When the team was playing the Colorado Rockies I saw this story and meant to post it but for some reason I didn't.
The Marlins have now adopted the new technology.
"It's pretty neat," hitting coach Jim Presley said. "A lot of our players look at (baseball video) on their laptops. If you can download it on an iPod, you don't have to take your laptop everywhere. It can be a useful tool."
It's been a useful tool for the Colorado Rockies since spring training. That's when the team's video coordinators began downloading videos of hitters' swings onto the new video iPods.
The Marlins were in Denver recently when a story about the Rockies' iPod use appeared in the Denver Post.
Cullen McRae, the Marlins' video coordinator, was so intrigued after reading the story that he sought out players with iPods to see how the video would look.
---
So far, Martinez and Tankersley are the only players using them. Infielder Alfredo Amezaga bought one with Martinez in San Francisco on Monday, but he hasn't had any of his video downloaded yet.
"I'm going to buy one because anything that's convenient is a good idea," pitcher Dontrelle Willis said.
---
Even Tankersley wondered if he'll use his iPod for baseball as often and enthusiastically as Rockies players.
"Not when it comes to baseball purposes," he said, "but whenever I see my friends I may say, 'Hey, I faced this guy.' I may use it to tease them with stuff like that more than (as) a learning tool."
I guess it is a start.
My iPod isn't a video generational one, so I really don't know, but I find it hard to believe you can learn that much from watching a pitcher or a hitter on a 2.5" screen. Perhaps I am completely wrong about this but I have to watch Marlins games from time to time on my computer which has a 17" screen and I find it next to impossible to correctly identify many of the pitches. Of course that is being streamed which brings in its own inherent difficulties.