Playball – Watch MLB games from a terminal

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Project and MLB Data Source

  • Commenters like the idea of following MLB games from a terminal and note that MLB exposes a surprisingly rich, relatively easy-to-use stats API (e.g., statsapi.mlb.com) that powers this.
  • Some wonder about terms-of-service and whether direct polling at scale might eventually provoke MLB to restrict the API, but this is speculative and unclear.

Text vs Video, TUI, and the Meaning of “Watch”

  • Several people say “watch” is a stretch; it’s more like watching live stats and play-by-play update.
  • Others expected ASCII-art or animated recreations of the field, or even ffmpeg-style ASCII video of real broadcasts.
  • There’s interest in the technical side: building TUIs, using React in a terminal, and running this via telnet/SSH without installing Node.

From Data to Synthetic Video / Commentary

  • One line of discussion suggests training models to turn the data feed into realistic video or radio-style commentary.
  • Enthusiasts see this as a natural next step and mention MLB’s own “Gameday” 2D/3D visualizations as partial precedents, though they’re described as buggy.
  • Skeptics say autogenerated video would be “slop” compared to real broadcasts and would miss all the unscripted moments not present in the data.
  • Some argue that openly proposing such uses could hasten API lockdowns; others view it as an interesting research direction.

Baseball as a Text-Friendly / DSL Sport

  • Many note baseball serializes cleanly to text and radio; conventions like “6-4-3 double play” and scorekeeping notation form a de facto DSL.
  • There’s detailed discussion of strikeout notation (swinging vs. looking), why those distinctions matter analytically, and how to encode them (Unicode tricks or simple suffixes).
  • Projects like Retrosheet and traditional scorekeeping are cited as examples of long-standing structured representations of games.

Scorers, Stringers, and Partial Automation

  • People describe jobs where humans watch every play and enter events that feed MLB/ESPN-style live updates.
  • Fans also score games as a hobby; this keeps them engaged and creates personal records.
  • Automation via sensors and computer vision is thought to be increasing but not yet fully replacing human “stringers,” especially for nuanced judgments.

Gambling, Media, and Access to Games

  • A long subthread laments how legalized sports gambling has saturated broadcasts with odds, betting talk, and sportsbook branding, crowding out traditional analysis.
  • Some support legal gambling but want strict limits on ads and app-based betting; others compare the situation to pervasive alcohol advertising.
  • Another major thread covers streaming, blackouts, and RSNs:
    • MLB.tv is praised as excellent for out-of-market and international fans.
    • Local blackouts and separate DTC packages (~$20/month) frustrate many, especially parents who remember free OTA broadcasts.
    • There’s hope that as RSN deals die off, more “no blackout, all games” models will emerge; examples like MLS–Apple are discussed with mixed feelings.

Extending the Idea to Other Sports

  • People speculate about NFL/NBA/college football versions; football is seen as structurally similar enough to model in text, basketball much harder due to continuous play.
  • Links are shared to existing MLB and NBA CLIs and F1 race trackers; soccer/F1/cricket are mentioned as interesting but data/API access is often not public.
  • Japanese baseball (NPB) is specifically called out as a desired adaptation.

Miscellaneous Reactions

  • Many express simple enthusiasm, calling it “awesome,” “beautiful,” and potentially a gateway to get non-technical relatives into computers.
  • Some joke about modern JS dependency bloat (lockfile dwarfing the source).
  • A few users say this reinforces for them how “boring” baseball is to watch; others say the slow pace and rising tension is exactly why they love both the sport and tools like this.