Baseball fans will have access to At Bat’s wide array of interactive features, including scores, news, statistics and more, through a user interface optimized for the new BlackBerry 10 mobile computing experience. Complete details on available features will be announced at a later date.

“BlackBerry has been an important platform for delivering content to baseball fans for many years and we are excited to continue that relationship by developing At Bat for BlackBerry 10 in 2013,” said Adam Ritter, Senior Vice President, Wireless, MLBAM.

“We are thrilled to work with MLBAM to bring its award-winning app, ‘MLB.com At Bat(r)’ to BlackBerry 10,” said Martyn Mallick, Vice President Global Alliances and Business Development. “Fans can expect an application rich with content about their favorite teams and players, from opening day all the way to the World Series. MLB.com At Bat is a ‘must-have’ app for any baseball fan.”

For more information, visit MLB.com.

BlackBerry, RIM, Research In Motion and related trademarks, names and logos are the property of Research In Motion Limited.

All 16 World Baseball Classic Provisional Rosters to be Announced on World Baseball Classic Roster Special Thursday Live at 4:00 p.m. ET

Secaucus, NJ, January 15, 2013 – The Team USA Provisional Roster for the 2013 World Baseball Classic will be announced on MLB Network’s Hot Stove this Thursday, January 17 live at 10:00 a.m. ET. Co-hosted by Matt Vasgersian and Bill Ripken, who was part of the 2009 Team USA coaching staff, Hot Stove will begin at 9:00 a.m. ET and break down Team USA and feature an interview with Team USA manager Joe Torre.

Later in the day, the remainder of the Provisional Rosters for the 16-team field will be announced on MLB Network during a World Baseball Classic Roster Special live at 4:00 p.m. ET. Co-hosted by MLB Network’s Greg Amsinger and Heidi Watney with Dan Plesac andBill Ripken, the one-hour special will analyze the entire 16-team field, look back at the history of the World Baseball Classic and feature interviews with Team USA pitching coach Greg Maddux and Team USA member and New York Mets third baseman David Wright. The show will also preview the tournament schedule as MLB Network will be the exclusive English-language broadcast partner for all 39 games of the 2013 World Baseball Classic in the United States from March 2-19.

Secaucus, NJ, January 10, 2013 – Hollywood stars Tommy Lee Jones (Cobb), Tatum O’Neal (Bad News Bears) and Geena Davis (A League Of Their Own) and directors John Sayles (Eight Men Out), Penny Marshall (A League of Their Own) Ron Shelton (Cobb) and Barry Levinson (The Natural), will discuss the beloved baseball movies they helped deliver to the big screen in MLB Network’s new series Costas at the Movies, hosted by Bob Costas, premiering Monday, January 14 at 8:00 p.m. ET. Following each 30-minute Costas at the Movies episode, MLB Network will air the night’s featured film.

Each Costas at the Movies episode will take an in-depth look at a baseball film, including Cobb (January 14), Bad News Bears (January 21), A League of Their Own (January 28), Eight Men Out (February 4) and The Natural (February 11), featuring interviews with the actors, actresses and directors who helped make these films special. A new Costas at the Movies episode and the night’s featured film will air every Monday from January 14 through February 11 beginning at 8:00 p.m. ET. MLB Network’s Costas at the Movies schedule is available below.

The first installment of Costas at the Movies on January 14 features an interview with Cobb star Tommy Lee Jones and director Ron Shelton discussing the 1994 biopic about Detroit Tigers Hall of Famer Ty Cobb. The following week on January 21, Costas at the Movies will feature an interview with actress Tatum O’Neal discussing her role as the team’s star pitcher, Amanda Whurlizer, in Bad News Bears. Costas at the Movies continues on January 28 with Costas looking back at A League of Their Own with its director Penny Marshall and Geena Davis, who earned a Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of fictional catcher Dottie Hinson.

The series’ fourth episode on February 4 will feature an interview with Eight Men Out director John Sayles discussing the 1988 motion picture about the 1919 Chicago White Sox and the eight members of the team who were banned from baseball after allegedly throwing the World Series. Costas at the Movies concludes on February 11 with director Barry Levinson joining Costas to discuss the mythical tale of Roy Hobbs in his film, The Natural.

Costas at the Movies Schedule:

*All episodes begin at 8:00 p.m. ET followed by the night’s featured film*

Monday, January 14 - Cobb

Interviews: Actor Tommy Lee Jones (Ty Cobb) and Director Ron Shelton

Monday, January 21 – Bad News Bears

Interview: Actress Tatum O’Neal (Amanda Whurlizer)

Monday, January 28 – A League of Their Own

Interviews: Actress Geena Davis (Dottie Hinson) and Director Penny Marshall

Monday, February 4 – Eight Men Out

Interviews: Director John Sayles

Monday, February 11 – The Natural

Interview: Director Barry Levinson

NEW YORK, December 13, 2012 – MLB.com At Bat, for the fourth consecutive year, today was named the highest grossing sports application for both iPhone and iPad by Apple in its annual Best of the Year rankings for the App Store, maintaining its place as the top-selling sports mobile application of all-time. In the overall App Store rankings, At Bat also was recognized as the 11th and 29th highest grossing application for iPhone and iPad, respectively, from the more than 700,000 available apps.

In 2012, baseball fans downloaded At Bat seven million times, easily surpassing the combined total from the previous two years (6.3 million in 2010 and 2011).  During the season, At Bat continued to unveil new features, including Passbook integration, widescreen video optimized for the new iPhone 5 and its four-inch Retina display, Ford SYNC(r) AppLinkTM compatibility, MLB.TV statistical and pitch tracking data overlays, social sharing and accessibility.

MLB.TV Premium subscribers get At Bat Premium for free on supported iOS devices. Fans also can subscribe to At Bat Premium on supported iOS devices for $2.99 with a monthly recurring billing option.

This first edition of The 140 Club delivers more than a feed of hashtags or accounts. Supported by the power of Mass Relevance, Twitter’s official social curation and integration partner, MLB.com’s social media team selects the most talked about topics of the day and curates a live stream of the best tweets from around the world on those topics. Recent examples include the no-hitters by Johan Santana and the Seattle Mariners, the Interleague Play series sweeps by the New York Yankees and Washington Nationals, the College World Series and the Bradley-Pacquiao fight.

“Tweets connect us in groundbreaking ways to previously inaccessible points of view,” said Dinn Mann, Executive Vice President, Content, MLB.com. “We are delighted to leverage the reach of Twitter and tools of Mass Relevance to discover and share discussions and observations that rise above the noise. Baseball personalities, fans and celebrities are weighing in at a prolific pace on topics of all kinds, and The 140 Club is a reliable, entertaining place to get inside the ropes and eavesdrop or take part.”

“MLB.com continues to create engaging experiences that connect fans to baseball,” said Sam Decker, CEO of Mass Relevance. “By curating and surfacing the most important social conversations around baseball through the Mass Relevance platform, MLB.com is taking a strong social leadership position across all sports worldwide.”

The 140 Club on MLB.com also offers functionality for fans to search by an individual player’s Twitter account or an official team account. Future enhancements to the news service will include an archive for a retrospective look at the most talked about topics of the previous week.

It seems like just yesterday that I took a discussion I had with a buddy about Albert Belle and banged out a quick opinion piece on his Hall of Fame credentials. Now, five years and more than 1300 posts later, The Hall of Very Good™ is set to celebrate its birthday in style.

And you’re all invited…free of charge!

Beginning Monday, June 18, we (yes, “we”…more on that later) are kicking off the month long “HOVG Heroes” series. What exactly is “HOVG Heroes”? It’s funny that I suggested you asked…let me lay it out for you.

From the time you hit the site next Monday through the Friday leading up to the Hall of Fame induction ceremony July 22 in Cooperstown , you’ll be greeted, daily, with a new, different, original post hitting The Hall of Very Good™. And the nature of these pieces is simple…to shed light on those players that haven’t been invited to join the immortals in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Sound familiar? It should. The very notion of a “Hall of Very Good” is something I started doing five years ago and now, I’ve got a few dozen of my favorite people contributing original pieces where they share the stories of their favorite players.

And I’ll tell you this…it was easy to get people to take part.

I’ll be releasing some of the names via The Hall of Very Good™ Facebook page and Twitter account throughout the upcoming week and I can assure you this…each contributor has their own unique style. These aren’t people who you haven’t heard of either. In the mix are guys who you’ve seen, heard and read on a national level. And since I was fortunate enough to be the Baseball Bloggers Alliance’s first general baseball blog…you know I had to partner up with some of its most creative writers as well.

But the star studded list of contributors isn’t even the best part about “HOVG Heroes”.

At the conclusion of this series, we’ll actually be inducting someone into The Hall of Very Good™. Yes, five weeks from now, there will be, officially, an inaugural member of The Hall of Very Good™.

Who is it? You’ll know the week of July 16.

“Hall of Fame Chatter, Milestones and Musings”…it’s what The Hall of Very Good™ has been about since day one and with the help of countless individuals, it’s what it will continue to be about.

All the best

Shawn

The Hall of Very Good™
Succumb to the trend…follow The Hall of Very Good™ on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HOVG.

Hall of Fame inductee MLB.com At Bat currently top grossing for both iPhone and iPad

NEW YORK, MARCH 6, 2012 – On the same weekend Apple’s App Store recorded its 25 billionth download, the return of MLB.com At Bat set new standards with the fifth edition of the app drawing 2.9 million accesses and delivering 450,000 live audio and video streams, increases of 132% and 83% respectively over the first weekend of Spring Training games in 2011. Since its 2008 debut, MLB.com At Bat has been the top grossing sports application and one of only two iOS apps inducted into the Halls of Fame for iPhone, iPad and Macworld.

MLB.com At Bat, as a single app for iPhone and iPad, today remains number one among the highest grossing rankings for both devices, a simultaneous distinction it also achieved during its 2011 launch when it became the first non-gaming app to hold both spots.

As previously announced, MLB.TV Premium subscribers can use their account credentials to get At Bat 12 for free. Fans also can subscribe to MLB.com At Bat 12 for the one-time seasonal fee of $14.99, covering Spring Training through the World Series, or iPhone and iPad users have the option of a $2.99 per month fee with the introduction of a monthly recurring billing option.

MLB.com At Bat 12 will deliver additional updates prior to Opening Day, highlighted by new features, offers and functionalities.

For more information, visit MLB.com.