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The story behind Fox's viral video of Pete Rose teaching hitting on set

Here’s a lesson for budding sports television directors and producers: Always keep the cameras rolling, even when your on-air talent is off the air.

Last week Fox Sports posted a 6-minute-and-24-second video of Pete Rose giving hitting instructions (and telling batting stories) to fellow MLB studio analysts Alex Rodriguez and Frank Thomas. It’s remarkable to eavesdrop on three hitters with a combined 9,939 hits, and Fox Sports was rewarded with unheard-of social metrics for a studio show clip. The video recently passed 10.8 million views on Facebook and 143,000 shares.

How did this happen?

Fox Sports vice president of production Bardia Shah-Rais said the control room makes it a point of recording everything its MLB analysts do on set.