Baseball Tips from an IT Professional

As things ramp up here in the professional baseball world, sometimes folksy folks need a little refresher as to how best consume all of the baseball season. It’s no secret that technology plays a huge part in how we consume almost everything, baseball included.

Though I’m highly-regarded and extremely well-paid for my baseball writing, my background is actually in Information Technology, with years of experience in helping all kinds of users properly use a myriad of devices.  So, to help you kick off the season, I’ve put together some helpful tips and tricks for leveraging technology to expand your enjoyment of baseball this summer.

1. One of the best new advances in tech when it comes to baseball is MLB.tv. For a modest fee, you can watch any out of market games at any time on your computer. Just go to MLB.tv and sign … MLB.tv. No, not MLB.com. MLB.tv is the address. The address. You put it in your address bar. OK, can you open a web browser for me? A web browser. Like Internet Explorer. Right, the Internet. Open the Internet. OK, now in the address bar, type MLB.tv. No, dot tv. Bing search results? Are you sure you are typing in the right bar? It should be on the left. Really? Well, you know, you can also get all the games on cable if you want. Maybe just give your cable company a call.

2. One of the oldest parts of baseball fandom is keeping score. It’s a great way to stay engaged when you go to a game, and it’s fun! You can buy score cards at the game, but that might become expensive, depending on how much you visit the park. You can also buy books of scorecards and bring them yourself, but what if you forget it at home? Well, luckily, there’s now an easy way to keep score on a device you always have with you — your smartphone. There are a few great scorecard apps that allow you to keep score right on your phone. Just search “baseball scorecard” in your app store to see the most popular. The app store. No, it’s not a real store, it’s on your phone. Well, do you see an icon on your screen for App Store? Press it. It wants you to create an account? Have you ever downloaded an app before? Oh, well, you can sign up on your phone, just type in your email address and they’ll send you a confirmation email. Right, well you can just get the email on your phone. I don’t understand. What do you mean you can only get email on your home computer? No, that’s not true. Even if it is AOL, you should still be able to get your email anywhere. Maybe you should go to the AT&T Store. They should be able to help out.

3. With baseball just around the corner, that means that fantasy season is also coming up quick. Many people are participating in drafts over the next couple weeks, so it’s never too early to start planning your team. When getting ready for your draft, it can be helpful to use computer programs to get prepared. I like to use Microsoft Excel to help chart out what players I want to target and things like that. The best part about Excel is that you can customize it just the way you want, so you can work with whatever info you desire. Plus, Microsoft has really great  support through their help menu. Sure you have, it’s just to the right of the file menu and the edit menu. I’ll show you, just open up Excel. There should be a shortcut on your desktop. No? Well, are you on XP or 7? Vista? Really? OK, well, if you click the start menu, you should be able to start typing in that box right above. No, like just above the start button. Well, it doesn’t say start any more, but it’s still the Start button. OK, you see that text box? Well, what if you go to All Programs? Do you have any notebooks or legal pads around? Cool, I’d just use that. Yeah, Excel is pretty dumb anyway.

There you go, fair NotGraphs readers. If you have any more questions, feel free to bring them up in the comments, where you can get help from an understanding and non-cynical user base.

Until next time.