mlbv - MLB stream viewer

mlbv is a command-line interface to the MLB.tv service. It's primary purpose is to allow you to view game streams on linux, including live streams, with a valid MLB tv subscription. It also allows you to view game status, results and schedules, stream highlights (recap and condensed games), and filter results based on favourite teams.

Features:

• stream or record live or archived MLB games (requires MLB.tv subscription)
• show completed game highlights (condensed or recap) (no subscription required)
• display game schedules for given day or number of days
  • option to show or hide scores
• filter display based on favourite teams
• show standings

This project is inspired from the streamglob project, although it differs in that it does not provide an interactive interface. It strictly command-line based, although it does offer quite a few options to view game-related data. This project allows you to quickly find the game, status, or highlights of your favourite team.

Note: if you have fzf installed, try using the included wrapper script mlbv-fzf (see wiki) which provides a more interactive interface for game selection.

This package requires a valid MLB.tv subscription in order to view live or archived games. It is also subject to local blackout restrictions. However, if you don't have a subscription you can still view game recaps or condensed games.

Sample console output (default, no linescore):

       2018-04-10 Tue                            Series  │ Score │   State   │ Feeds
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┼───────┼───────────┼────────────────
14:10: Tampa Bay (TB) at Chi White Sox (CWS)       2/3   │  6-5  │ Final     │ a,h cnd,rcp
14:20: Pittsburgh (PIT) at Chi Cubs (CHC)          1/3   │  8-5  │ Final     │ a,h,ima cnd,rcp
18:10: Detroit (DET) at Cleveland (CLE)            2/4   │  1-2  │ Final     │ a,h cnd,rcp
19:05: Atlanta (ATL) at Washington (WSH)           2/3   │  1-4  │ Final     │ a,h cnd,rcp
19:05: Cincinnati (CIN) at Philadelphia (PHI)      2/3   │  1-6  │ Final     │ a,h cnd,rcp
19:05: Toronto (TOR) at Baltimore (BAL)            2/3   │  2-1  │ Final     │ a,h cnd,rcp
19:10: NY Mets (NYM) at Miami (MIA)                2/3   │  8-6  │ Final     │ a,h cnd,rcp
19:10: NY Yankees (NYY) at Boston (BOS)            1/3   │ 1-14  │ Final     │ a,h cnd,rcp
20:05: LA Angels (LAA) at Texas (TEX)              2/3   │ 11-1  │ Final     │ a,h cnd,rcp
20:10: Houston (HOU) at Minnesota (MIN)            2/3   │  1-4  │ Final     │ a,h,ima cnd,rcp
20:15: Milwaukee (MIL) at St. Louis (STL)          2/3   │  3-5  │ Final(11) │ a,h cnd,rcp
20:15: Seattle (SEA) at Kansas City (KC)           2/3   │  8-3  │ Final     │ a,h,ima cnd,rcp
20:40: San Diego (SD) at Colorado (COL)            2/3   │  5-2  │ Final     │ a,h,imh cnd,rcp
22:10: Oakland (OAK) at LA Dodgers (LAD)           1/2   │  0-4  │ Final     │ a,h cnd,rcp
22:15: Arizona (ARI) at San Francisco (SF)         2/3   │  4-5  │ Final     │ a,h cnd,rcp

Linescore output:

       2018-04-10 Tue
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
19:05: Toronto (TOR) at Baltimore (BAL)                  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  R  H  E
2/3    Final: 2-1                                  TOR   0  0  0  0  0  0  0  1  1  2  7  0
       Feeds: a,h cnd,rcp                          BAL   0  0  0  0  0  0  0  1  0  1  3  2
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

Standings output:

   ═════════ Division ═════════   W   L PCT   GB   WGB  Streak
   ─── American League West ────────────────────────────────
1  Los Angeles Angels            12   3 .800  -    -    [W6]
2  Houston Astros                10   4 .714  1.5  +1.0 [W1]
3  Seattle Mariners               7   4 .636  3.0  0.5  [W3]
4  Oakland Athletics              5   9 .357  6.5  4.0  [L1]
5  Texas Rangers                  4  11 .267  8.0  5.5  [L5]
   ─── American League East ────────────────────────────────
1  Boston Red Sox                11   2 .846  -    -    [W2]
2  Toronto Blue Jays              9   5 .643  2.5  -    [W1]
3  New York Yankees               7   7 .500  4.5  2.0  [W1]
4  Baltimore Orioles              5   9 .357  6.5  4.0  [L1]
5  Tampa Bay Rays                 3  10 .231  8.0  5.5  [L2]
   ─── American League Central ─────────────────────────────
1  Minnesota Twins                7   4 .636  -    -    [W3]
2  Cleveland Indians              8   6 .571  0.5  1.0  [L1]
3  Chicago White Sox              4   8 .333  3.5  4.0  [L1]
4  Detroit Tigers                 4   9 .308  4.0  4.5  [L5]
5  Kansas City Royals             3   9 .250  4.5  5.0  [L4]
   ─── National League Central ─────────────────────────────
1  Pittsburgh Pirates             9   4 .692  -    -    [L1]
2  Milwaukee Brewers              7   7 .500  2.5  1.0  [L1]
3  St. Louis Cardinals            7   7 .500  2.5  1.0  [W2]
4  Chicago Cubs                   6   7 .462  3.0  1.5  [L2]
5  Cincinnati Reds                2  11 .154  7.0  5.5  [L6]
   ─── National League West ────────────────────────────────
1  Arizona Diamondbacks          10   3 .769  -    -    [W2]
2  Colorado Rockies               8   7 .533  3.0  0.5  [W3]
3  San Francisco Giants           6   7 .462  4.0  1.5  [L1]
4  Los Angeles Dodgers            4   8 .333  5.5  3.0  [L2]
5  San Diego Padres               5  10 .333  6.0  3.5  [W1]
   ─── National League East ────────────────────────────────
1  New York Mets                 11   1 .917  -    -    [W9]
2  Atlanta Braves                 8   5 .615  3.5  +0.5 [W2]
3  Philadelphia Phillies          7   5 .583  4.0  -    [W4]
4  Washington Nationals           6   8 .429  6.0  2.0  [L3]
5  Miami Marlins                  4   9 .308  7.5  3.5  [W1]

This project incorporates some code modified from the following projects:

• mlbstreamer: a similar project.
  • Session authentication code is taken shamelessly from this project.
• Kodi plugin.video.mlbtv

Pre-Requisites:

mlbv requires the following software to be installed and configured:

• python
  • python v3 (tested with 3.6)
• python modules (installed by pip install):
  • requests module
  • python-dateutil module
  • python-lxml module
• streamlink
• a video player. Either vlc or mpv is recommended.
  • Note: player can be specified via config file. If player is not on the system path you may need to setup the full path in the config file.

This software is tested under linux. It should work under Windows or Mac with the pre-requisites installed, but may require minor tweaks (bug reports are welcome).

1. Installation

Via pip

This project is on the Python Package Index (Pypi) at mlbv, and can be installed using pip.

1. Run pip install mlbv
2. Run mlbv --init to create a configuration directory and populate the config file with defaults and the required MLB.tv username and password. See the next section for more details.

Archlinux

Install mlbv via the AUR.

2. Configuration

After installing, run:

mlbv --init

This will create the initial config file/directory and populate it with the prompted MLB.tv username and password. The config file will be located at $HOME/.config/mlbv/config. Directories are created if necessary.

Other properties in the config file are documented in the file itself. If you want to stream live or archived games then you must provide valid login credentials (if you don't have MLB.tv you can still see scores and watch highlights).

Some properties you may want to set in the config file:

• username: MLB.tv account username
• password: MLB.tv account password
• favs: a comma-separated list of team codes which:
  • 1. are highlighted in the game data, and
  • 2. are used for the default filter in the -o/--filter option (to show only the favourite team(s))
• scores: a boolean specifying whether or not you want to see scores in the game information. Warning: spoilers!
• resolution: the stream quality (passed in to streamlink). Use '720p_alt' for full HD at 60 frames/sec.
  • options are: 'worst', '224p', '288p', '360p', '504p', '540p', '720p', '720p_alt', 'best'
• linescore: to enable linescores by default (if scores are enabled)

3. QUICKSTART

Here's a quick overview of the most common usage options:

mlbv               # show today's schedule/scores
mlbv -l            # show today's linescores
mlbv -t tor        # play today's Jays game, either live (if in-progress), or from the start (if archived)
mlbv --recaps      # play all of today's recaps
mlbv --standings   # show current standings

Help is available by running:

mlbv --help   # short help
mlbv --usage  # view full documenation

4. Default Behaviour: Show Schedule/Scores

Running mlbv by itself shows you the status of today's games, including scores (unless you've configured to hide scores by default).

Scores/No-Scores

The scores option in the config file controls whether or not scores are shown. If false then no scores are shown. Scores are also not shown before a feed is launched.

You can temporarily override the config file using either -s/--scores or -n/--no-scores options.

Linescores

Linescores are displayed using the -l/--linescore option. You can also make linescores the default in the config file.

Since linescores take up more screen real estate it can be useful to combine them with a filter to limit the number of games shown.

Dates and Filters

See the sections below on Dates and Filters for more information on specifying dates and filtering output based on league, division, favourites, or arbitrary teams.

Note on Arguments

Frequently used arguments have both a long form with double-dash -- argument and a short form which uses a single dash -.

For the long form arguments, you can shorten any option name down to the shortest unique value. For example, rather than having to type --yesterday you can shorten it right down to --y. However, you can only shorten --tomorrow down to --to since there is also the --team option (which makes --t non-unique).

Show Extra Information (--info)

The --info option will show extra textual information for either the game preview or the game summary (depending on which is available). The extra information is displayed inline, within the game info.

• Pregame: shows probable starting pitchers (when available).
• Postgame (when available): shows game summary, and full game recap article.

The default for --info is actually equivalent to --info=full. If you want to have a more brief set of extra information, use --info=short or just --info short. You can also permanently set the full/short default for this setting via the config file setting: info_display_articles=true|false (i.e. setting info_display_articles=false will cause --info to behave like --info=short).

NOTE: Since there may be a lot of text to present, this option tends to work best with the -o/--filter option, which filters the display out by a team or set of teams. See the 'Filters' section for more information'

Examples:

mlbv --info --yes     # show yesterday's games with full article info
mlbv --info -o --yes  # show yesterday's games with full article info, filtered by favs
mlbv --info -o tor,bos --yes  # show yesterday's games with full article info, filtered for only tor,bos

mlbv --info=short --yes  # show yesterday's games with only summary info

mlbv --info        # show today's games with full info (probable pitchers, with details)
mlbv --info -o     # show today's games with full info (probable pitchers only), filtered by favs
mlbv --info short  # show today's games with summary info (probable pitchers only)

5. Watching a Live or Archived Game

Watching a game is triggered by the -t/--team TEAM option. With this option the game stream (live or archived) is launched for the given team.

When passing -t/--team TEAM option, the stream is launched for the given team. By default the local feed for the given team is chosen - i.e., it will follow the home/away feed appropriate for the team so that you get the local team feed. You can override the feed using the -f/--feed option. This works for either live games or for archived games (e.g. if you use the --date option to select an earlier date).

Example:

mlbv --team tor          # play the live Blue Jays game
mlbv --yesterday -t tor  # play yesterday's Blue Jays game (see below for options on specifying dates)

Feed Selection

By default the local feed for the given team is chosen - i.e., it will follow the home/away feed appropriate for the given team so that you get the team's local feed if available. You can override the feed using the -f/--feed option. This works for either live games or for archived games (e.g. if you use the --date option to select an earlier date).

mlbv --team tor --feed away  # choose the away feed (assuming Toronto is the home team, you will get the
                             # opposing team's feed)

Specifying Stream Start Location

For an in-progress game, the stream will join the live game at the current time. Use either --from-start or the --inning/-i option to override this behaviour.

For an archived game, the stream will start from the beginning.

Start from Inning

For both live and archived games you can start from the top or bottom of an inning:

mlbv --team tor --inning t5  # start from top of 5th
mlbv -t tor -i t5            # same thing but with short switches
mlbv --team tor --inning b5  # start from bottom of 5th

Start from Beginning (Live Game)

For a live game, you can start from the beginning with:

mlbv --team tor --from-start  # start stream at beginning, live games only

Doubleheaders

If a game is a doubleheader then you can select the second game using the -g/--game argument. By default it will select the first game.

6. Record/Fetch

If you pass the -f/--fetch option, instead of launching the video player, the selected stream is saved to disk. The stream is named to convention: <date>-<away_team>-<home_team>-<feed>.ts.

• Live games have extension .ts, highlight games are .mp4

Example: 2018-03-31-nyy-tor-home.ts.

If your player supports it, you can select the stream to fetch, then manually launch your video player at a later time while the stream is being saved to file.

Example:

mlbv --team tor --fetch  # Fetch the live jays game to disk. 
                         # Most video players allow you to view while downloading

7. Highlights: Recap or Condensed Games

Playing the game highlight is triggered by using the -f/--feed option. The recap or condensed feeds show up after a game has ended. To watch the highlight, specify one of those feeds along with the team name in the -t/--team option.

Example:

mlbv --team tor -f condensed
mlbv --team tor -f recap

NOTE: You don't need login credentials to play highlights.

Playing Multiple Game Recaps (for a given day)

The --recaps option lets you select a batch of game recaps to watch for a given day. This option shows game recaps either for all games or for a selected set of teams (using a filter). If no argument is given to recaps then no filter is applied.

Usage:

--recaps ?filter?  : filter is optional, if not supplied then all games are selected

Examples:

mlbv --recaps                       # show all available game recaps for today's games
mlbv --yesterday --recaps           # show all available game recaps for yesterday's games
mlbv --yesterday --recaps ale       # show available game recaps for yesterday's games
                                    # in the American League East
mlbv --yesterday --recaps tor,wsh   # show game recaps for yesterday's Toronto, Boston games
mlbv --yesterday --recaps tor,wsh --fetch   # same as above but save to disk instead of view

8. Specifying Dates

You can specify the date to view using one of the following:

-d|--date yyyy-mm-dd    # specific date
--yesterday (or --yes)  # shortcut to yesterday
--tomorrow  (or --tom)  # shortcut to tomorrow

For listing game data only (doesn't make sense for viewing), you can specify a number of days using the --days DAYS option. Use this to show a schedule. It's useful with the --filter option to filter based on favourite team(s).

9. Filters

You can filter the schedule/scores displays using the -o/--filter argument. The filter argument allows you to provide either a built-in filter name or a comma-separated list of team codes.

The filter option has the form:

-o/--filter ?filter?  : where ?filter? is optional, and is either 
                        a 'filter name' or a comma-separated list of teams

Note: -o is used as the short form because -f is taken. mnemonic: -o -> 'only'

Note: Aside from the --filter command, other command arguments accept the same 'filter' string. For example --linescore ?filter? and --recaps ?filter?

Built-in Filters

If ?filter? is not given then the built-in filter favs is used. favs is a filter which you can define in the config file to list your favourite team(s).

Other built-in filters are available which group teams by league and division. The filter names are:

• al, ale, alc, alw (American League, AL East, AL Central, AL West)
• nl, nle, nlc, nlw (National League, NL East, NL Central, NL West)

Using one of the above filter names will include those selected teams in the output.

Ad-hoc Filters

You can also use any comma-separated list of team codes for a filter.

Examples:

--filter tor            # single team filter
--filter tor,bos,wsh    # multiple team filter
-o tor,bos,wsh          # same as above using shorter `-o` form

Note: Do not use spaces between commas unless you encapsulate the list in quotes.

10. Standings

You can display standings via the --standings [category] option. This option displays the given standings category then exits.

You can also specify a league or division filter via -o/--filter.

Standings categories:

• all
• division [default]
• conference
• wildcard
• league
• postseason
• preseason

By default, the division standings are displayed for today's date. You can add the -d/--date yyyy-mm-dd option to show standings for any given date.

You don't have to specify the full standings category, it will match any substring given. e.g. --standings d will match division or --standings wild will match wildcard.

You can also use the -o/--filter option to narrow down what is displayed. e.g. --standings division --filter ale

10. Statistics

You can display statistics via the --stats option. This option displays the given statistics category then exits.

There are two main stats categories:

• league
• team

The stats category and further options are selected via arguments to --stats:

league|<team>[:category][:qualifier]

Where the category and qualifier are used to narrow down the statistics returned. The category is one of 'hitting', 'fielding', or 'pitching', while the qualifier differs for league and team stats. These are outlined further in their respective sections below.

By default, the league standings are displayed for today's date. You can also add the -d/--date yyyy-mm-dd option to show standings for any given date.

Categories

Statistics are broken out into three main categories:

• hitting
• fielding
• pitching

By default, all three categories are shown. You can specify any of the above to limit the output to one of the main categories.

You don't have to specify the full statistics category, it will match any substring given. e.g. --stats league:h is the same as league:hitting.

League Statistics

The league stats show the leaders over the three main categories, for various statistic measurements.

The league --stats format is:

league:[category]:[qualifier]
    [category]: one of: hitting, fielding, pitching, all [default: all]
    [qualifier]: all, qualified, rookies [default: qualified]

Filters:

League stats can be filtered by league. Valid filters are al, american, or nl, national. These are specified via the standard -o/--filter option.

Examples:

mlbv --stats league                    # league stats for all categories, qualified players
mlbv --stats league:hitting:qualified  # hitting stats, include qualified players (default)
mlbv --stats league:hitting:rookies    # hitting stats, only rookies
mlbv --stats league::rookies           # rookie leaders, all categories
mlbv --stats league:hitting:all        # hitting stats, all players
mlbv --stats league:fielding
mlbv --stats league:pitching
mlbv --stats league:pitching -o al     # filter by american league
mlbv --stats league -o nl              # filter by american league

You can also include --date, to specify the season (league stats are per-season):

mlbv --stats league --date 2010  # league stats for 2010

By default, 10 entries are given for each individual displayed statistic. You can override this via a config setting: stats_limit. For example, you could add this to your config file to only show 5 entries per individual statistic:

stats_limit=5

Team Statistics

The second form of statistics are for a given team. Here you use the team abbreviation plus the optional category:qualifier. The team form is

<team>:[category]:[qualifier]
    <team>: the team abbreviation
    [category]: one of: hitting, fielding, pitching, all [default: all]
    [qualifier]: the roster type: active, full, 40man

Examples: tor:hitting:active  # active roster only (default)
          tor:hitting:full    # full season roster
          tor:hitting:40man   # 40-man roster
          nyy:pitching        # Yankees pitching
          bos:fielding        # Red Sox fielding

You don't have to specify the full statistics category, it will match any substring given. e.g. --stats <team>:h is the same as <team>:hitting.

Examples:

mlbv --stats tor                       # Blue Jays stats for all categories, qualified players
mlbv --stats tor:pitching              # Blue Jays pitching stats
mlbv --stats tor::full                 # Blue Jays stats, all categories, full season roster

You can also include --date, narrowed down to a particular day (unlike league stats which are only specified for an entire season):

mlbv --stats tor --date 2010-08-01  # Blue Jays team stats on 2010-08-01

11. Examples

Note: the common options have both short and long options. Both are shown in these examples.

Live Games

mlbv --team tor               # play the live Jays game. The feed is chosen based on Jays being home vs. away
mlbv -t tor --feed national   # play live game, choose the national feed
mlbv -t tor --feed away       # play live game, choose the away feed. If the Jays are the home team this would choose
                              # the opponent's feed

Archived Games

mlbv --yesterday -t tor        # play yesterday's Jays game
mlbv --date 2018-03-31 -t tor  # watch the Jays beat the Yankees #spoiler

Highlights

Use the --feed option to select the highlight feed (recap or condensed):

mlbv --yesterday -t tor --feed condensed  # condensed feed
mlbv --yesterday -t tor -f recap          # recap feed

You can also use the --recaps option to show highlights for games on given day. This will show all chosen recaps, one-by-one until finished. A highlight reel.

mlbv --yesterday --recaps all         # show all available recaps for yesterday games
mlbv --yesterday --recaps --filter    # show recaps for favourites
mlbv --yesterday --recaps tor,wsh,bos # show recaps for given set of teams
mlbv --yesterday --recaps --fetch     # fetch all recaps

Fetch

In these examples the game is saved to a file (.ts or .mp4) in the current directory.

mlbv --team tor --fetch
mlbv --yesterday -t tor -f recap --fetch   # fetch yesterday's recap

Using --days for Schedule View

mlbv --days 7           # show schedule for upcoming week
mlbv --days 7 --filter  # show schedule for upcoming week, filtered on favourite teams (from config file)
mlbv --days 7 --filter --favs 'tor,wsh' # show schedule filtered on favourite teams (from option)

Linescores

mlbv -l        # show linescores for today
mlbv --yes -l  # show linescores for yesterday
mlbv --date 2018-03-29 --linescore --days 7 --filter  # show linescores for favs in week 1

Standings

mlbv --standings             # display division standings
mlbv --standings division    # display division standings
mlbv --standings div -o ale  # display AL East division standings
mlbv --standings league      # display overall league standings
mlbv --standings all         # display all regular season standings categories

mlbv --standings --date 2015-10-01  # display division standings for Oct 1, 2015