Finally, a lighter, faster Gameday
Thanks again to everyone for their feedback since our last post. Although it’s been a while since the last update, we have been busy working to address the comments and concerns expressed about Gameday since the start of the season, and we’ve introduced several important changes in the last week.
Most importantly, last Thursday we rolled out a new version of the application that is significantly less resource-intensive for your computers, and that drastically increases the speed and performance of the 3D pitch view. In fact, by our measurements the application is even faster now in the 3D viewing mode than last year’s version was in 2D! If you’ve been hesitant to use the 3D mode due to the strain on your computer, please try it again and let us know if you don’t think it’s noticeably faster.
In addition, we’ve made several other additions, enhancements and changes to make Gameday more informative and easier to use:
· Added batter’s boxes and baselines in 3D view for better context and a more realistic depiction of the field; look for these features in the 2D view in coming weeks;
· Added pitch mouseovers in 3D view to provide more data about the pitch;
· Redesigned the Game Summary to make it easier to read and navigate;
· The Box Score "snaps" to the table of the batting team and highlights the row for the current batter (as does the Lineup tab);
· Added start times to the Scoreboard, plus an indicator when starting lineups are posted for each game;
· The Scoreboard for each game flashes whenever either team scores, so you can keep track of events around the league;
· Added more clicks to the Player Cards under the headshots for the current pitcher and batter, plus from the on deck and in-the-hole hitter names.
Finally, we’ve launched the Pitch-f/x program in Oakland so that detailed pitch data is now available for all A’s home games for the rest of the season. We are continuing to ramp up the hardware and software to operate this program in all ballparks across the league so watch for more as the season progresses.
Thanks again for your interest in Gameday and for your patience while we ironed out some of the rough edges from the start of the season. We remain committed to making Gameday the fastest, most detailed and most informative way to follow any live sport online, and we’ll keep working towards that goal.
Enjoy the games!
— The MLB.com Gameday team
Gameday 
I still dont really get the signifacance of the pfx, and could you get the program in Boston and New York quickly, as most fans are for Boston or New York
Where are the chats? No updates Come on MLB, we want chat. And who cares about the PFX? and no one cares about the Yankees or Red Sox unless you live in one of the cities, they are the 2 most hated teams, and the Yankees pitching is a joke, bring in chat and quit working on PFX til we have chat
Actually the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry is the biggest rivalry in sports! Plus, the Red Sox are an excellent team,this year. And Ive got to admit if you listen to the game and look at the gameday,The gameday IS behind!!
Still very slow. I have a high speed connection and the response to the three D view is very slow sometimes a batter behind.
Seriously, jimcleancity@yahoo.com. Do you really expect them to be able to write down all that info for 15 games in less than 10 seconds?!
I like the new format, but it would be really nice to have the chat back.
In past at-bats in the “Play-by-Play” mode, it would be nice if you could show the count before the ball was hit.
Oh, also show the number of outs in other games.
dude no one cares about new updates to pfx or anything forget about updating all that **** and give us the chats wow.
the program still crashes firefox like crazy…
“The ‘Pitch-f/x’ value is currently defined as the measurement of the distance between the location of the actual pitch thrown over the plate, and the calculated location of a ball thrown by the pitcher in the same way, with no spin”
Does this account for gravity also? Obviously some of the movement of a pitch is due to gravity. Does the pFX remove the effect of gravity as it calculates the movement. If it does not, then the values are exaggerated. Also, what is the meaning of the angle measures after the pitch. What difference does it make that some are negative and that some are positive?
By the way, I do like the new display of the actual trajectory of the pitches (can’t wait until more ballparks can do it), but the speed problem is annoying sometimes. Not too bad, though.
Also, I agree that no one cares (or should care) about Boston and New York outside of Boston and New York. MLB.com (and other media outlets, except for local) should cover all teams evenly. The only exception should be for good teams and controversies. The 17-19 Yankees do not interest anyone outside of the Northeast.
As i said before, the Red Sox are off to an amazing start this year and a lot of people care about them more than most teams. And I think you forgot,markemark125@hotmail but a LOT of people live in the northeast and are Red Sox and Yankee fans!! And another thng, it seems like everybody is turning the gameday blog into a Chatroom!
I can’t disagree with you, but you ignored what I said, tabouleh, chi-kafta, shwarma. I said that teams should be a topic nationwide if they are good or if something unusual happens concerning them (like a controversy or some spectacular thing). Since Boston is good, I want to hear about them just as much as (but by no means more than) I want to hear about Milwaukee or Detroit because they are having good seasons, too. New York at 17-20, however, should get as much atttention as, say, the Pittsburgh Pirates.
I’ll give you an example of how the national media (not local, mind you) is so slanted toward the northeast that it’s not even funny. In either 2005 or 2006 (I don’t remember which) Boston tied the record for the best interleague record ever in a season (17-1 or something like that). It was even on the news ticker on ESPN all night long the day of their last interleague game. The fact that they reported it is not what makes it biased, for that is indeed an impressive feat. What makes it biased is that Minnesota on the very same day tied the exact same interleague record! There was no mention of it like there was for Boston.
It’s undeniable that people in the northeast follow the New York-Boston rivalry. I can’t disagree with that either. But people in the Midwest or on the Pacific Coast don’t care for them any more than they do for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays!
I really enjoy Gameday & appreciate all the work that goes into it. Good job!
BTW, Yankee & Sox fans are arrogant to think that a lot of people gives a rat’s rear end about those teams outside their markets. Get over yourselves already.
Red Sox fan here, and guess what: I’m NOT here to talk about the Red Sox or the Yankees!
So you say you’re working the kinks out? I see no evidence of that at all. I’m trying to watch the Sox/Tigers game on it RIGHT NOW, and none of the buttons – including the scrollbars and even the Options button – work. That’s what happens when I try to watch in Firefox, and the only way to fix it is to restart the browser…that works for about an inning. If I try switch to IE (yuck) the whole thing crashes every time the pop-up comes up.
Why are you being so stubborn about this? WE’VE ASKED YOU A MILLION TIMES JUST TO GIVE US BACK THE OLD GAMEDAY. Why do you refuse?
The flashing flipping picture in the mlb.tv ad in the corner is extremely annoying such that I don’t even want to leave gameday onscreen. Any ad is ok, but please replace it with something that is not so irritating to the eye.
I had the 3D for a few days last month, then it went away. It came back last week, but now it’s gone again. How can one get updated?
Love the 3D much nicer than the “classic”. But, I can’t get 3-D anymore either. What happened?
Dear MLBAM:
I have recently upgraded to Internet Explorer 7 on my Windows XP(SP2) laptop, and I have noticed that certain combinations of your website’s windows being open simultaneously (especially a GAMEDAY or MLB.TV window along with the regular browser itself running ANYWHERE, even minimized) causes Internet Explorer to crash and send an error report to Microsoft.
I believe it has something to do with Adobe Flash plug-in, or the Adobe Shockwave plug-in. Could you please send me some advice on how to stop this from happening? Since IE 7 is relatively new, I hope there is an easy fix for this.
I have had to use FIREFOX 2 browser to use your site, which is OK, but is not as refined a looking browser for many other purposes … although in FIREFOX there are more controls to use for viewing MLB.TV’s archived products than in IE.
Any suggestions to stop the crashing … it has happened at least 5 times in the last couple of days.
J.I.
P.S.
1. I could care less about chat … I have other apps for that … I think focusing on PFX is far more interesting to fans who want more and new information about the game. Get the PFX going in every park as fast as possible. I have noticed that GAMEDAY is now much faster than it was at the beginning of the year.
2. Have you considered putting a small low-bandwidth video window (with sound)of the game into the GAMEDAY window (this could be a premium pay service)? … I’m staring at that bottom right box you reserve for ads. … Of course the ads could stay (between innings) … but I’m sure this idea would be a big winner with fans!
Could you guys fix the problem with pitchers stats. Within Gameday, when you click on a pitcher, it displays their batting stats. obviously it should show their pitching stats. thanks
First – to the Yankees and Red Sox, yes you may have the most popular teams, but understand the significance of that. It isn’t like half the country likes the Yanks and the other half the BoSox. 5% for each team, max. The rest of us like someone else. Please, get over yourselves.
I like the new Gameday. I have it running on Firefox 2, and have not had any problems with crashing. I’m running the Live365 client streaming music as well, so a big portion of my bandwidth is already being eaten.
I do notice some delays in updating, but nothing worse than waiting for any other web page to update. Of course it is going to lag your radio or TV, the stats stringer is recording that data, probably by typing it in, but that does take a bit of time. Every once in a while it takes a while to update, I figure the stringer is just in line getting a soda or something.
I am glad I finally got an explanation for the difference between brk and pfx, but it didn’t mean anything to me. I would like to see an option of a toggle button showing the visual results of those two numbers. It would mean more if I could see the real pitch, the pitch without the brk, and the pitch without the pfx.
And j.a.ireland’s idea of incorporating either the Gameday TV or the Gameday audio into the window is fantastic. I had the audio last year when I was working in St. Louis (I’m a Cub fan), but now that I’m home in Springfield, I just listen to the radio. But if I could have the radio feed (or even better the TV feed) in the same window, that would be worth the subscription even if I can already listen in to the game.
**** THE RED SOX. THIS WEEK WEE GOING TO SWEEP THEM AND BE TEN IN A HALF GAMES BACK. ALL YOU ******* IN BOSTON. WE ****** COMING BACK. I HATE THE RED SOX. DON’T GET TO CONFORTABLE. YANKEES ARE SHUGGLING, BUT NOT FOR LONG. LET’S GO AND KICK SOME MOTHER ****** RED SOX ***. LET’S GO YANKEES
the gameday window is bigger than the screen..is there a way to scroll the page left/right and up/down instead of using the center button on the mouse…does anybody know what I mean? Go Pirates
I don’t see at all how this is improved. I have a T1 line and Gameday has gotten 100 times slower in posting pitch by pitch results than it was last year. if it’s this bad on high-speed internet i can’t imagine how archaicly slow it must be on dial-up! Watching paint dry would be faster and more entertaining. I used to enjoy following my Yankees in the afternoon through Gameday and now it’s for all intense and purpose worthless.
While the new gameday is faster than the one at the start of the season, it’s still not nearly as good as the old gameday from last season.
I’d suggest all users who prefer the old gameday to show MLBAM so by using the old gameday. Just change the URL from mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/y2007/ to mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/y2006/ and you’ll get the old gameday back.
llew–great suggestion. some of us may have trouble doing that since gameday2007 doesn’t show an address bar. (or at least it doesnt for me) i opened a new window, typed mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday, then picked out my game and changed the year to ’06. is there an easier way to get the address bar to appear on the default gameday window that you are linked to?
I just wanted to express my gratitude to MLB and compliment the Gameday Team on their amazing software accomplishments. It takes a lot of hard work, problem solving, late nights and coffee to produce such a quality application. There will always be kinks here and there to work out; so goes software development. But overall Gameday is the most awesome Flash app I’ve ever seen. To offer this service for free is a boon to baseball fans everywhere. Well done team, keep up the great work, and Thank You!! ~Paul in Wisconsin (Firefox/OS X)
Thanks for improving Gameday. However, what does pfx, break, & degrees mean? How about replacing these rather obscure stats with Pitch Type (fastball, change, etc)? I know Pitch Type has been in the works for some time but…it’s taking some time. Also, is PFx really so difficult that of 33 teams we only have this in 3 ballparks (LAD, Oak, Tor (Toronto!?)).
I agree with enola@enolanet.net & dkaplan@ycp.edu, I can nolonger see 3D either. What gives? Oh, and their questions were a month ago. Does anyone answer these questions?
To Ericazel – You can create a second copy of your Gameday window by using Ctrl+N (in IE), and the new window will have an address bar. Then you can edit it.
I really enjoy Gameday. It’s a great free service. I watch MLB on ESPN via satellite, but I live overseas now and don’t get to see any games in the ballpark unless I’m visiting during baseball season. Thanks for helping me satisfy my hunger for being there.
But, like others, I have my own opinion about what could be improved:
1. I don’t really care about the live batter animation. It just doesn’t appeal to me.
2. What I REALLY want is a Scorebook! Show the innings as they would appear in the good, old-fashioned scorebook format with the baseball diamond diagram for each batter. You could paste it over batter-animation window. Or maybe that could be an option for me to choose.
Hi – My question is: Why when I watch some games i.e. The Yankees the pitches are in 2-D but the Red Sox games / pitches are in 3-D (shows the ptch in motion). Any ideas?
ON my work computer I get the enhanced version, but here at home I still have the classic view. Whats my problem?
One of the other websites offering a ‘game-player’ does something smart that I’d like to see in Gameday. Change the color of fouls from red to yellow. That way, when you are watching some batter work the pitcher for 10+ pitches, you don’t see a bunch of red dots and need to explain to your visitor that the batter isn’t out.
Why does MLB Gameday Audio work on Firefox but not IE 7??? MILB gameday audio works on both IE 7 and Firefox??? Is there a problem with Adobe Flash Player???
Can someone tell me what the pFX means on game day???
what happened? i had the 3-D thing going for a couple of days, and now it’s back to 2-D. what to do?
Still unable to get a picture on the Gameday screen. I get the top banner and the bottom of the page but no picture in between. I have downloaded about everything I can to no avail. I sure do miss this feature and was wondering if anyone out there could tell me what I need to do. I have Windows XP and use Internet Explorer. Thanks
I face the same problem as dalex9.
Except I’m using Vista and IE.
Can anyone help?
Faster ???? Not if you watch a game with gameday running. Waiting a minute or more for an update that shows the last 5 pitches is not fast or realtime. I have very fast internet and a very quick computer. MLB has some work to do before it can come close to calling gameday “realtime”
I too find the new MLB Gameday inadequate. I wouldn’t care if there were no graphics at all. I want realtime updates where the stats match the pictures and each pitch is displayed in order. Presently I have the Mets-Phils game up and the stats show one out in the seventh, Victorino at bat and Rollins at the plate but I can’t see how the out was recorded nor how Rollins reached first. The play-by-play scroll is not complete. And getting nothing for a minute and then 5 pitches in a row is also poor.
I’ve been a fan of gameday ever since its beginning, but now you are just going backwards. It used to feel like it is realtime, but now it feels like it is refreshing every min. I’ve looked at Yahoo’s game channel and it updates slightly faster than gameday.
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