Make your own PitchFX database. - Bahnzo's Blog

Bahnzo's Blog

Make your own PitchFX database.

Posted on May 5, 2010 at 09:50 PM.

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Get it HERE.

Ever wanted to have a database of MLB's PitchFX data, but found it too daunting to use any of the Perl scripts available on the net? Well here it is.

GetPitchFX is a windows program that will automatically retrieve the PitchFX data from the web, and insert it into a database. It works for either Access 2007 (with the empty database included, it's needed if you intend to use Access) or SQL. I use MySQL, so I know it works with that, I can't verify other flavors of SQL.

Using GetPitchFX
Pretty simple...on startup the program will ask you for a folder to save your PitchFX data into. I suggest creating a new folder, the program will then remember this folder and use it from then on. Choose your database and the year, and click the button. The program will query the database, find the last day you've gotten, and then connect to the MLB website and begin to download the PitchFX data up to the current date. It actually only gets it up until the day before/yesterday to make sure it gets a full day.

If you are using SQL, you will need to input the hostname, username, password, and database name. The program will remember these for later. You will need to manually create an empty database...the program will create the needed table when it connects to the SQL database initially.

After each day is inputted into the database, the program will then delete the data from the folder so it won't eat up diskspace. If you click cancel to stop the program, it will delete the data, but also it will query the database and delete the current day's data you were getting. So when you run the program again, it will start on that day and continue to get the data so none is missed.

I'm guessing you will need to have Office2007 to be able to use the data in an Access database. MySQL is free and a better and faster alternative. Also, this program needs the Microsoft .Net 3.5 framework to operate, so please make sure you have this installed on your computer.