Looking at the Game of Baseball from all ends of the Spectrum
The DSL (Dominican Summer League) Padres gave up 17 runs on just six hits to the DSL Tigers yesterday.
How? The usual culprits in games like this. Lack of control (13 walks) and no support from the glovemen (four errors).
The Tigers won 17-8. Here is the box score.
(via Bus Leagues Baseball)
With the advent of the digital era, we as baseball fans now have a bevy of sports information at our fingertips. We have baseball data galore, streaming video, analysis all of it coming to our screen even to our mobile devices.
That was pretty apparent when I was standing next to three Cub fans at the Illinois game last Saturday. Between pitches, they would refresh their smart phones so they could check on the progress of the Cubs-Cardinals game.
Unfortunately, with progress in one area, we step back in one or two others. Do a search on âWhere are the box scores?â in your favorite search engine and youâll find more than a smattering of articles or even letters to the editors complaining about newspapers no longer printing box scores in their sports section.
An argument can be made which I will not refute that print newspapers have seen better days and are on their decline. Whether their demise is here and now, is quite debatable. And not doubt itâs true, a lot of newspapers in smaller markets have legitimate financial reasons to cut back on sports coverage.
Also interesting are those newspaper outlets who still print or post boxscores on their web site and use it as a marketing tool. Like Freep.com. No, theyâre not like those other papers.
Even among web-delivered stats and box scores there has been a trade-off. For years, Iâve enjoyed the USA Todayâs section for one simple reason⌠in years past, theyâve displayed their box scores in a one-page format. A year or two ago, they âenhancedâ it slightly but it only required one click to expand all box scores.
But the full box scores page on UST is no longer. Theyâve taken the âBox Scoresâ link down. Unless, Iâm missing something, they no longer do that forcing us web browsers to click back and forth for each game.
The reason is simple from USA Todayâs (and ESPNâs and MLB.comâs etc) perspective. It means more click-throughs and more ad views and therefore more ad revenue.
Maybe Iâm being picky. But my time is valuable and Iâd just as soon scroll down a page. I will give USA Today credit for keeping their Stats by Team in a one-page format for each league. That is still pretty handy.
Quit messinâ witâ the box scores. Analysis is great but itâs only opinion. Box scores are the reality of baseball.