The 2013 Major League Baseball season is upon us. The first game was played Sunday night and the remainder of the games started Monday afternoon. It’s the beginning of a long season, but one beloved by so many across the country. It remains America’s pastime and provides an incredible activity for many to do during the spring and summer.
Whether you want to follow your favorite team or every team because of fantasy baseball, we’ve got some must have apps for you. Check them out, let us know what you think, and most importantly, play ball!
MLB.com At Bat (Lite - free, full - $19.99)
The official app from Major League Baseball and always a great app choice among baseball fans. The app gives you a simple scoreboard of the entire MLB action, the latest news from around the league, current standings and stats. In addition, if you’re an At Bat 13 subscriber ($19.99), you can hear audio from any game you’d like as well as view in-game video and highlights. In case you don't remember, they've just changed their payment method. It's now free to download and the premium features are an in-app purchase. Whenever I want to check baseball scores from around the league, this is the first app I go to. I really like the layout and the UI. Well done MLB.
- Download: MLB.com At Bat
ESPN Fantasy Baseball (free)
I am a big fantasy baseball player. Most of my teams are on ESPN, so I’ve used their app over the years and have seen it evolve. The icon has changed for this year, a simple change that I like. Other than that, it seems like the app you know and love from years past. You get your current matchups up top, followed by major headlines and social media plus videos at the bottom. From there, you can visit your league’s home or go straight to either your team or the scoreboard. You can set your lineup, add or drop players, propose or accept trades, manage your DL or trash talk in the message boards. Not overly different from last year, but it works well, so why drastically change it?
- Download: ESPN Fantasy Baseball
MLB.com At The Ballpark (free)
Another great app from the MLB. It is designed exclusively for everyone that is attending baseball games in person. You choose a ballpark (it’ll find the closest using GPS) and it'll provide the schedule for the year, available tickets and current promotions, a map of the ballpark, directions on how to get there, the ability to share photos and videos of your own of the park, music, team stats and rewards for checking in at the ballpark. It’s a great app to have when you’re at the ballpark and I love that major League Baseball made it. A must have for fans who attend a lot of games.
- Download: MLB.com At The Ballpark
Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball (free)
If you’re a fantasy baseball player on Yahoo!, you’ll want to get the official app. It gives you quick access to live fantasy scores, the ability to make changes to your lineup, access to message boards and an easy way to view all available free agents. Yahoo! has done a fine job with their app in the past and has improved upon it this year. You can even grant access to Yahoo! Sportacular app, which aggregates all sports news in one.
- Download: Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball
CBS Sports (free)
The CBS Sports app is not solely focused on baseball, but it has a pretty nice UI that I think many will love. With a left panel displaying the major sports or different settings that you can customize, such as My Watchlist, it’s easy to navigate. The MLB scores are available, which lead to much more detailed info if you click on a match up. White dominates this app, which is why I think it looks nice. They’ve done a really great with their design. You can also view live Tweets for the current game you’re looking at, which is pretty neat. Once I signed into Twitter, they popped right up. Instead of having to go to the Twitter app, and search for a hashtag, this provides all of that info right here. It’s a feature that I know I’m going to use as the season goes on.
- Download: CBS Sports
SportsTap (free)
With many sports apps getting huge UI lifts, I’ve found myself constantly going back to Sportstap. It’s fast and if all you want are the updated scores for the games, it’s a great place to begin. It’s not as fully features as many of the other apps, but to have it just there just in case may be a good idea. It provides scores from all leagues, including the MLB, standings, stats and important news headlines. Not the prettiest UI, but always works when needed.
- Download: SportsTap
