Sports Nerd Alert; MLB's “At Bat” iPhone App Adds Live Video Streaming

Very little of what we do at here JoeSportsFan ever rivals actual reporting; unless, of course, you consider sports mustache contests as a legitimate dissemination of factual information.  If you do, good for you.  However, one area where we feel comfortable giving you the low-down is technology when it directly involves sports.  What can we say…we have an enrolled geek on staff.

Truth be told, the editorial “we” just doesn’t work well when you’re explicitly talking about yourself.  Oh well.

We’re here to tell you about an incredible advancement for diehard baseball fans, and we promise this isn’t a paid advertisement for MLB or Apple; just a little promo for a piece of technology that kicks royal tailfeather.

With the release of the new iPhone OS 3.0 Software Update on Wednesday afternoon, MLB pumped out a new update for their insanely popular “MLB At Bat” application.

The previous version of the app was nothing short of spectacular for baseball enthusiasts and fantasy geeks, even at the price of $9.99. The app fed live game boxscores, real time audio broadcasts, in-game video highlights and MLB.com’s pitch-by-pitch Gameday technology - which is the closest thing to actually “watching” a game.

Well, now you *can* actually watch a live game.

On Wednesday night, MLB released a new version of the “At Bat” application, which will allow for live games to be streamed over the air. MLB claims that the live video will stream over either a Wi-Fi connection or the cellular network. There’s just one catch to this video streaming: as with all Internet video streaming from Major League Baseball, your local teams won’t be available and will be susceptible to blackouts (sucks since our Cardinals/Tigers game will be one of the pilot games on Thursday).

MLB must have gotten slightly giddy because they starting streaming on Wednesday night.  A sneak peak is included below.

While only selective games will be streaming live, MLB is hoping to include condensed game footage (featuring important hits, pitches and outs of every Major League Baseball game) for all games. Although the first glance streaming looked like shit (even over WiFi), I had to consistently remind myself that I was watching a freaking live game on my phone.

Pretty awesome.  As you can see from the picture above, the app also provides the capability to jump back 30 seconds - which could be crucial for replaying Albert Pujols lasers or Milton Bradley snafus while on public transit.  Your choice.

Not only that, the whole package is a pretty good deal - and this is coming from a guy who rarely downloads any app over $.99. Comparable audio-streaming features from the raw MLB.com cost $15 and an MLB.tv login will cost you around $70 (granted, you get to watch *every* game).

10 bucks.  To listen to audio of *any* live game, the ability to watch in-game highlights, and the ability to watch some full games live.  10 bucks well spent, in my mind, especially since MLB has shown a commitment to their users by making an existing product even better.

[ iTunes Store: MLB "At Bat" iPhone App ]

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