THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

This part was interesting:

As an aside, I can definitely see why hit location data can be so unreliable after doing this myself--it’s very hard to judge where a ball was actually hit, ESPECIALLY when you’re just watching on the tv.  I’m certain I tend to place balls either right at a player, or right along the line far too often.  I’m sure the BIS guys do a better job, but how much better?

It’s something I notice, too, when I’m watching a game, now that I’m looking for it.  Scoring every play probably points it out moreso.

Yeah, that was something that really stuck out to me as I was doing it.  I’d say that most of my balls in play are right at fielders, in the gaps, or on the lines.  Distance-wise, it’s either warning track, infield grass, or “medium.” Its still useful info, but I’m sure I’m plus/minus 20 feet at best.

The other thing I noticed is an explanation for why 90% of all balls hit into play are “medium.” Unless it’s hit REALLY hard, to the warning track, or is a weak infield hit of some sort, I rarely feel justified marking a ball as anything but hit “medium.” I remember Shane Jensen joking in a video seminar once that the batted ball speed data they purchased were just like this.  Need that stopwatch data…
-j

I was very interested reading Justin’s review. Will check momentarily to see if I can get it for my iPod (which does have a stop watch - can they be integrated?).

I would be worried about power outage/data loss if using this for official scoring of amateur games.

If you have an ipod touch, I think it would work fine(?).  I doubt you’d have any luck integrating the in-ipod stopwatch into your scorekeeping, as you can’t easily flip between apps.  But if you had one in your hand, you could type in the time as a note for later retrieval.  That’s probably the best you could do w/ it for now.

If I was doing anything official, I’d definitely bring a scorebook as a backup.  At least that fights the power loss/malfunction issue.  As for data loss...you can back up after every game. 

If you’re mid-game and something happens, you’re right, this could be bad.  Seems pretty reliable, though.  Might be worth checking the support forum to see what issues have occurred with the software.  They do have some preventive measure suggestions, like clearing out your ram by doing a hard reboot prior to a game (some other apps don’t clear out of memory like they should, which can cause a memory crisis for iscore).
-j

Yes, I have a Touch.

I purchased iScore last night, need to find the cable to get it on my iPod, would like to try it out at the AAABA game tonight.

Justin - are you going to any AAABA games this week? I will be tonight and Saturday, but have to work on Thu & Fri. Would be great to sit with you for a game.

Justin replied on Facebook…