File photo by Fritz Busch Pictured is a closeup of Johnson Park’s new video scoreboard, which was installed this past May.

NEW ULM — It has been about a month since the new video scoreboard at Johnson Park made its appearance.

And according to Joe Eckstein, the Scoreboard Manager for the New Ulm Baseball Association, the abilities of the video board have grown exponentially as far as putting different content on the board.

“We have more enhanced and sharper content,” Eckstein said. “We put pictures and names of our players on the board and [Wednesday] we were also able to put the names of the Stark players on the board. There were methods that I used that enabled me to create that content. But a big thing is getting their roster in a data-type format that can be fed into the content-creating software and then auto generating some of that content. And you create a design of what you want that walk-up slide for New Ulm players to look like — logo and color. And the size for the board is always a consideration too.”

While Eckstein has the pictures and names of the Brewers players for the video board, he also created a “Brewers Splash” that plays prior to the game.

“That was one of my first designs that I put on the board,” he said. “One of the biggest things for them was to rally the players and the fans, so I took their logo and coloring and added some background music that says we are here to play.”

July 30 through August 2, New Ulm will be the host of the DI State American Legion Baseball Tournament. Eckstein is attempting to do something that has never been done before — getting the rosters and pictures of all teams and players who will play — and being able to put them on the video board at Johnson Park when they play a game there.

“Wednesday was the first time we were able to get the visiting team on the video board with limited data,” he said. “We do not know who is going to be playing yet. But once we get that information — get a roster put together — then I can create similar walk-ups for each one of the visiting teams. I may not have pictures. Each team wil get a folder from the state asking for information and that contains a layout that I have for them if they want to add a player’s picture added and I have instructions for them.”

And while the video board is a big project, another project that Eckstein is working on is the HUDL cameras that are at both Johnson and Mueller Parks.

“I want to make that a community thing,” he said. “I was down at Oak Hills Wednesday and I talked to them about that. HUDL provides livestream capabilities and it also records the games and they are saved. And what is nice about this livestreaming is not everybody can make it to the parks. But by providing livestreaming, we can bring the baseball game to them — they can have that experience that they grew up with they can relive it with the technology that is available today.”

Eckstein said that the initial response was upbeat.

“Rachel Becker, who I worked with at Oak Hills, said it was fantastic on the initial discussion,” Eckstein said. “They wanted to try and show the game [Wednesday]. They may have put it on multiple TVs there.”

Eckstein added that there is a possibility of local establishments carrying the livestreaming of local games.

But right now, Eckstein has his attention to this Sunday at 5 p.m. at Johnson Park for the Hall of Fame game when the Brewers host Springfield.

“We will have some special graphics,” he said. “This will make it more engaging for the audiences and the fans. And have a good time when they come down.”

Eckstein said that the ideas and projects for the video board now are just the tip of the iceberg for uses.