PASTIME BEFORE TIME:

Baseball's (on-line) field of dreams (GRANT ROBERTSON, 10/27/06, Globe and Mail)

In some cases, the data will be served up so quickly on Major League Baseball's website that the statistics and graphics will be posted on computer screens around the world before the call is even made on radio or TV because of the slight broadcast signal delay.

That live element, part of MLB.com's Enhanced Gameday feature, has become a smash hit on the Internet this postseason as baseball fanatics flock to the Internet to supplement their postseason viewing. In September alone, Comscore MediaMetrix reports, nearly 10 million people logged on to the site.

In less than six years, MLB has turned its Web operations into a multibillion-dollar on-line juggernaut. With a vast archive of every game played this season and last, plus dozens of historic games dating back to the 1950s — all available on-demand — the site is the only sports-related property to be mentioned in the same breath as streaming video kings YouTube, Yahoo and MySpace in terms of the number of clips served up.

America's pastime, which blossomed on the radio and came of age on television, is now using the Internet not only to reach fans on multiple platforms but to give them a depth of content — accessible and immediate — never enjoyed by any sports fan before.

Other sports leagues — and for that matter, other media firms — are looking on enviously at what MLB has built on the Internet in just a few years.

For next to nothing you can listen to Vin Scully call Dodger games all season--what other sport can compete with that?

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 27, 2006 9:25 AM