Experience Director. Product Guy. Sports Dork.
Fanatics, a company that doesn’t make trading cards, got exclusive rights to make MLB cards and drove Topps out of business on their 70th anniversary. Fanatics has now acquired Topps.
My brother and I have a Topps baseball complete set of every year back to 1987. Unnecessary money grab by MLB and MLBPA to end 7 decades of history.
Like a lot of 90s kids, I watched the Atlanta Braves because they were on TBS every day after school and became a lifetime fan when Sid Bream slid home safely to beat the Pirates in 1992. From the age 11 until I was 25 years old they, remarkably, won their division every single year but only managed to win a single World Series title in 1995 . Yesterday, they finally won the whole damn thing again*.
I really hadn’t watched many Braves or MLB games in general since the mid 2000s, but during 2020 when most everything else was shut down baseball returned without fans and I watched pretty much every Braves game on MLB.tv. It was quite a respite and some sort of pseudo normalcy/reminder of my youth to be able to put on a Braves game every day in the background of my not currently normal life. I watched almost every game this year as well and it was quite special as fan to be able to root along as the Braves made an improbable late season and playoff run.
Since iBeacon was (or reannounced) at the iPhone 5s reveal, I’ve been super intrigued by the opportunities it could create for cool app ideas. Major League Baseball is now using iBeacons in their MLB.com At the Ballpark app to provide some cool hyperlocal location stuff for fans when their at the stadium.
First time time I’ve ever been interested in Google Glass. Amazing HUD app Blue for watching MLB games while stats and more are overlaid using glass. Really does look like it could change the way us nerds watch baseball. Bonkers futuristic stuff.
Bypass Lane is a service that lets you use your phone to order food and then skip the concessions line at ballparks. It’s a great looking app and well designed website too. There’s an HTML5 web app along with native apps for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. I originally saw it advertised at the Ballpark in Arlington. I didn’t get to try the app at the game (the service isn’t available up in the cheap seats) but it seems like a great idea to avoid long lines at a big game.