In a move to bring baseball fans closer to the action, the
San Francisco Giants and
Palm, Inc. (Nasdaq: PALM) have installed
three "beaming stations" at Pacific Bell Park.
Handheld users can score and track the game more closely when they visit a
beaming station equipped with technology that lets them download a scoring application,
plus the latest Giants
and visiting-team statistics and rosters, to their Palm-powered handheld computers.
When designing the US$319 million Pacific Bell Park for its opening last year,
the goal was to integrate technology to enhance the experience of going to a game,
said Giants senior vice president Mario Alioto.
"We hope it will encourage more fans to master the art of scorekeeping," Alioto said.
A Pitcher in Your Palm
Anyone with a Palm handheld can walk up to any of the three stations, hold up a
handheld and receive a "beam" of a scorekeeping application and such information
as statistics, rosters, lineups, pitching match-ups and biographies for reference
during the game.
The beaming stations work with any Palm OS-based device, including those from Palm,
Handspring, Sony, IBM, Kyocera and Symbol.
Palm chief marketing officer Satjiv Chahil said the same products that are being
used at large companies to access critical information are keeping scores and
biographies of players -- relief pitcher Rob Nen, for example -- at Pacific Bell Park.
The beaming stations, developed by WideRay Corporation of San Francisco, contain
three small servers that deliver custom information over broadband to handheld
devices using high-speed infrared beams.
The content  beamed to the handhelds includes TurboStats ScoreKeeper and information
provided by the Giants Today section of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Scoreboard Tutorials
Beaming stations will be updated before each home series, enabling fans to receive
the latest statistical information on the team. In the near future, a collector
series of electronic player cards also will be available.
Beaming stations were installed in three locations around the ballpark, including
on the AAA Club Level near section 219, on the Promenade Level near the 2nd and
King pedestrian ramp, and in the Field Club Lounge.
In addition, a scoreboard video will run during several Giants home games to teach
fans about how to use the beaming stations and how to keep score.
Pacific Bell Park is among the most technologically advanced in professional
sports -- you'd expect to see a little technology at a ballpark when the stadium is
up the road from Silicon Valley and the facility is sponsored by a telephone company.
Although the architecture borrows from many of baseball's oldest parks, it has been
rigged with the latest in Internet, wireless and software know-how. (continued...)
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