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Next Spring’s World Baseball Classic Sets Playoff Sites

July 26, 2012 by

The next version of the World Baseball Classic is coming again to a stadium near you (if you are lucky) again next spring, to no doubt be preceded by a great deal of wondering what countries many of the players are truly from.

That aside it looks like the stadiums for the event have been settled on and while many of the tournament sites are around the globe it looks like the United States has landed the big fish, with the semifinals and championship games slated to play as the San Francisco Giants home field, AT&T Park.

The Second round games will be hosted in Miami by the Marlins while the first round looks to be hosted by the Arizona Diamondbacks at both their home park Chase Field as well as at its Cactus League home of Salt River Field at Talking Stick, which is located nearby in Scottsdale, Az.

The international venues have still to be announced but that news is expected in the next few weeks as well as game dates, who has qualified to fill the 28 slots and ticket availability. You can stay up to date on what is going on among the various nations as they seek to qualify by accessing the events Facebook page here or its web site here.

There have been a few issues that have arisen prior to the upcoming event. Japan, the two time defending champion, is upset that it has not been able to get a larger share of the revenue that the event generates, and has threatened to boycott. The nation will be hosting some first round games. The Koreans have also threatened, although theirs has more to do with issue unrelated to the event.

There should be qualifier games coming pretty soon, and at least one set, called the Jupiter qualifier has been moved from November to September, which could affect any of the nations that were seeking to have any MLB players on their roster. The teams involved are Israel, South Africa, France and Spain.

One thing I am very interested to find out if I sign up early for Major League At Bat early next year will I be able to watch the games on that service, and will any games be subject to blackout?

Filed Under: Baseball, Major League Baseball, San Francisco Giants, World Baseball Classic Tagged With: ,

MLB’s Trade Season in Full Swing

July 25, 2012 by

With the conclusion of MLB’s All Star game the next notable day on the calendar is the non-waiver deadline, which is July 31. This is one of my favorite times of the year not just for the trades as for some of the major trade rumors that always seem to be making their way around the league.

The trade rumors often come from a variety of sources and can show player unhappiness with his team, teams being unhappy with their players and agents already working on next year’s deals by showing how popular their players under contract are.

Of course people in fantasy leagues closely follow the comings and goings but often I find people seem to miss some of the trades and are surprised that a player is now on a new team. That is too bad because it is so much fun to follow the activity and a number of sites do a good job tracking them. I read five rumors this morning that I had not heard last night.

We have already seen some interesting trades this year, and no doubt some, as always, will break hometown fans’ hearts. The first in that category is probably the Ichiro Suzuki from the Seattle Mariners to the New York Yankees deal. This is in the sad tradition of Willie Mays going from the Giants to the New York Mets and others along these lines.

One of the more interesting trades, in a sort of head scratching way, was the big ten player swap between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Houston Astros. Now I was a bit confused by the purpose of the deal but others think it might be a great deal for at least one of the teams.

Teams like the Chicago Cubs have been looking for a wholesale house cleaning all season and now might be the time. Teams are looking for pitching and they have Ryan Dempster, who as a 10/5 man can veto any trade he does not like.

Teams in the playoffs or at least in the hunt will obviously be looking to shore up areas that appear to be a weak spot while teams looking to rebuild will want prospects and cash. The Marlins look to be a rebuilding team and have already sent Hanley Ramirez to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Some teams will be looking to unload players perceived as problem players as well. It will be an interesting next few days. Next up will be the wavier deadline, always a much tougher call as players must clear waivers to go to a new team, a much harder prospect since rivals can often easily block moves.

Filed Under: All Star Game, Baseball, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Fox Sports, Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball, New York Yankees Tagged With:

Friday Grab Bag: Pete Rose Reality TV, Olympic Tidbits

July 20, 2012 by

NHL Lockout in September?
It is new contract time for the players and the league and according to a piece in Sports Business Daily things might be looking very bad for fans of hockey. Apparently the league has sent its first proposal to the players and it reads like it wants to get baseball’s reserve clause back for hockey.

Players could be tied to a team for ten years before free agency according to this piece in Sports Business Daily. The league also wants to cut down the amount of both hockey revenue and non-hockey revenue that the players will receive. It looks like this could be an ugly fight.

Samsung buys CSR’s mobile chip technology
Samsung Electronics has spent $310 million to purchase chipmaker CSR’s mobile phone connectivity and location technology. Included in that deal will be its Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and location based technology. CSR said that it was at a disadvantage in these spaces because while it believed its technology was leading edge, it did not provide an integrated solution like some of its rivals like Intel, according to a piece in The Business Recorder.

Samsung said that the technology, and CSR’s research and development in these areas, will help it to enhance its applications processors that are the heart of its smartphone and tablet business and so be able to better compete against rivals such as Apple.

The connected viewer now a reality?
We have log talked about the growth of second screen sports viewing here at MSR, where fans watch a game on a primary device and yet watch or communicate using a second such as a smartphone or a tablet. I expect the upcoming Olympics to set new records in this area with all sports action being available on-line.

Anyway the good people at Pew Internet & American Life Project have done a survey that shows just how much this occurring. This synopsis shows how this trend is now and the full report makes very interesting reading.
• 38% of cell owners used their phone to keep themselves occupied during commercials or breaks in something they were watching
• 23% used their phone to exchange text messages with someone else who was watching the same program in a different location
• 22% used their phone to check whether something they heard on television was true
• 20% used their phone to visit a website that was mentioned on television
• 11% used their phone to see what other people were saying online about a program they were watching, and 11% posted their own comments online about a program they were watching using their mobile phone
• 6% used their phone to vote for a reality show contestant

Olympic tidbits

Some Olympiads get bad first impression of London
Several buses carrying Olympic athletes headed to the Summer Games apparently got lost on the way to the Olympic Village earlier this week, taking as long as four hours to reach the destination that was a mere 24 miles away.

Kerron Clement, an American participating in the 400 meter hurdle possibly sent the first athlete-based Tweet from the Olympics but it is probably one that the IOC wants to forget, according to Newser.Com He said “Athletes are sleepy, hungry and need to pee. Could we get to the Olympic Village please,” “We’ve been lost on the road for 4hrs. Not a good first impression London.”

Speaking of the Olympics- Ancient Greek roots to modern games
Pretty much everybody knows that the root of the modern Olympics comes from Ancient Greece, where from 776 B.C to 393 A.D a series of competitions were held between athletes from a variety f the city states that populated the area at that time.

What is not as widely known is the roots of some of the sports that are played today go all the way back, I mean the Sports Pickle would not lie! How a single Korean managed to arrive in Greece is still unclear.


Border security strike in England next week?
In a move that could have very bad consequences for travelers to the London Olympics next week, the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) voted yesterday in favor of strike action in a row over jobs and pay.

If you are wonder who or what the PCS is, it is the union that represents approximately half of the UK Border Force and staff such positions as passport control and customs at the airport.

All Athletes are not equal
A sad item from Japan, where it appears that the Men’s soccer team will be traveling business class to London while the Women’s team, fresh off its Gold Medal in the Woman’s World Cup, will get stuck back in economy.

Kickstarter Results might not be what you expect
Mashable has published a nice infographic developed by Jeanne Pi and Ethan Mollick at Appsblogger that shows how Kickstarter projects perform on a number of measurable data points including delivery on time and successful reaching funding goals.

The piece delves into the numbers and gives what looks like a very accurate and interesting view of who wins, who loses across a number of categories. One interesting finding was that the more a project is overfunded the more likely that it will be late.

A sign the apocalypse is upon us?
TLC is planning a new reality series and Pete Rose, baseball’s all time hit leader is scheduled to be the star. According to a piece in Entertainment Weekly the working title of the show will be “Pete Rose and the Kiana Kim Family Project”

It will follow 71 year old Rose and has 30 something fiancé Kim as they go on about their daily lives and the interaction between his four grown children and her two young ones and their take on the relationship. Doubt this will be on my active roster of TV shows.

Filed Under: Baseball, Mashable, Olympics, Samsung Tagged With:

Baseball Adds Instagram to its Team

July 19, 2012 by

Major League Baseball is teaming with Instagram to show photos and images that come directly from the teams, enabling fans that are not at events to get a feel for the game, players and fans in attendance.

The concept is very simple but can be very compelling as well. Using @MLBOfficial as its tag line MLB teams will be posting photos from their games as well as behind the scenes images for others to view. Instagram says that MLB is the first professional league to do so.

Currently the teams that are already on board for the program include: SF Giants (@sfgiants), NY Yankees (@yankees), LA Dodgers (@dodgers) Atlanta Braves (@braves), Texas Rangers (@rangers), Seattle Mariners (@seattlemariners), LA Angels (@angels), and the Kansas City Royals (@kcroyals). Instagram said that eventually all MLB teams will be launching accounts.

A quick look over at the SF Giants official account finds that there are 339 photos and 41,530 followers. Note that you have to be an Instagram user to view the images at its site. However a quick visit to the Giants site can give you fan photos.

In the past a huge number of fans of teams have posted images of their teams and players. According to a recent piece in Mashable there had been a 400% increase in Instagram photo postings from major league ball parks compared to the entire 2011 season, with more than 40,000 posted at the time of the piece.

We have long thought that MLB was an organization that appears to really understand how to reach out to fans at multiple levels. It has developed mobile apps to enable you to follow games on mobile devices, is creating high grade stadium wireless networks and constantly launches games and contests to keep fans engaged.

I suspect that this will both help draw more fans to the site to view baseball pictures and also contribute additional images to the mix. I certainly hope that other pro and amateur sports follow this lead because they have the ability to get images that regular fans will not.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Facebook, Instagram, iOS, Los ANgeles Angeles of Anaheim, Los Angeles Dodgers, Major League Baseball, New York Yankees, San Francisco Giants, Texas Rangers Tagged With: ,

Minnesota Twins Seek to Engage Fans with ‘Twins At The Plate’ App

July 16, 2012 by

The Minnesota Twins along with Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) have launched an in-stadium gaming app that is designed to engage fans by allowing them predict what is going to happen when the Twins are at bat.

The “Twins At The Plate” is a predictive game that has the fans predicting each batter’s results in the bottom of the inning. While there are a number of predictive apps, this one is the first that I have seen that is not specifically designed for an individual.

Instead Target Field, the Twins’ stadium, is divided into sections and the one that gets the most points for correct predictions is eligible to win prizes. The game will be played at the bottom of the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th innings and all picks for a specific inning must be made prior to the end of the top of that inning. Results can be followed by an in-app leaderboard.

All a fan has to do to collect the prize is to show their ticket stub prior to leaving the stadium that evening to pick up the award. If you have lost your stub you are out of luck. The app can be accessed only while fans are at Target Field through MLB.com’s At the Ballpark application.

MLB and its MLBAM are have been very aggressive in their delivery of apps to engage fans, with ones that will enable you to order food in select stadiums to one that provide cash awards if you can select enough batters in a row that get hits in real games to break DiMaggio’s record hitting streak.

This is another one that is in that vein. I suspect that it will take a while for it to catch on as word of mouth spreads about the app. I certainly hope that the stadium can support the wireless data load because fans would not like to find out that they did not win because their selections did not get registered due to network overload.

MLB has been working to enhance the networking capabilities of all of its ballparks to avoid this issue and I suspect that once that is accomplished, it will roll this app out to additional stadiums.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, Baseball, Major League Baseball, Minnesota Twins, San Francisco Giants, Twins At The Plate Tagged With: ,

ESPN’s John Kruk Shilling for Nokia — ‘The Phone for Sports Fans’

July 14, 2012 by

Not sure that just having an ESPN app pre-loaded makes something a phone for sports fans — I mean, c’mon, who can’t download an app — but for your weekend entertainment, here’s ESPN baseball analyst John Kruk shilling for Nokia. OK, I do like the bit at the end. No word on whether the stadium he’s at has Wi-Fi, though. Or whether Kruk was chillin’ at the ESPYs Nokia preparty. Anyway.

Filed Under: Apps, AT&T, Baseball, ESPN, Nokia, Wi-Fi, Windows Phone Tagged With: , , ,
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