Baseball Road Trip for iPhone

08.06.2009

Those are just minor criticisms, though. Baseball Road Trip has a couple of more serious issues that keep it from being an all-star app. One problem is the way the app displays all these stadium details--in one long, vertical list. That leads to a lot of scrolling. It seems like there might be a friendlier organizational scheme.

More significant, Baseball Road Trip is missing a couple of key data points. If you want directions to a ballpark, you've got to jump to the Maps app, leaving Baseball Road Trip behind. That's an acceptable approach, I suppose, but it seems like the app should provide some cursory How To Get There data--especially when it comes to public transit options. Nearly every MLB team Web site contains that information, so it wouldn't be particularly hard to come by.

The app is also missing the answers to the two most important questions baseball fans ask themselves when contemplating a trip to a strange, new yard: Where should I sit? And how much is this going to set me back? A seating chart with accompanying ticket prices seems like a must-have for this kind of app. While it would admittedly be no small feat to include 30 stadium charts in a single app, it still feels like a major omission from an otherwise thorough offering.

I like Baseball Road Trip--I really do--and I think that most baseball fans will get some value out of it, provided they accept its limitations. But there's plenty of room for this app to raise its game in future editions.