Here’s a hypothetical: say you grew up in a Northern state and spent your autumns and winters glued to a television glowing with football and baseball while snow piled up to the windows. Now let’s also say, to escape the yearly ice and cold, you moved south.
The weather is warm and breezy, all the food is deep-fried and you love it. The only problem is the football and baseball teams which transfixed you all those years ago get no coverage in your new, warmer home.
Wires feels your (hypothetical) pain and wants you to know: technology can help. The common misconception is techies and sports mix like oil and water, but the following computer applications prove it’s just the opposite.
For the displaced football junkie, ESPN.com offers a fascinating in-game module. Click on the game you wish to ‘watch,’ and up comes a small football field. The module updates play-by-play, complete with text and appropriately colored arrows, so you can watch your favorite gridiron gang drive, drive on down the field. For those who enter a game in progress, the module logs each play. If you miss the first quarter, simply click the “1st” tab to be transported back in time. What makes ESPN’s in-game module so intuitive is how it keeps you abreast of other games in your conference/division. Say it’s early in the fourth quarter and Clemson is thumping an opponent (and I’m just pulling a number from thin air here) by 49 points. The module automatically lists other ACC action. Click and you can see the ‘Noles and the ‘Canes battling it out.
Major League Baseball has a similar application for the wayward hardballer. Clicking “Live Coverage” from your favorite team’s site or MLB.com brings up MLB’s Gameday application. It’s both a great way to follow out-of-market games for free and a haven for stat junkies. The center window shows a generic batter and tracks every pitch, including ball/strike, speed and pitch movement. The left window gives a play-by-play sortable by player or inning; at top you can track other games and at right you can check stats (game or season) for every player. Pitch animations, pictures and special graphics for home runs, steals and double plays makes Gameday almost as good as watching the game live.
These are just two examples of many. Yahoo!, Fox Sports and others offer similar applications. So even if your (hypothetical) favorite team were to (hypothetically) blow a three-games-to-one lead in the League Championship Series, hey, at least you’d get to follow each excruciating game online. On the plus side, you don’t have to watch (hypothetical) Boston fans going wild with joy if you’re watching on the net.
