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Baseball fans are increasingly ditching the television and radio and tracking their team's fortunes on Facebook and Twitter, according to findings from American daily USA Today.

Facebook is becoming a hub for followers of Major League Baseball, with 12 million fans of either MLB or one of its 30 teams, a figure that has tripled in just a year. A further three million have signed up to receive baseball-related tweets via MLB and team feeds.

Tweeting has moved into the stadium itself, with many fans delivering their own live coverage of the action on their smartphones. Supporters of teams who have recently had a run of particularly gruelling games have been convening on social networks to contribute pitch-by-pitch analysis, let off steam and share in the agony. 

Many fans want their fix of the game on the move. MLB's iPhone and Android app, which gives users sporting news, game schedules and player stats as well as allowing them to view live games over their smartphone, is opened 1.9 million times a day. 

The New York Mets have been harnessing innovative crowd-sourcing tools in the stadium to get the spectators involved. Last year, they began running 'Man of the Match' polls throughout the game, streaming results to the arena's main screen, enabling the crowd to air their views via an in-stadium fan forum and displaying a slideshow of photos taken by supporters on their camera phones. 

Individual players are also bolstering their fan base on Twitter. This summer, New York Yankees outfielder Nick Swisher, who boasts the most followed Twitter account in baseball with over 1.2 million wrapt readers, mobilised this support to help get him into the MLB All-Star Game. The final player in each team is elected by a text and Internet ballot.

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