Always love to see new baseball visualizations. Not necessarily a big fan of AI art, but it's cool how dynamic it is. Some constructive criticism: I think using a real pixel font and maybe writing a deterministic downsampling algo for the images instead of relying on AI would go a long way to make this look better.<p>Not to hijack your thread but in case anyone's interested in a physical scoreboard built on top of the same APIs using Raspberry Pis, I have a project as well. We also support software emulation if you don't want to buy parts.<p><a href="https://github.com/MLB-LED-Scoreboard/mlb-led-scoreboard" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/MLB-LED-Scoreboard/mlb-led-scoreboard</a><p>You can see it in action here:<p><a href="https://mlb-led-scoreboard.dev/" rel="nofollow">https://mlb-led-scoreboard.dev/</a>
I was somewhere recently where the World Cup games were on the TV, but the current score was also on what appeared to be a split-flap board mounted to the wall. Seeing your post had me look up commercial availability of these (it seems they exist, but are pricy). Serving up baseball scores in that kind of display would be pretty cool.
This is super duper cool! I sat there and watched like 10 minutes of a live game and it was just balls, strikes, swing & miss, and foul LOL -- reminded me of that old Simpsons episode where soccer comes to Springfield and nothing happens in the match [0]<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=442NF5cZhyc" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=442NF5cZhyc</a>
I love this! If I were to suggest any improvements:<p>- Have a play-by-play view so users can see plays they missed<p>- Make the "between innings" tabs clickable rather than forcing users to wait for the cycle (cycle by default, pin if user clicked a tab)<p>- show glove on right hand for outfielders that throw LH<p>- <i>maybe</i> show baserunners taking leads rather than keeping a foot on the base
> Have a play-by-play view so users can see plays they missed<p>I'd like this not as a timeline scrub but as a back button.
This is gold - thanks for taking the time try it out and write this up.
Great job. I'd love to see this for the one true sport (cricket).
I don’t watch baseball (maybe a couple games a year), but I think it could use some sound / audio, so you can have it running while doing something else.<p>IDK if there’s an easy way for the average person to get a live audio broadcast feed from games, so maybe your target market would be listening to that instead.<p>I’m thinking it could use some sound effects, for balls, strikes, hits, etc. I only tuned in for a couple pitches and then it was between innings, so maybe the more significant events already have something, and I just wasn’t patient enough to experience them.<p>I was looking away when the last out of the inning happened (or maybe changing views?). Is there a display of what caused the out, and maybe an animation of the fielders coming into the dugout, or does it flash up the “between innings” screen pretty quickly?<p>It might be nice to have a significant event summary available somewhere. It feels hard to believe that this would catch someone’s attention well enough that they’re watching the whole thing, and without audio cues / replays, I know I wouldn’t be interested in watching it for any length of time.
I'm not a sports person and other then going to a superbowl party really don't watch anything but this is really cool. I even put a game on the tv and was comparing it to the site. Very well done :) If there was some way to have live audio streaming in to hear what was going on while the screen animated it that'd make this perfect but I imagine that isn't really a thing that can be done.<p>Either way though, great job on this!
Super cool! Makes me nostalgic for my Earl Weaver Baseball fix.<p>The pace of events will always be a challenge with baseball (delays between pitches, missing when they do happen).<p>Some other mode like the Youtube TV: Catch up with Highlights, would be fantastic. Quickly replay the big events (runs scored, bases loaded strikeout to end inning. Maybe every hit and third out). It becomes a rapid-fire view. Or, similar thought, a rapid replay mode -- start from the beginning, replay each change with minimal delays between them.
Best of luck with this. About twenty years ago there was a website that displayed play-by-play of games in progress with a much more minimal display than yours: just a scoreboard, balls and strikes count, and an indication of who was on base.<p>MLB crushed them with a copyright infringement lawsuit, claiming copyright over the plain factual description of the play-by-play. It was bullshit, of course, since simple factual descriptions aren't protected by copyright. But website guy couldn't fight MLB in federal court.<p>Sorry I don't remember the name of the site. I hope it turns out better for you than it did for them.
My guess is this is leveraging GDX same as "Gameday" uses (or used to use). <a href="https://gdx.mlb.com/components/copyright.txt" rel="nofollow">https://gdx.mlb.com/components/copyright.txt</a> states<p>> Only individual, non-commercial, non-bulk use of the Materials is permitted<p>Unsure if this falls within. I have written my own scripts against the XML regularly updated there, but am unsure if they allow it to be used on a shared site.
Amazing project! I'd love to see something like this for the football world cup. Maybe a FIFA 97 style?<p>I wonder if some kind of filter would work or we would need some data source. Looks much harder given the fast-paced nature of the game.
The thing that works for baseball is how slow the game is. There's plenty of time in between pitches to make the animation simple. With sports with constant movement like a WC match would require a lot more resources. Might as well be a game engine at that point.<p>Watching one of these live just brings home exactly how low activity a baseball match is. You can easily miss a pitch if you're not actively watching it and keep your attention span on it. It also brings to mind how much the commentary during a game keeps the viewer engaged. Live video and a good director cutting to different cameras also helps. Radio with out the color would be insanely boring:<p>Here's the pitch, low and outside.Ball 1.<p>30 secs of silence.<p>Here's the pitch, fast ball down the middle. Swing and a miss. Count is now 1-1.<p>30 secs of silence.
For sure. And agree it wouldn't work as well for active sports like soccer or basketball.<p>Have some ideas on how to make this a bit more engaging for baseball, still. But ultimately it isn't really made for active viewing or to replace a live broadcast. I think of this more for the fan who wants to keep it on in the background or on the TV while they work or multitask.
Perfect to have on while you are on a call or otherwise can’t have audio playing. If the audio isn’t a distraction, I’d rather put the radio on or a tv game with the audio lower than I’d have it if I were actively watching.<p>But I love this idea and it brings back memories of my first baseball video games. Someone else mentioned Earl Weaver. My friends and I spent an entire summer playing almost nothing else.
Football MIGHT be slow enough that you could animate the plays Techmo Bowl style.<p>It would certainly be fun to attempt it. You might have to mix in some pre-defined animations for "run up the middle", that could do minimal updates like Jersey numbers.
The gamecast from places like ESPN already have a good enough version for American Throwball games. It works because it is slow enough so they can show play by play with animation showing the progress of each play. While it's not pixel art it is more than sufficient to have in a window to have open in the background.
Only if we can watch historical games from the late 80s of the LA Raiders, and then 5% of the time, it animates Bo Jackson running actual circles around the defense.
This is really cool! Would love a technical breakdown on how you put this together.
+1 even if its vibe coded, would love to hear how you tackled the project. Great stuff!
Agreed. As a developer, I'd love to see how this was done or if you have it out on Github.
This is so cool, I love these little scoreboard projects. The artwork is also such high quality.<p>I am a big fan of the ESPN CDN data api and have made a few "scoreboards" of my own. Recently I polished a simple html one at: <a href="https://mlb.ope.cool/" rel="nofollow">https://mlb.ope.cool/</a><p>But I will most definitely be reaching for yours and tossing it up on the TV's in the office, this is so cool
Reference API docs: `<a href="https://github.com/pseudo-r/Public-ESPN-API" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/pseudo-r/Public-ESPN-API</a>`<p>Notably you could quickly prototype something for the world cup using sport `soccer` and league `fifa.world`. Its awesome
Cool project! Like the scorecard style. Will check out that API, too.
It's AI artwork.
Love the look of this! Enjoyed watching a bit, will definitely have it on later.<p>One comment is, during “in between innings” when it was showing around the league and other stats, the text was really small on my phone. If possible I’d rather have it scrolling or switching between pages of data than trying to fit it on one screen. I get that on a tv or pc it’s probably the right size, so not sure if you’d want to spend the effort to have a separate view for small screens.
(this and Urgo's comments were posted to <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48377493">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48377493</a> a week ago, but since that thread didn't get much attention, I've moved them hither)
This is great. The 8-bit aesthetic fits great with baseball. Reminds me a little of the old Backyard Baseball video game. I was thinking about using the feed to ring a bell in my home every time my team (NY Mets) scores a run. But this a a much better use of the data feed.
Amazing, and I love every pixel of it. We know the MLB is famously understanding with creative repurposing of their data, so I wonder what live data you are using and if the rationale for use is something like small scale hobby/fair use?<p>I know when it comes to historical data, projects like the Sean Lahman Database have to go through quite a bit of trouble to reproduce "clean room" versions of historical data that are legally fine to use. I have to imagine there's a lot of complications when it comes to live data for anything that even has a hint of being more than a hobby project.
This is brilliant. Can you make a sub-game, Streets of Rage II beat em up that you can play when the benches clear in a real game? Perhaps have Mortal Kombat finishing moves when the managers are fighting the umpires?
What a joy this is
Could you display live data in a browser tab title? Not just the score, but actually mostly when it's not between innings so I know when to switch back to it.<p>I also wish it was more zoomed-in on the action, but I get why that's not in v1.
PEDANT ALERT:<p>This is clearly 16 bit.
Yes, it definitely gave me TG-16 (PC Engine) feels.
Looks like 256 color style imagery. It’s not perfect, but clearly based on that VGA style.
This is Hacker News where we appreciate these types comments.
Super cool! I used <a href="https://github.com/paaatrick/playball" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/paaatrick/playball</a> a few times to follow games, looking forward for updates.
Ha! I'm watching the Astros game and I guess my stream is delayed because this just spoiled a home run. Great job!
this f**ng rocks<p>Something about the way baseball itself is played seems to make recreations really satisfying -- like, more accurate? -- and fun compared to say, soccer hilights of matches on Youtube made with what looks like an EA soccer video game<p>I also really like the idea of recreating any type of event in this format. It's almost like photogrammetry but with as much creative intention as you have documentary. very awesome, very inspirational really
Thanks!! Agree baseball is a great match for this and just happens to have the data available, too. Have been thinking about what other formats this could lend itself to. Golf and tennis would be great fits, but data access seems limited/controlled.<p>For now, still a lot of work to be done for baseball. I'd love to get full in-field animation completed at a higher quality (think those 8-bit baseball iPhone games), and more details to give life to the stadiums and atmosphere.
This makes me want to finally scratch "get into baseball" off of my bucket list. Really nice concept and design!
This is wonderful and well done. I wanted to do something with a single NFL game using the play by play you see on websites. Do you have precise enough coordinate data or do you interpret and extrapolate from a play-by-play description? Is the feed data free?
Super cool. I love how baseball tends to be easily represented through text.
Love this! Charming and easy to follow, thank you!
Awesome! Sometimes a thing conveys it was built with some love or intention. It's not restricted to fun/entertaining content, it can be Saas too. I'm talking more from how it looks and feels than necessarily what's going on in the backend, but I'm not really talking about graphics.
This is adorable. But gosh that font is hard to read on a phone. Couldn't the score box be a bit bigger?
Does everything _really_ need to be compatible with a phone screen? Use a computer to view the website.
Did you add Ribbie to your home screen? That mobile version makes better use of the full phone screen.
I'm not sure if this is just me but the mismatch in pixel sizes and inconsistent palette is very jarring. This would be more impressive if this actually matched the 8-bit aesthetic of like the NES.
I can't seem to scroll down thru the active games list :-(<p>The game I want to watch is a LIVE game but it's no longer one of the top 4 games<p>I see the scrollbar but it does not interact<p>(Chrome or Edge same issue)
You even got the ballparks and the middle inning transitions!
very cool! maybe make a soccer one for world cup?
fun idea and gj execution, but the art looks like bad ai pixel art, at least on my screen. gives it that uncanny youtube music stream look.
This is a classic problem for people who didn't grow up making 8-bit pixel art. Typing "pixel art" into Nano-Banana only creates the illusion of pixel art, which quickly breaks down under modest scrutiny, particularly at larger resolutions.<p>That's why you can see "smeared edges," "fringing," etc.<p>Even a basic nearest neighbor downscale/upscale would have squashed some of the higher frequency noise.<p><i>OP: Look into palette reduction and pixel grids. This is a decent start as a post-processing tool for this stuff.</i><p><a href="https://github.com/jenissimo/unfake.js" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/jenissimo/unfake.js</a>
Yeah because it is AI pixel art :/ But something also seems off with the AA right now. Going to try to fix. Then, maybe sponsor some artist-made sprites later if there's interest in the project.
This is really, really awesome. I'm going to let the folks at Pitcher List know about it!
Love it.. too bad MLB will probably send you a C&D over it.
When I choose "Full" view it should go to fullscreen view of the browser (hiding address bar, bookmarks, tabs, etc...)
This is great! Thank you for coming up with this.<p>edit- First 2 plays I watched are back to back homers. Go Royals!
FYI: The look is more 16-bit than 8-bit. 8-bit platforms like the NES typically showed less colors on screen than their 16-bit successors.
Do you have a video of past livecasts to gt a feel?
this is one of the coolest projects I've seen in a while. Great work.
This is awesome!
Very cool!
Awesome.<p>do the mlb streams flag a challenge?
Completely OT, but something occurred to me recently, and I haven't seen it happen yet this season so I don't know the rule:<p>- Bases empty<p>- There are two strikes<p>- The catcher fails to catch the ball, but umpire calls it a ball.<p>- Catcher challenges, and it is overturned to be a strike.<p>Can the batter attempt to run to first base? Without the challenge he can, but how does the challenge affect things? Can he start running to first if he anticipates a challenge (or just thought it was a strike on his own and didn't wait for the umpire to call it)?
Has the data, but I haven't built support to handle it just yet.
vibe coded project people like = omg so amazing, you did so great. wow the ai art is so amazing!<p>vibe coded project people dont like = llm vibe coded slop, waste of the internet, why did you even try. cant believe you didnt pay hundreds of dollars to a human artist.
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Incredible work! Do you have any plans to add sound effects synced to in-game events, or maybe even TTS-generated commentary? That could make the experience feel even more dynamic and immersive.
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You all realize this is 100% AI, right?