Greenville Drive Baseball

[goodbye]

What is the point of broadcasting only home games on the internet? I would think the road games are more important, since very few people would be able to travel with the team. I was hoping to hear the first game of the season from the Drive's perspective. As for the overall design, I think it lacks simplicity and "sharpness." I'll get back with other reasons when I have more time to respond.

[phillytiger]

If I wanted to learn who the players on the team were, where would I go? How about the coaches?

Speaking of nostalgia, where would I go to learn about Greenville baseball history, like you can on the Augusta Green Jacket site (built by the same company that did the Drive's)? How about the history of the Bombers/ Drive organization? Ownership?

If I was interested in learning about team promotions, say I wanted to know if the Famous Chicken was coming, where would I go on the site for that?

If I wanted to buy team merchandise, how would I do that? I see a link for a fitted hat, I click on it and I go to a white page. Is there an online store?

If I ran a community organization, and wanted to rent a box, buy some group seats, etc, could I easily learn how to do that with the Drive website?

If I wanted to go to other sites of teams in the Red Sox organization, where is that link? In fact, I don't see anything about the Red Sox on that site, or that the Drive are the Low A affiliate of the BoSox. That seems important.

If I was new to the area, or a businessman staying over night with some time on my hands, where are the directions to West End Field?

There were some nice articles in the First Pitch program last year, and I assume that there will be more this year about Drive players, etc. Seems some of those should be archived onlline.

If I wanted to contact someone about having Reedy Rip-It come to my event, etc., where would I learn about that on the website?

Just a few random thoughts on first look of it. I have no doubt that the Drive will have another successful year, probably break last year's Greenville minor league baseball record for attendance and folks will continue to have a good time. Just some of the edges could stand to be polished.

I'm pretty sure all of those things will be in the navigation tool (Lineup Card) that isn't loading properly on the left hand side. When that gets fixed it everything should be running smoother.

Edited April 6, 2007 by phillytiger

[phillytiger]

What is the point of broadcasting only home games on the internet? I would think the road games are more important, since very few people would be able to travel with the team. I was hoping to hear the first game of the season from the Drive's perspective. As for the overall design, I think it lacks simplicity and "sharpness." I'll get back with other reasons when I have more time to respond.

They only broadcasted home games last year. Ed Jenson from WORD Radio is their play-by-play announcer and he is unable to travel with the team due to his responsibilities with Entercom. It's also pretty costly to broadcast games online.

[lifeisajourney]

I'm pretty sure all of those things will be in the navigation tool (Lineup Card) that isn't loading properly on the left hand side. When that gets fixed it everything should be running smoother.

That's good to hear. Things like player and coach information and a season schedule are the most basic types of information to include on a sports website. Hopefully these bugs will be fixed shortly.

[NYTransplant]

I like the idea of the web page, but the execution was sub-par.

Hopefully they work it out soon.

[Chickenwing]

It's pretty bad. Nothing is worse than horizontal scrolling though. Either the columns should be relative widths or the page should not be larger than 1024px. Just makes for a frustrating user experience.

[whitehourseview]

I think my favorite part of the website is the animated video clip running right now of the Lehigh Valley Iron Pig AAA baseball team running on the embedded media player and not the Drive.

But that's probably just a bandwidth problem from the hosting company, right?

[goodbye]

I say it again; "Very unprofessional."

[phillytiger]

Looks like everything is up and running on the new Drive site, the stuff on the left hand side has been fixed. I have not experienced any problems with the size, I think it works best if you're set with a width of 800 pixels.

Now that it looks like the navigation stuff has been fixed, what would you guys change about it?

[goodbye]

At least it works - very slowly. It is still not user friendly and inconsistent between pages. Hopefully it will smooth out over time though.

[Galley]

How to visit the Greenville Drive's website:

1. Enter www.greenvilledrive.com in our browser's address bar.

2. Go out and do all of your shopping.

3. By the time you get back, the page should be fully loaded.

Seriously, after more than two minutes it still wasn't loaded, and it crashed my browser.

[whitehourseview]

At least it works - very slowly. It is still not user friendly and inconsistent between pages. Hopefully it will smooth out over time though.

I'll second Skyliner's comments.

Other than unpopulated pages, VERY slow access - as in stopping all other tabs open on my web browser while the page takes a few minutes to load on my somewhat fast DSL connection, an odd, large page design, links that take you back to the home page when you wanted to go somewhere else, etc.

I counted 14 individual graphical elements below the banner on the home page. That's a lot going on on one page. It's like a Myspace page. Not every page has a return link to the home page, and there still isn't much connection to the Boston Red Sox, or their other minor league organizations.

I'd really play up that West End Field was 2007 Ballpark of the year, with either the link to the Ballpark Digest folks, or a description of why it was so named.

Not trying to be hard on the web designers, and I assume you are somehow connected to them PhilyTiger, but it can be a lot better.

[linkerjpatrick]

As a web developer myself I would have done quite a few things differently;

1.) The menu system in inconsistent and lame

2.) Half of the interface elements are "below the fold" (print term but means you have to scroll town a whole visible page height to see some of the things

3.) If I was an advertiser I would be upset where they are putting my ads (yes I know site visitors could care less but the location they put the ads is one of the most ineffective spots to put a web ad.

4.) What's the big black nothingness in the center of the site? (nevermind I went back to the site and an image showed up but if you scroll around the image disappears, looks like some bad coding. I just looked at the code and I can tell you they are a lot better solutions. It looks the navigation code somehow wipes the center images out during mouseover, ugh... )

The old design wasn't the best but this one is totally unusable. I'm big on incorporating usability principles in the sites I design and this site seems to break almost all of them.

I can understand of they were using their design on a spread in the programs they sell but it's a web site, not a program or poster.

Hopefully something can be done in the near future...

[lifeisajourney]

I'm glad that things have been updated, including the season scheduled. Oddly enough though, the opening night game at Charleston has been recorded as a 0-0 tie (seriously? haha) on the schedule even though a story about the 1-0, 10-inning loss is on the main page.

[Greenville]

I saw the fireworks from the game from my apartment window, and hoped that didn't mean that we (the Drive) lost...

Edited April 7, 2007 by Greenville

[lifeisajourney]

I saw the fireworks from the game from my apartment window, and hoped that didn't mean that we (the Drive) lost...

The Drive fall to 0-2 on the season with another loss at Charleston tonight: http://www.greenvilledrive.com/clubhouse/n...l?article_id=22.

[Chickenwing]

Looks like everything is up and running on the new Drive site, the stuff on the left hand side has been fixed. I have not experienced any problems with the size, I think it works best if you're set with a width of 800 pixels.

Now that it looks like the navigation stuff has been fixed, what would you guys change about it?

If you are using 800px width, then you are missing the stuff on the right hand side. I am viewing it at 1280x800 and although I can see everything, there is still a horizontal scroll bar.

There is waaaaay too much stuff going on with this page.

[gs3]

Hope a bunch of you photographers are going to the opener tonight and snapping photos! We should all wear caps that say U.P.

See ya there!

[RestedTraveler]

I didn't think I was going to be home in time to go to opening day, but I am home. I don't plan to go tonight, though. I definitely am going tomorrow night to see Jon Lester pitch, considering he and my mother had a disease in common.

[gs3]

Good to see you RT. Hope all is going as well as possible for you.

The game was great last night.....the experience of being back in West End Field was fantastic! Excellent, excellent energy! I love it! Took some photos that I need to sort through (lots of blury photos due to lots of beer) and will try to post later today.

Saw numerous people with camera's, so I know several were probably other UPer's.

[GvilleSC]

How was the atmosphere in the West End???

[GE Turbine Man]

How was the atmosphere in the West End???

Before the game it was pretty active around the park, and even down main towards the park. Will only increase as they open more in the fieldhouse, especially the taproom.

[Galley]

Ugh! I had to work last night so I couldn't go to Opening Night, and I also had to miss my Mac User's Group meeting.

There's no way I'm gonna miss Thursday's game.

[RestedTraveler]

Good to see you RT. Hope all is going as well as possible for you.

Great to be back!

How was the atmosphere in the West End???

I dropped in before the game to pick up a ticket for tonight's game and the place was buzzing! One thing I did notice this year as compared to last year ... there didn't seem to be such a huge fuss along River Street over "park here for Drive Games!!!" Nor did I see anybody making an effort to put out parking maps and bus routes. I suppose everybody used last season to settle into a favorite parking place. It's become a routine now, and it's a comfortable one at that!

[gs3]

^ Interesting observation. I noticed this with the way people were flowing in and around the ballpark. Everyone seemed more knowledgeable about the way things worked and where to go.

It was a great evening. Thought the chill in the air added to it!