mark.bockenstedt.net » Sports http://mark.bockenstedt.net Tech Tips, How-To's, and Miscellaneous Geekery Tue, 19 May 2009 03:05:39 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 MLB ScoreBot: End of Season 1 http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/10/29/mlb-scorebot-end-of-season-1/ http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/10/29/mlb-scorebot-end-of-season-1/#comments Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:33:08 +0000 Mark http://mark.bockenstedt.net/?p=470 So, the Phillies are the 2008 World Champions of baseball. My Cubs made it to the dance but turned out to be the dorky kid standing on the sidelines yet again. Looking back on ScoreBot’s run…

There were a couple hiccups along the way, but I’m pretty happy with the way ScoreBot performed. For its inaugural season, 34 followers is pretty good. I wonder how many followed at one point but stopped following because there were so many updates. ScoreBot actually missed the first two months of the season with a torn ACL.

So will it be back next year? Hell yes. Will it come back for preseason or in time for opening day? Should there be changes? Want it on more networks? That’s up to you, ScoreBot followers. If there’s something I can do better, send me an email (mark [at] bockenstedt.net) or leave me a comment with your opinions.

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]]> http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/10/29/mlb-scorebot-end-of-season-1/feed/ 0 Follow NBA Scores on Twitter with NBA ScoreBot http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/10/27/follow-nba-scores-on-twitter-with-nba-scorebot/ http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/10/27/follow-nba-scores-on-twitter-with-nba-scorebot/#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:04:46 +0000 Mark http://mark.bockenstedt.net/?p=462 By now, you know the drill – another season, another ScoreBot. This one’s for the NBA. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of the ScoreBot, check out MLB ScoreBot and NFL ScoreBot. For now, NBA ScoreBot will be limited to Twitter. If there’s a good enough demand for it on other networks*, I’ll port it over. You can hit up this slam dunk on Twitter at @nba_scores.

Disclaimer: NBA ScoreBot was conceived and written by Mark Bockenstedt and is not affiliated with the National Basketball Association.

* Other networks I can move this to: Plurk, Pownce, Identi.ca, Friendfeed. Minimum of 5 parties must express interest before I’ll do that though.

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]]> http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/10/27/follow-nba-scores-on-twitter-with-nba-scorebot/feed/ 1 Follow NFL Scores on Twitter with NFL ScoreBot http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/09/04/follow-nfl-scores-on-twitter-with-nfl-scorebot/ http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/09/04/follow-nfl-scores-on-twitter-with-nfl-scorebot/#comments Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:48:31 +0000 Mark http://mark.bockenstedt.net/?p=380 You may remember the MLB ScoreBot I created in July to report MLB scores to its followers. Since it was so much fun (and I liked the positive feedback), I’ve decided to build an NFL ScoreBot.

The underlying premises of the bots are the same – go out to the official site and scrape scores. Since the NFL only plays on Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and Saturday, I limited to cron job to run when games are actually going on so I’m not hitting the servers unnecessarily.

Here’s what you can expect to see when a game finishes:

FINAL: Jaguars (16-0-0) 56, Colts (2-14-0) 3

Update: NFL.com doesn’t update the team’s record right away, so I’m going to omit the team’s record against my own will. The new format will be:

Final: Giants 16, Redskins 7

You can follow the NFL ScoreBot on Twitter (@nflscorebot) and FriendFeed (nflscorebot).

NFL ScoreBot was conceived and written by Mark Bockenstedt and is not affiliated with the National Football League.

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]]> http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/09/04/follow-nfl-scores-on-twitter-with-nfl-scorebot/feed/ 3 MLB to Use Instant Replay http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/08/27/mlb-to-use-instant-replay/ http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/08/27/mlb-to-use-instant-replay/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:15:40 +0000 Mark http://mark.bockenstedt.net/?p=362 Starting Thursday, Major League Baseball will begin using Instant Replay to resolve disputes over home runs. The decision will ultimately be up to the home plate umpire. From what I can tell, MLB will will not use it to the extent that the NFL uses it. The concern is over the length of the game being extended over arguments over fair/foul balls, etc.

I think it’s great that MLB has decided to get on board with the concept. Instead of getting into arguments (managers especially), there is now concrete proof whether the ball hit was or was not a home run. I wonder if there’s a statistic about how many times each coach has been ejected from a game…

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]]> http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/08/27/mlb-to-use-instant-replay/feed/ 0 MLB ScoreBot http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/07/04/mlb-scorebot/ http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/07/04/mlb-scorebot/#comments Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:22:48 +0000 Mark http://mark.bockenstedt.net/?p=65 MLB ScoreBot is a service I created for Twitter and Plurk. ScoreBot runs through current results and broadcasts the score when the game finishes. Each day at 6 AM, ScoreBot downloads the schedule for the day. Starting at 11:00 AM, ScoreBot checks MLB.com to see if any games have finished. If the game is finished, ScoreBot records the scores for each team into the database. After the score is recorded, ScoreBot sends out a tweet and a plurk. Here’s an example update:

FINAL: COL (35-51) 6, FLA (44-41) 5 [2008-07-03]

Once the update is sent out, it won’t be sent out again. On the converse, an update won’t be sent out until the game’s status is “Final”.

Future enhancements could/will include:

  1. Reporting extra innings when applicable
  2. Queuing tweets and plurks when they can’t be sent
  3. Extension to other services (FriendFeed, Identi.ca, etc)
  4. Link to game recap (This link doesn’t appear til well after the game has finished, so there’s no point in linking it up)

You can follow ScoreBot on Twitter (@mlb_scores), Plurk (mlb_scores), and FriendFeed (mlbresults).

MLB ScoreBot was conceived and written by Mark Bockenstedt and is not affiliated with Major League Baseball.

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]]> http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/07/04/mlb-scorebot/feed/ 0 Perfectly Timed Sports Photos http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/07/02/perfectly-timed-sports-photos/ http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/07/02/perfectly-timed-sports-photos/#comments Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:42:01 +0000 Mark http://mark.bockenstedt.net/?p=52 Sometimes, timing can be everything. Here are my top five favorite sports pictures (strangely, all baseball) that were taken at just the right time. In no particular order…

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]]> http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/07/02/perfectly-timed-sports-photos/feed/ 0 The Cubs are back at it http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/05/07/my-first-blog-post/ http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/05/07/my-first-blog-post/#comments Thu, 08 May 2008 04:19:07 +0000 Mark http://mark.bockenstedt.net/blog/?p=3 After a pretty promising start, it looks like the boys in blue are back to their usual play. Last time I checked they were something like 16-8 with the best record in MLB. They’ve won 3 of their last 10, which is more like the Cubs teams I’ve watched over the years. But hey, isn’t this their year? After all, it’s only been a flippin century since they won the World Series.

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