If you love baseball and have an iPad, you need Pennant, a project by Steve Varga. The app lets you explore every game and play since 1951. See the numbers for your favorite player or team with just a few taps or swipes while you’re plopped on your couch watching the game. Imagine: one hand with an ice cold beverage, iPad on your lap, and the game on in front of you.
Check out the app in action in the video below.
If I had an iPad, I’d get this app in a snap, and I’m not even much of a baseball fan. Varga clearly is. Now if this existed for basketball, I might have to consider getting an iPad.
As an aside, it’s surprising that there aren’t more apps (or sites) like this, considering there’s so much consistent and reliable data for sports. That’s a mass audience right there ready to consume just about anything related to their teams.
[Pennant | Thanks, @stevevarga]
I love baseball (go Yankees!) but I find this app gimmicky. The data seems to be serving the design and not the other way around.
Exactly. (And I’m a Phillies fan, so the mere fact that we can agree on this should settle the matter.)
And, what is going on with that silly visualization shown in the preview image? Dragging the circles around accomplishes what, exactly? Just because a multi-touch interface lets you do something like that doesn’t mean that you should.
The hitting graphs by season are actually pretty nice, but otherwise, I agree that the app is 1% function and 99% eye candy.
It is design heavy, but I think that fits the audience. You watch baseball for the entertainment value, and this adds to the experience. A commentator could rattle off a few stats, and you could go in and look – and have fun in the process. I see it as more of a game than an analytical tool, which I think is fine.
Howdy!
And it doesn’t have every game since 1951. This is the list of games missing:
http://www.retrosheet.org/wanted/index.html