Archive for the ‘baseball’ Category
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
FANS BEWARE!
If you’re a baseball fan like me you might have signed up – impulse buy – for MLB’s Postseason.tv package. Frankly I would rather have flushed a $10 bill down the toilet for the novelty of the moment, rather than endure the frustrations of launching this service.
The image above shows you what you get, more or less. And when you’re thinking about buying the service you probably see splashy windows or slick features designed to empty your wallet. But then you notice things. And pretty quickly, because they’re important to the function of watching baseball. Like there’s no HUD. No balls-strikes count, no inning, no mini box score, no nothing. There’s no information to assist you as a watcher.
Of course you could also launch their “gameday” feature, which will give you all of that information. But then you’d require a second monitor if you wanted to watch the game proper fullscreen! Or there are these other buttons for “highlights”, “summary” etc that show you the information you want, but it overlays over the actual game! So you miss the game if you’re trying to look for information to help you with watching the game!
Now they try and sell you with the “create your own experience” angle. With each stadium there are around 6-12 cameras to choose from that you can pump to your screen. Of course, they don’t tell you sometimes your screen will be flooded with tech garble:
Fuck the what!?
And no matter how many times I hit that flipping “SYNC” button it never works:
note Clayton Kershaw in his delivery in the bottom-left, but with Martin already approaching the mound in the top right.
Furthermore they’re pumping you the TBS audio, but the video is not the TBS national television broadcast. So sometimes the announcers are talking about things that are being shown for a television audience, but as a web-user you’re clueless.
And oh yeah, that yellow bounding box around the selected video – scroll back up to the header image to see what I’m talking about – there’s no way to get that yellow box to disappear!
This thread over at mlbsupport shows the frustrations that so many users have had with purchasing this postseason package.
Fans beware!
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
Because LA fans tweeted more.
This is an interesting use of Twitter-tracking (called “Pulse”) that I found integrated into the boxscore/wrap review of Game 1 of the NLDS between the St. Louis Cardinals and the LA Dodgers. The Redbirds unfortunately lost, and this timeline-graph shows a correlation between game highlights and spikes in activity on Twitter tracking the game; the other spikes were probably due to non-highlight pressures like loaded bases, pitcher-hitter matchups, defensive plays, etc.
Does the team that Twitters the most, win? It’s an interesting thought.
Monday, August 10th, 2009
One thing I’ve always loved about baseball is that it lasts 9 innings. It’s not about time, it’s about innings. It’s not 4 15-minute quarters. It’s not 2 45-minute halves. It’s innings. There’s no way to lock baseball in to a time frame. I’ve watched games last just over 3 hours, and watched a regular nine-inning game last for over 5 hours. There’s no telling at the first pitch how long it will last, and it’s only with the last out that you can say, “let’s go home”. Otherwise, it ain’t over ’til it’s over.
I’ve never left a baseball game before the last out. Even when things are desperate (like last week when I saw my Cardinals get obliterated by the Mets, 9-0 at New Shea Stadium in Queens), you still see remarkable baseball in those twilight hours, the type of thing you’ll hear about later and wish you would have stayed to see it. These screencaps from a game yesterday with the Florida Marlins (my pick for the NL East this year) in Philly show that Philadelphia fans clearly don’t feel the same, even though they’re defending World Series champions and currently atop the NL East (before the series with the Marlins they were ahead by 7.0 games, now only 4.0 games, which shows how fast one series can turn the tides!). Their fans, upset by the Ejectorino incident, multiple Ryan Howard hits into double-plays, Werth’s glove blunder, and general Philly ‘tude lead to an abandonment of the park by their supporters.
Look at their crowd, their support, in the bottom of the first inning:
now look at their crowd in the 9th, more blue seats than red shirts:
10-3 is not a lost cause I might add. I’ve seen Boston rally from down 6-1 to 6-5 in the ninth, ending with a bases loaded play, against and at the cathedral of their arch rival Yankees. The night before my Cardinals got obliterated even, they rallied from down 7-4 at one point to tie it at 7 by the ninth, then blow it out of the water in the 10th to win, 12-7 (game results here). It can happen. You can see it happen. But you have to stay. Until the final out.
Oh yeah, who the HELL is Chris Coghlin? He’s already set a multihit streak for Florida, but his bio is empty and he has no stats. Where does Florida get these guys from!?
Thursday, April 30th, 2009
A good lookin’ bunch of boys they are (boys? Heck. They could sire me! I can’t believe I’m older than most of these youngins!)
And it’s true, we currently are the Best team in baseball. Boston could tie us with another win but we’re better than everybody else by at least one win or one loss. That’s good enough for me. I really do like our chances. I’ve liked Greene since before they acquired him (he just needs to hit a little better, and commit fewer errors); the Ludwick/Pujols combo is a force to be reckoned with, both are power hitters who can small ball when the situation calls for it; Duncan seems to be improving his patience at the plate; Molina, nuff said!; I’d like to see some control improvement from Wellemeyer and when we get Carpenter back in mid-May watch out! And will someone just give Franklin the closer-ball already! He’s been my Fantasy closer for four bloody months now.
Go Redbirds! (stupid cubbies)
Friday, April 10th, 2009
158 more games to go. fun fun fun.
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
With the recent creation of the baseball category, I feel obliged to talk a little about it now.
This is more of a gripe than anything reflective about the old pasttime or even vaguely commentary about the sport. Rather, I simply can’t afford it anymore. For the past three seasons I’ve subscribed to MLB.tv’s online streaming package, so that I could watch a ton of games all season, except for national blackout games and games aired in my billing zip code (which includes the Yankees and Mets which was disappointing to learn only after subscribing the first year that’s how it works).
And while this year is $10 cheaper than last year and includes lots of great new features and will no doubt be an improvement over last year’s quality and control (as was last year the year before it), I simply can’t afford it anymore. My argument is more than fiscal however. I can’t afford to contribute to a sport where the Yankees’s signings of Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett costs a staggering $423.5 million. Still my argument isn’t actually about those players, or any player for that matter. If the players are making that much money, that means the sport as a business model has to be making more than that for it to be profitable. Because no one would be interested in baseball these days if it wasn’t profitable. So imagine how much money the owners of MLB and these stadiums must be raking in.
So it saddens me. It saddens me that I get so much out of the game and especially out of watching the game, as many millions of other fans do each year. But this year I won’t be subscribing to MLB.tv online and I’ll have to be very cautious if inclined at all to go to the ballparks this year. The economy definitely has something to do with it. But I can’t stomach anymore reading about Manny holding out to be the highest paid player; or A-Rod making $200+ mil over the next 9 seasons while his legacy is tainted; or CC Sabathia making an average of $3,000 per pitch over the course of his contract. So I won’t subscribe in the hope that my lost $109 subscription will be felt throughout MLB. As if they’re even listening.
(like I said, it’s a gripe. It’ll probably fade by Opening Day. I don’t have a television so it’s been my only means to watch the sport. I also have to sort out the conundrum I just made for myself: creating a baseball category then professing I won’t have anything to do with it anymore!)
