Google Glass wants to enhance your ballpark experience

[John]

So you tell me: Wave of the future, or wave it goodbye? And whether you love it or hate it, tell us why.

[Arroyos]

What a distraction! It's like having those damn flashing scoreboards right in your face. I would hate it, just like I hate the huge scoreboards, because they distract me from watching the game itself.

I can see many uses for the new Google Glass and its Italian competitor, Glass Up (which seems to me to be a much better product), and I can imagine lusting for a pair of those smartglasses in the future. But I ain't a'gonna wear 'em to the ball game.

When I go to the ballpark, I want to watch the players in front of me. I don't like instant replays on the damn scoreboards, I don't like all the flashing messages, or distracting between-innings silliness. I want to watch the outfielders shift for each hitter, the second basemen flash signs to the shortstop on every pitch, and the umpires adjust position for each situation. There's so much to watch in a ballgame, especially BETWEEN pitches, that I can hardly keep up. I don't need more.

And I certainly don't need some computer feed sending me messages in the upper right hand corner of my glasses. I don't care how fast a radar gun says the pitcher is throwing, I can see speed with my own eyes. I don't care what the batters average is against a particular pitcher, because the sample is so small that the data is meaningless. And if I'm watching all that information in my glasses, I won't be able to see Tim Lincecum shake off Buster Posey, or Adrian Gonzalez sneak up behind the runner for a pickoff play, or Barry Zito talk to the ball, or Tim Flannery give the stop sign to the Panda as he rounds third and ignores his coach, only to be thrown out at the plate.

That's what I want to see when I pay the exorbitant ticket prices at Dodger Stadium or Angels Stadium or Petco Park. All that other stuff, the stuff they show flashing on those Google Glasses, I can see at home when I watch on MLB.com. It's just a distraction at the ballpark.

[Evas]

Just seems like an annoyance to me.

I like the scoreboards, replays and stats at the game, but I don't want them in my field of vision.

This might be a nice thing to have on a phone or a tablet. But just because you have the scores and stats in the corner of the screen on TV doesn't mean I want that on my eyeballs.

I am sure there are great applications for Google Glass. In car Navigation seems like a particularly good one to me. But overall I don't think it is a product I would be interested in buying.

[Lions]

I'm kind of in between. I don't particularly care for this at a baseball game where I'm familiar with what's going on. Telling me a guy just hit a two run home run seems like it assumes I'm a complete imbecile who doesn't understand what I'm watching. I can see it being useful when I haven't been able to pay attention because my daughter just saw the pink! cotton candy walk by. However, even then, it's usually not that hard to pick it up again. I don't really want the TV experience when I'm at the park.

[roncollins]

I think it will have folks who like it--but I suspect it will be bigger if it gets a voice component--I could see lots of people putting an ear-bud in and listening to a steady, low-tuned voice chatter of the info stream while watching. That's the kind of thing that people are getting used to doing at work now--you can drop auditory input at low levels quickly, and pick them up again with less distraction than visual input.

Who knows, though.

[Leones]

The perfect thing for the runner on second to relay signs to the dugout. Yech!

[John]

I'm inclined to agree with the opinions expressed here so far. I'm not anti-progress, but I'm not sure that this particular progress is going to do much to enhance my ballpark experience, and I kind of think it might actually detract a little bit from it. Like Bob, I like to soak up the sounds and sights at the game. And like Frank, I see most of the info being shown here as "Duh!"-level obvious. So do I really want to see "Home run - 2 runs score" flash before my eyes? Probably not; I think I'd rather watch the reactions of the people around me.

I definitely see merit to some of this data. The "Currently pitching/batting" display is nice, for instance. But this is something I'd rather have at my fingertips - say, on a tablet - than superimposed over my view. I can see the "Gee whiz!" coolness factor here, but I just don't think I would go for it myself.

[Leones]

If it could plot an overlay of a batter's hit locations on the field from the viewers point of view that might be neat. Another neat thing would be if you looked at the current batter and could see the strike zone with hot/cold zones. That's the sort of stuff they should be putting effort into. Things that could enhance the game.

I still hate it though. :)