Show HN: Follow every MLB game. Real time. New score alerts | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Follow every MLB game. Real time. New score alerts

mlb.watchbotapp.com

36 pointsatbattag16 comments

I didn't see an "About" page so would you mind sharing where the MLB data is coming from? Back in the day when I did a tennis scoring app[1] for fun, I screen-scraped the match data from a sports betting site.

[1] https://github.com/hbcondo/TennisWMC

I had once built a set of apps for Alexa and Google Assistant that gave scores for MLB. What I did was use the same endpoints that MLB used for their website. It worked pretty well, except during spring training, because so many things happened there that didn't happen in the regular season (like a team playing two games at the same time) that my code just wasn't equipped for it.

I did the same thing for an IRC bot a long time ago. Last I heard I think they have a more modern API now but I haven't personally checked it out.

I know for the NHL the website API's were pretty detailed.

Like you could get second-by-second data on who was on the ice despite the fact that they change those players without a stoppage in time.

The baseball one was too. Even down to balls and strikes counts within seconds of them happening.

The downside back then was that usually the API consisted of just rendered JSON blobs at certain endpoints and they weren't documented at all.

But hey, better than undocumented XML or needing to actually scrape the webpages, Heh.

> What I did was use the same endpoints that MLB used for their website.

Yes, MLB has/had multiple wide open APIs for grabbing real-time data. You can get 100+ data points for every single pitch, including how fast the ball is spinning as it leaves the pitchers hand.

The major, major, major caveat is that the API includes a notice stating that usage of their API is for non-commercial purposes only, unless you have prior written permission. I’ve spoken with people that have tried to walk the line very closely, and they universally state that MLB lawyers are tenacious (but fair).

I doubt this service has any chance of surviving without some sort of license - if they’re using the MLB APIs.

ESPN API is my guess.

Using the team logos is likely not permissible, legally speaking, although I hope I’m wrong. Projects like these are great.

This reminds me of MLB GameDay. My precalc teacher used to cancel class every time the Cubs were playing in the afternoon and we'd watch the GameDay "broadcast" on his computer instead. It was the most riveting thing ever.

Although let me tell you, we did not learn any math in that class.

i never understood why people want to know score for other games they are interested in. that kills the suspense and motivation to watch other games

Because they’re following a team in a league and they’re interested in the scores of competing clubs, so they know the chances of their team a title etc. It’s not unusual during tight title competitions to be watching your team play some crucial game.. and everyone explodes in joy in the stadium, because some other team playing another game in another city lost.

* Also betting

* also oddball interesting games that you may not have the time to watch

* also once upon a time this is how you followed sports, you maybe saw 1-2 games a week and the rest was in the newspaper.

Pretty much sums up how I use the app on a daily basis. It's a baseball watching companion. App on the tablet, one game on the TV.

* favorite team on the TV, app following action around the league in real time.

* favorite team game over or off day, bounce around interesting games on the TV (I'm an MLB.tv subscriber). Braves down 1 in the 9th and Acuña coming up let me flip that game on. Cole is on the mound for the Yanks let's see how he looks. Etc.

* keep tabs on games I have bets on.

Baseball is a daily sport. If you have a favorite team that's the one game that's on the TV. But I'm still interested in what's happening around the league. So have the app on the tablet with every other game and new scoring alerts.

Gambling, fantasy sports (which is sort of gambling). Baseball specifically has a history of fascinations with statistics and analytics. As a season ticket holder I still sometimes see people with a scorebook manually managing to keep track of all these metrics (in baseball scorekeeping is fairly complicated). So it doesn’t surprise me that people “follow” baseball purely by monitoring stats and following the scorekeeping.

Great! PWA, the world needs more PWA.

Getting 502 bad gateway :'(

sorry bout that mate. share one link on the internet and the bots traffic takes over. should be a bit more stable now!

This is awesome! Thank you!

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