Our baseball coverage goes hightech

Ever wish you could be two places at once when it comes to following your favorite local team? If you’re the parent of a little leaguer, high school athlete or involved with a recreational baseball or softball team, a new technology is available to help you do just that. The Daily Astorian is the first media in Oregon to use this new technology to cover high school baseball games online.

One night doing research on Twitter, I ran across a tweet that peaked my interest and followed the link. There I read about an innovative platform for covering baseball and softball games. We have been looking for a way to engage our online audience when we cover state playoff games – in any sport.

With one of our local high school teams dominating their league with a current 22-1 record and fifth straight league title, we are more than likely facing another state game for us to cover. Last year we tried building a wix.com application, using twitter, slideshows and video. But this year we knew we had to step it up a notch.

So, thanks to my late night research, we have partnered with GameChanger allowing us to offer live play-by-plays and stats online for baseball and softball games. This will allow fans, local media and others to follow a team’s online ‘GameStream,’ even when they can’t be at the field.

We recently tested the platform during the Astoria High School vs. Banks High School baseball game with great success. It was a little bumpy the first inning. We didn’t have someone who was both iPhone and baseball savvy at the helm. I unfortunately couldn’t attend the game and so watched the process on my laptop. We had our multimedia producer running the app, as he’s the iPhone whiz, but lacks game knowledge. And our sports reporter walking him through the baseball lingo, but he doesn’t own an iPhone. But after a few innings, they got the hang of things and the both raved about the program. From a user’s standpoint watching the live updates on the laptop, mirrored those offerings from mlb.com, which made me excited.

We are continuing to test it and look at  using it further during playoffs and into the summer with youth and recreational leagues in the area where we hope to get the teams and parents involved in the process.

Here’s how it works: scorekeepers use the GameChanger iPhone/iPod touch application to physically score each game. Every play and update recorded by the scorekeeper on the (iPhone, Android, Blackberry) app – yes, every hit, run and strike – will be instantly posted online. Fans can follow the live updates and action on a live scoreboard widget on The Daily Astorian website or on GameChanger.io

Dozens of post-game statistics are also automatically compiled for every player. This platform replaces the pencil and paper score-keeping process at amateur sporting even

ts and provides an application to the community surrounding a team, which, in turn, allows the community to provide data from the field to GameChanger.

Coaches, scorekeepers, fans, players, parents can all set up a team on GameChanger. Information like rosters, schedules, and lineups can be entered for each team.

Most of the content is provided free from GameChanger, however there is a small charge for those wishing to access more detailed information on the team or players. GameChanger looks to expand in the future to other sports.

Links

GameChanger
@GCsports
Astoria High School team