FanShot

FIELDf/x: Like PITCHf/x, but for fielders

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From the San Francisco Chronicle: Four cameras sit like hawks atop the light towers, watching every fielder in every inning during baseball games at AT&T Park. When the ball leaves the bat, digital video records the reaction of each player in an attempt to do what has never been done in the long history of baseball analysis - attach numbers to the defensive intangibles of the game. "This will end up revolutionizing the way teams analyze fielders," says Ryan Zander, general manager of baseball products for Sportvision, a Mountain View tech company that is developing the software system. "A guy makes a great catch coming across center field. Perhaps we could show the distance that he traveled, how fast he ran, the path he took to get to the ball." From Citizen Kane: Leland: These men who were with the Chronicle. Weren't they just as devoted to the Chronicle politics as they are now to our policies? Bernstein: Sure, they're just like anybody else. They got work to do, they do it! Only they happen to be the best men in the business! Leland: Do we stand for the same things the Chronicle stands for, Bernstein? Bernstein: Certainly not. Listen, Mr. Kane, he'll have them changed to his kind of newspapermen in a week! Leland: There's always a chance, of course, that they'll change Mr. Kane, without his knowing it.