Forget Steroids, Get Baseball Players A Video iPod

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the watching-video dept

With the ongoing debate about performance enhancing drugs in baseball, there’s another technology that not only is helping players, but is legal: the video iPod. Baseball players analyzing video of their own performance or of opponents is nothing new. In the last few years, it’s become quite popular, with players often carrying around a ton of video on laptops. Teams have invested heavily in tools to better archive videos and make them more searchable. However, it still involves players going in and watching the video on a computer or TV screen. What if they could watch it anywhere at any time? Apparently that’s what the Colorado Rockies have started doing with a program to load game video onto the players’ video iPods. The team isn’t buying the devices for players, but enough of them already own them. Many of the players have given the team’s video coordinators permission to take the iPods from their lockers and keep them updated with all the video they might need. Apparently, the Rockies’ use of the video iPods is getting attention from other teams. Of course, you could argue that Johan Santana from Minnesota Twins has a leg up on the video iPod users. He’s using a PSP, where he can not only watch video, but also prepare against opponents in a virtual baseball game.