The Future of Baseball

As much as I envy anyone who has the ability to watch every Phillies game on TV, there is something to be said about the drama of radio, and the interactivity of MLB.com's GameDay .

To the left, and highlighted throughout this blog is the last pitch of the game to Ryan Howard. It was pretty exciting watching it on the GameDay and listening to the WPHT broadcast with GameDay Audio.

Some of the perks of the GameDay feature include the ability to click around and see statistics of each player. If the pitcher is left handed, you'll see the batter's average vs. lefties. If he's home it will show his home average or his stats (away if away), and it will show his average for the month, season and career. Each of those is again, clickable to see more. When he's on base, you'll see his stolen base percentage. Rolling over any fielder will give you fielding percentage. There is always something you can be doing, to enhance the game experience.

The focus of the GameDay is the pitcher/batter match up. And what is better than a good battle at the plate? The GameDay option allows you to see each pitch and its location. A red dot is a strike, a green dot is a ball and a blue dot, is a ball put in play. This feature is extended when you can go to previous at bats and watch the pitching sequence in order.

Here you can see the pitch sequence of Ryan Howard's last at bat. The pitched him out and up for the first 3 pitches. The fourth pitch was in the zone, but still a little out. The 6th pitch was a waste pitch low... and finally he got one to drive and put a charge into it, but we all know the result was a game ending double play.

If the ballpark has the ability, you can sometimes see the flight of the ball from the pitcher's hand to the plate. They'll put a tail on the ball for its entire flight so that you can see the trajectory of the pitch, how much it dropped or how much it curved, etc... One can also switch to the pitcher's view of the balls and strikes.

There is a map (pictured at the bottom) which shows you how many men are on base, who's playing what position, the layout of the ballpark and where the ball was hit. The pictures I used are from a screen shot from last night's ball game. The image to the left shows where Ryan Howard hit the ball that doubled up Bourn. Rolling over the pitcher's name would give you the # of pitches and how many strikes, his record and his current, up-to-date ERA.

As you can see, the box score is scrollable. You can see both teams in the same window. You can also see the pitcher's box score to quickly get a tally of the number of walks or strikeouts he might have. Each name on the box score is clickable giving you a well placed window with all of the aforementioned statistical options.

The game summary is a pitch by pitch recall of the entire game. If you just tuned in and you want to see how Hamels got himself out of a jam in the 3rd inning. Simply click on the 3rd inning and scroll down to read the play by play. Each play can then be opened to reveal the pitch sequence of that at bat. They've really thought of almost everything. And what amazes me about the whole thing is that it doesn't seem too busy. They even have the scores of other games scrolling across the top, but it adds to the interface as opposed to detracting from it. Each of the games is obviously clickable so that you can go to the GameDay interface of any game being played.

Much like the Merrill Reese/TV timing issue, there is a slight radio delay when watching GameDay. This however, can sometimes be good because you'll see the single, and then look forward to how Harry might call it.

I like what MLB.com has done with their ability to keep out of town fans satisfied with the coverage. I have not used the MLB.tv option, so I'm curious to hear about the pros and cons of that. I do however utilize the MLB Audio to listen to Phils and it just like listening on the radio, but without the interference. But I must say there is something about the interference I used to get from my parents' kitchen radio that would make the games that much better. We used to have to turn out the lights to get better reception. And on rainy nights there was more interference than talking... but we were true fans and would listen regardless.

And about the Phils. It seems as if we don't know what to do with our broom. We sweep the Braves and then get swept by the D-Backs... talk about snake bitten.