Tuesday, April 6, 1999

BYTE THIS:

The best baseball
sites on the ’Net

Go online to get the inside scoop
on your favorite major league
players and teams

[Online editor's note: There were no local stories today.]

By Tommy Cummings
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Scripps-Howard News Service

OK, so a look at the best major-league baseball sites might be a day or two late. We're in agreement here.

But, remember, it has been only a few days since entertainer Garth Brooks was on the San Diego Padres' roster or actor Kevin Costner was mishandling a big-league fly ball ... so it must not be "that" late for some serious baseball talk.

Here are a few early-season choices for the serious online baseball fan:

BEST OVERALL SITE: Fastball (http://www.fastball.com), produced by Cox Interactive Media, is a very proactive site. It includes scores, team-by-team updates, statistics, archives, interactivity, fantasy-league help and information on minor leagues and collectibles (lots of those bobbing-head players). And in case you're poring over all this stuff in the office during working hours, the site even has a quick escape function -- the Boss! Button, which, at a click of a button, brings up a bogus inventory report. Another off-best feature is the Foul Pole section, which includes theme teams (such as the All-Body Parts team) and always-a-hoot quotations from Casey Stengel and Yogi Berra.

BEST BIG-MEDIA SITE: It's tough to knock tradition; "The Sporting News" has tracked baseball with detail, it seems, since Abner Doubleday was playing T-ball. The St. Louis-based magazine continues the tradition with an easy-to-navigate, content-rich site (http://www.sportingnews.com/baseball). The Sporting News Online spreads its reach on its MSNBC.com and America Online affiliations while blanketing pro baseball with its vast network of correspondents.

BEST GADGET: Hands down, the best gizmo on any baseball site is Total Baseball's TotalCast (http://www.totalbaseball.com), which replicates action from the real baseball field. Tiny electronic players (note: they're physically incorrect, so none have oversized Mark McGwire arms) reach base on a screen-sized field as pitch-by-pitch charts are automatically updated every few seconds.

BEST SITE ABOUT BALLPARKS: Ballparks by Munsey and Suppes (http://www.ballparks.com/baseball) puts users in selected baseball stadiums and parks with images, seating charts and historical data. You can almost smell the hot dogs.

BEST COLLECTION OF LINKS: John Skilton's Baseball Links (http://www.baseball-links.com) is the standard. Skilton, a Swanwyck, Del., baseball fan, has compiled, as of yesterday, 4,783 unique links about baseball.

BEST ALBERT BELLE NEWS: Hofstetter's Baseball Jerk of the Week (http://www.jerkoftheweek.com/baseball), created by John and Steve Hofstetter of New York, highlights the league's most embarrassing representative each week.

BEST PLACE TO HEAR A GAME ONLINE: Duh. Broadcast.com (http://www.broadcast.com/sports/baseball). The Dallas-based site includes daily listings of games to be audiocast and archives of the weekly news conferences by players.

BEST INTERACTIVITY: Bigleaguers.com (http://www.bigleaguers.com) has a page for "every" player in the big leagues. It also has chat sessions, player diaries and interactive games.

BEST HISTORICAL DATA: CNNSI.com's Historical Profiles section (http://www.cnnsi.com/baseball/mlb/historical_profiles) includes rosters, facts and career statistics of players from 1871-1996.