, and there’s a lot still to come in spring training and the regular season.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How the Brewers video team pulled off the Misiorowski apple video
Reporting by JR Radcliffe, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
