Kate Longenecker of Perrysburg had hoped to be watching Major League Baseball as part of the MLB.com Fan Cave crew, but instead she was in the control room at Fifth Third Field, running the scores, stats and television graphics for the Mud Hens’ home opener.

She’s fine with that.

“I’ve only ever gotten anywhere with an optimistic attitude, so I was depressed for only a day,” she said about not making the final cut in the Fan Cave contest.

So despite not getting to go to spring training, or move into the New York City apartment where her job would have been to watch big-league ball games and talk about it on social media, she’s filing the contest under “fond memories” and “learning experiences” and getting ready for another Mud Hens season.

“It looks like I will be running the graphics from the production booth in the suites,” Longenecker wrote in an e-mail. “Keeping track of pitch count, score, player stats, and anything else graphics related for the television broadcast.”

Longenecker — a Philadelphia Phillies fan — was one of 52 people around the country who made the next-to-last cut out of about 10,000 applications for the Fan Cave. Those 52 hopefuls all sent in videos making their cases and asking for fan votes on the MLB.com Fan Cave page. From those, 30 were chosen to go to spring training and from those, the final nine Cave Dwellers were chosen.

This year’s cave dwellers will include Alexandria “Alex” Justice, an Indians fan from Cleveland, and Ben Wietmarschen, a Reds fan from Cincinnati.

On her video, Justice, 21, claimed that, as a student and fan of “The” Ohio State University, “I’m the nuttiest fan there could be” — and as an Indians fan on top of that, she’s one of the “most dedicated heart-filled fans in baseball.”

For his video, Wietmarschen, 28, listed his five favorite personal memories of baseball, which include chucking a roll of toilet paper at his Uncle Ted when the Reds won the World Series when he was 6 and spilling a Mountain Dew from one luxury box into another at Cincinnati’s stadium at age 10.

“I wonder if [the people in the other box] remember that,” he muses in the video. “I’d like to go back and apologize.”

Longnecker said she had been rooting for fellow Phillies fan Christine Lorigo of Boston, who made the cut for spring training, and thought Tigers fan Lindsay Beaver of Sterling Heights seemed “super passionate” and would have been “fun to watch in the Fan Cave.” Tigers fan Jay Tuohey of Clawson, Mich., was also a top-30 finalist.

But from her perch at Fifth Third Field, Longenecker said she’s ready for another season.

She’ll start work about three hours before game time, making sure all the information she needs is at hand for the game and for the half-hour pregame show.

She does similar chores for the Toledo Walleye hockey team and for Buckeye Cable Sports Network. She said she prefers the faster pace of hockey games, which also lets her be more creative with her scoreboard and stat displays and, not to mention, the Walleyes’ winning season made the job more fun.

“When the team is good I just get into it,” she said.

She’s hoping to “get into it” with the Hens as well this year.

“I’m just hoping for more wins!” she wrote. “Last year when we hit August and realized we were out of the playoffs it just wasn’t as fun. … I’m looking forward to seeing some of the faces back from last year like [right fielder Ben] Guez, [left fielder Dan] Kelly, [shortstop Argenis] Diaz — and of course getting to know the new guys. I’ll definitely need to practice spelling [Matt] Tuiasosopo, our new third baseman.”

If not a winning experience, it was a learning experience for Longenecker.

“It felt great to have support from so many people from Toledo, back home in Pennsylvania, and of course from Phillies fans all over the country,” she wrote. “I learned how useful social media can be, especially when reaching out to people you wouldn’t normally have access to.”

Ironically, she cut back on her Twitter use “because during that month it kind of consumed my life!”

Tags: Alex Justice, Alexandria Justice, Ben Wietmarschen, Fan Cave, Kate Longenecker, MLB, Toledo Mud Hens

This entry was posted on Monday, April 29th, 2013 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Mud Hens, Mud Hens Opening Day, Sports.
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Major League Baseball video game reviews by Michael Siebenaler – Toledo Free Press

Baseball season has begun so be sure to catch some Major League baseball video games with quality graphics and animations. Cross play with PlayStation 3 (PS3) and PlayStation Vita versions of “MLB 13 The Show” or try “MLB 2K13” on PS3 and/or Xbox 360 – all rated E.

“MLB 13 The Show” (Sony)

The PS3 (with full PlayStation Move capability) and PS Vita “MLB 12 The Show” versions allows players switch between both games with constant synchronization so either version presents current progress before players start or continue a game mode (season, franchise and Road to the Show). The new postseason mode and play now mode offer detailed gameplay within shorter times while new features this year include a beginner mode and other instructional elements that are perfect for new players. Online play is free. Real time MLB game broadcast presentations enhance the experience even more (***1/2).

“MLB 2K13” (2K Sports)

The “MLB 2K13” on Xbox 360 and PS3 lets players control pitching with a nice analog stick setup and a strong My Player mode where players experience more development in the minor leagues on the way to superstardom. Unfortunately, this game totally whiffs on online play. It’s gone and so are the PC, Nintendo DS, PSP, or Wii versions this year. Hardly any new enhancements or additions, but players can also win in real life in the Perfect Game Challenge, a skill-based competition with considerable cash prizes beginning on April 1, 2013 and ending on April 30, 2013 followed by a final competition (**1/2).

Tags: MLB, review, Siebenaler, Toledo Free Press, Video games

This entry was posted on Friday, April 5th, 2013 at 7:20 am and is filed under Arts and Life, Gaming, Star, Video Game Review, Video games.
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Kate Longenecker makes it her business to find fun ways to tell you the score. Now she’s asking you for a little bit of help to step up her game.

The Perrysburg woman is one of 52 fans of the national pastime who made the almost-final cut — from more than 10,000 applications — for Major League Baseball’s “Fan Cave.” The final winners will live in a Greenwich Village apartment, watch baseball and tweet, post and pin their opinions on social media and MLB’s own website.

“Who wouldn’t want to be paid to watch 2,400 baseball games, the opportunity to live in New York City and chronicle it on social media?” she asked, laughing.

Longenecker, like the other almost-finalists, made a video to state her case and it’s posted on the MLB Fan Cave website. Just scroll down until you see her in her red Philadelphia Phillies T-shirt and ball cap, then watch her spoof the Gangnam-style dance she hopes to replace with custom handshakes for each sports celebrity she meets.

“I do think I’d be an entertaining person to be in the Fan Cave,” she tells prospective voters.

Wait a minute? The Phillies? This is Toledo! Doesn’t our Major League heart belong to the Detroit Tigers?

Well, Longenecker is “Philly-born and raised,” as she says in her video, but moved to Toledo with her college boyfriend when he found a job here. She shopped her love of sports around and landed jobs with the Mud Hens and the Walleye, doing electronic graphics that keep fans up to speed on the stats that drive the games. She also does color commentary for Buckeye Cable Sports Network.

So if you’ve got the picture — fun puns are her specialty — “It’s what I make and what I create and what I do. You can be very creative with it.”

She’s hoping for more than a stretch in sports fan heaven from the Fan Cave, though. The whole idea is to get a group of fans who create buzz for the games through Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms, in addition to what they say on MLB.com. That’s an exploding trend sports organizations and sports broadcasters want to tap — Feb. 3’s Super Bowl XLVII set records for the number of fans watching the game streamed live on the Internet, and set a number of other records related to social media, according to the news site Mashable.com.

Longenecker’s also looking to get in front of that trend; she’s hoping to get some new ideas — graphics, tweets, posts, what have you — for how she lets Mud Hens and Walleyes fans know the score.

She’s already learned a thing or two — namely, how fast something can get going and growing online. Appearing on Twitter as @Klongen, she’s already developed friendships and “friendly rivalries” with some of the other finalists.

Voting at MLB.com ends Feb. 13; from the 52 videos, voters select 30 finalists who go to spring training in Arizona and then to the Fan Cave.

Tags: Baseball, contest, Fan Cave, Kate Longenecker, Major League Baseball, MLB, Perrysburg, vote

This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2013 at 12:56 pm and is filed under Baseball, Community, Sports.
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When I was growing up there seemed to be quite the emphasis on trying to make education fun. With the constant onslaught of technological entertainment available to my children, I find it more challenging today to make sure their fun is somewhat educational. I do not fear the prevalence of computers, video games, iPods and other electronic devices in my children’s not-so-little world, however they do demand new considerations for at-home learning.

As part of one of the first generations to spend life in front of various pixilated screens, I know firsthand the learning benefits associated with a technologically advanced society. Understanding the benefits of my children’s ever-changing electronic buffet as a parent can be a little more daunting. However, I have discovered quite a treasure trove of usable knowledge hidden beneath a pop culture façade of electronic time suckage:

Super Scribblenauts: Although I don’t know its true purpose, this Nintendo DS game has become nothing more than a spelling tutor at our house. Just about anything a child can dream up will pop up in the Super Scribblenauts fantasy world if he or she can spell it correctly. One drawback is that we’re never quite certain what will pop up. My children were slightly horrified to see a deathly skeleton appear when one of them typed in their little sister’s name. As best I can surmise, Super Scribblenauts defines “Lucy” as the 3-million-year-old skeletal remains found in Ethiopia in 1974, not our favorite 2-year-old.

Accuweather.com: Any local, national or international weather website will do, but my son happened upon AccuWeather and hasn’t been the same since. What started with some investigation into possible school closings last winter has led him into full-fledged weather-watching. When a video game piqued his interest in baseball at the same time he became anxious about thunderstorm watches (or t-storms watches as he so nerve-gratingly calls them), he began cross-referencing national weather patterns with the MLB schedule. Well, that’s something dear old mom couldn’t have bribed him to learn how to do even with a 10-foot pack of Airheads Extreme.

Electronic Sports of All Sorts: Since Ohio curriculum standards don’t dictate that kids even learn the 50 United States until the fifth grade, introducing children to the ever-shrinking world around them is crucial. Again, a couple of days with a video game like FIFA World Cup Soccer can work geographic wonders that a blank map and a nagging mother generally can’t.

Between video games, online soccer and Deportes Telemundo, my son picked up the names, spellings, flags and other miscellaneous tidbits about dozens of countries around the world in a short time. Other sports carried into our home via electronic means have added to not only his U.S. geographical skills, but also to his understanding of math, strategy and problem-solving.

Disney Princesses: Elaine, my little imagineer trapped in a princess’s body, first made her electronic-devices-as-education breakthrough when she discovered that Cinderella had her own Web address. It wasn’t long after I first showed her the Internet ropes that my then 4-year-old began stalking the Disney Princesses all by herself. “Look, Mom, I just put in the D for ‘Disney’ and the princesses came up as a choice.” Well, so it did. Still, the Disney website is not as responsible for my daughter’s foray into Web browsing as the notion that wanting something badly enough will produce the know-how to acquire it.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Speaking of necessity being the mother of invention, SpongeBob is Lucy’s digitally inked sensei. Although SpongeBob has become the poster sponge for mindless children’s programming, his power of attraction was enough to lure my toddler into figuring out how to hook up and operate a portable DVD player. Additionally, SpongeBob has helped Lucy to establish a keen sense of humor beyond her 28 months, which is as important to an Irish-descended mother as anything else.

YouTube: Perhaps the nexus of the technology-meets-education universe, YouTube may just hold the power to disarm the public education system faster than Gov. John Kasich and the 129th Ohio General Assembly. I have no idea who is spending their time compiling videos that teach me how to collapse our pop-up princess tent, but I salute your valiant and no-cost-to-me effort. You are giving me the tools to show my children exactly how the earth travels around the sun and how a tsunami forms, while also allowing computernerd01, this young generation’s “Weird Al” Yankovic, to get Generation X mothers up to speed on today’s biggest pop hits, minus the correct lyrics, of course.

Fortunately for today’s parents, education is everywhere and comes in every format. If we are too quick to dismiss the good with the bad, or fail to recognize that good does exist in a world we may not fully understand, we may be brushing aside effective learning opportunities for our children.

Shannon and her husband Michael are raising three children in Sylvania. Email her at letters@toledofreepress.com.

Tags: Accuweather.com, Disney, Disney Princesses, Family Practice, FIFA World Cup, Generation X, John Kasich, MLB, Nintendo DS, Shannon Szyperski, SpongeBob SquarePants, Super Scribblenauts, Weird Al Yankovic, YouTube

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 9th, 2011 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Arts and Life, Family Practice.
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