iBall: America's pastime speeding into digital age

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TUCSON, Ariz. -- In prehistoric times, there was Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn.

He purchased his own video equipment, lugged it around the league himself, learned how to hook it up to hotel televisions and endlessly studied tapes of his swing.

Amazing part is that he was able to move it, undamaged, past all of those Tyrannosaurus Rexes and pterodactyls roaming the earth at the time.

Jamey Carroll says the Rockies scout pitchers by watching video of past at-bats via iPods before coming to the plate. (US Presswire)

"I should talk to Sony about a sponsorship," he mused this winter upon being voted into the Hall of Fame, nostalgic for all of his own personal money he forked over in his quest to be the best that he could be.

It was quite a path Gwynn set from then to now. Along the way, he made only two mistakes.

One, he placed his faith in Beta video instead of VHS -- something his wife teases him about to this day.

Two, if he hadn't been so far ahead of his time, he sure could have saved himself a whole lot of dough.

A game that in the past has viewed change as comfortably as Ozzie Guillen embraces silence has, like most other businesses, charged into the digital age with gusto.

Nothing this side of steroids has been so startling in the baseball industry as the technological advances that have swept the diamonds over the past decade. From e-mail trade proposals to video rooms built just behind dugouts so hitters can instantly review an at-bat, the days of clubs traveling by train -- or, heck, even flying non-chartered airlines -- has never seemed so quaint.

You're familiar with Netflix?

In Colorado last season, the Rockies pioneered NetRox.

Brian Jones, now the club's video coordinator, began experimenting last season by downloading hitting and pitching videos onto iPods. It was a concept that immediately took root in the Rockies clubhouse. Suddenly, iPods weren't just for listening to Green Day or Ol' Dirty Bastard anymore.

"We're just exploring everything out there," Jones says. "A lot of these guys are gadget guys. They come in with something, I want to know how to use it.