Baseball-Related Program Activities

At 7:00 P.M. Eastern on January 1, the brand-new MLB Network will present a rebroadcast of Don Larsen's perfect game from the 1956 World Series. As I understand it, the source is a kinescope that was discovered fairly recently.

Channel 213 on DirecTV. For other services, check your listings.

Labels: directv, don larsen, mlb network, tv

And it's even more exciting when it happens in the bottom of the 11th inning, thus becoming a walk-off hit by pitch, as it did in today's Braves-Cubs game.

I watched this game because Levi e-mailed me this morning to tell me that WGN was doing a "retro" telecast to commemorate their 60th anniversary of broadcasting Cubs games, in time for me to use DirecTV's web site to schedule my DVR to record it.

As it turned out, it was much less elaborate than when Fox gave the "retro" treatment to a Cubs-Dodgers game circa 2000. For the first two innings, WGN presented the game in black and white, with only a couple of camera angles; they also had their character generator on the simplest possible setting (white text only, but with a modern-day drop shadow), which continued through the entire game. And they used a cool "WGN 9 TV" logo that I hadn't seen before -- at least, I didn't recognize it from any of the old Chicago TV Guides I have in my collection.

Also, this was the AT&T poll (which should have been the "Bell System" poll, but I know it can be hard getting sponsors to go along with such things):

Which of these new things are you enjoying the most?
A. Velcro
B. Vinyl 33-1/3 LP
C. Bikini
D. Scrabble
E. NASCAR

"Bikini" won in a landslide.

Labels: braves, cubs, directv, tv

I have been informed that Twins games that are broadcast on WFTC in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area also appear on FSN North in the rest of its service area, so that's why DirecTV was able to present the "My 29" coverage of Opening Day. So their Extra Innings package still only includes games that appear on channels that they have the rights to distribute nationally, which is why I couldn't watch the Devil Rays' home opener tonight on Extra Innings -- it's against the Blue Jays, and the only place in which it's airing in the United States is on Channel 66 in Tampa, the local Ion affiliate. Yes, the network that used to be Pax. It should not surprise anyone that the Devil Rays' local over-the-air TV outlet is not quite of the quality level of, say, WGN.

And I wish I'd known on Monday of the existence of this channel!



I should have known there was such a channel, because there's a similar channel available for NFL Sunday Ticket (it's part of an extra-cost option to which I don't subscribe, so I only see it during its "free preview" on the first week of the football season). If I had one of DirecTV's more newfangled receivers, I'd be able to use the cursor keys on the remote to pick a game and switch to the channel that's showing it full-screen. But since I'm sticking with TiVo, the only option is a complicated series of button presses to switch which game's audio is coming through.

And you may notice that things are high-tech enough that they're able to black out the Angels game for me without blacking out this entire channel --although if they were really high-tech, they'd show the channel number on which it's appearing, not just "0."

Labels: devil rays, directv, twins

The MLB Extra Innings pay-per-view package will now be exclusively on DirecTV, because DirecTV offered a lot of money and also agreed to exclusively carry what appears to be MLB's version of NFL Network.

I do have DirecTV, but don't subscribe to Extra Innings (I certainly enjoy watching it on Opening Day via the free preview, but I wouldn't watch enough games during the season to make it worth the cost). I'm a little concerned about MLB limiting its exposure like this, particularly to the all-baseball network.

In the past, DirecTV's version of Extra Innings has only included games airing on regional sports networks carried by DirecTV -- so if, say, a Phillies-Dodgers game were being carried on Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia (not available on DirecTV) and on over-the-air Channel 13 in Los Angeles (not available on DirecTV except as a local channel in the L.A. area), it wouldn't be on Extra Innings on DirecTV. Or a Blue Jays-Devil Rays game that's on whatever weird Canadian network the Blue Jays are on, and only available via Morse code relay in the Tampa Bay area. So I'm wondering if the new exclusive Extra Innings package these types of games -- can't wait to see, or perhaps hear, the Morse code Devil Rays games.

Labels: blue jays, devil rays, directv, dodgers, phillies, tv

Way back when we were in Detroit, Levi made a joke on this very blog about the Garfield movie, which was the film being promoted by the "LodgeNet" card on top of the hotel room TV.

The HBO channels are free this weekend on DirecTV, and in looking through the listings, I discovered that "Garfield: The Movie" was showing on MoreMax, so out of curiosity, I set the TiVo.

As it turns out, this movie is worse than you can possibly imagine. I couldn't get past 10 minutes, which means I didn't even see Jennifer Love Hewitt. What is in the first 10 minutes is Breckin Meyer as Jon Arbuckle microwaving a round plastic container of "Hash in a Dash" for breakfast -- a container and a food that are pretty much indistinguishable from Garfield's liver-flavored cat food, so I'm sure you can imagine the hilarity that is supposed to have ensued. Then Garfield goes outside and has some wacky misadventures with Nermal, who is a Siamese cat in the movie but the "world's cutest kitten," a gray tabby, in the comic strip. Now, cats that are a mixture of Siamese and gray tabby tend to be as cute as can be, but surely the filmmakers didn't set out to specifically remind everyone of my cat; obviously, the problem was that they couldn't get their hands on a well-trained gray tabby, just a well-trained Siamese. This is because while Garfield is completely a CGI creation so that he can look vaguely like he does in the comic strip, all the other animals in the film only have CGI applied to their faces when they're talking, so it's completely creepy and strange.

Then we are led to believe that there is a dairy that delivers old-fashioned bottles of milk to homes that are within sight of the downtown Los Angeles skyline, and Garfield uses Nermal as a pawn as part of a Rube Goldbergian scheme to get some of that milk. After his drink, Garfield is none the worse for wear -- he doesn't start throwing up everywhere, unlike real cats.

Fortunately, "Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (And Don't Come Back!)" appeared on HBO Family a little later -- it has a few problems of its own, but it managed to get the bad taste of "Garfield" out of my mouth.

Labels: breckin meyer, directv, garfield, tv

On Tuesday, DirecTV replaced their Music Choice audio-only channels with a selection of channels from XM Radio. They're carrying many of XM's music channels, but only two talk channels -- so no Bob Edwards, no BBC World Service, and no old-time radio (although I'm sure Chuck Schaden does a better job than XM).

However, one of the XM talk channels that is on DirecTV is MLB Home Plate -- just in time for it to not be baseball season! When I tuned in briefly this morning to research this post, what I heard was a woman talking via phone about putting up sun shades for elementary school playgrounds because it's 115 degrees during the day in Arizona. Guess they can only talk so much about steroids and/or Ned Colletti. Helpfully, DirecTV's on-screen display said, "You are listening to Sports talk." (The other talk channel available on DirecTV features some people apparently named "Opie & Anthony" and "Ron & Fez" -- just thinking about it makes my ears hurt.)

On the other hand, listening to the XM '60s channel is surprisingly similar to listening to my iPod, except that there's probably no chance of a They Might Be Giants song popping up, and all the jingles are for XM -- well, and there's a DJ who actually does things like talking during the part of the jingle where a DJ is supposed to talk, which I have not managed to duplicate on my iPod. (Also, while I'm sure DirecTV's numbering system for the XM channels makes sense to someone, it seems a little strange to have "The '60s on 6" on Channel 803 instead of, say, 806 -- and "Highway 16" on 814, and "Top 20 on 20" on 816.)

Labels: directv, radio

Comments are working again, thanks to me!

Well, not that I did anything myself that would have caused them to start working again -- but I didn't do anything to break them beyond repair when I was trying to figure out what was going on, and that can often be more important. It's still a mystery to me why they stopped working, and now it's even more of a mystery why they started working again just now. My best guess is that the host of this site, Dreamhost, twice made some behind-the-scenes changes to their PHP configuration. But I know nothing about PHP.

Anyway, in actual baseball-related news, the DirecTV e-mail newsletter that I got this morning says they'll be having another free preview of the Extra Innings package from July 14th to 18th, so perhaps I'll check in on some teams I don't get to see often, such as my beloved Devil Rays, or perhaps a good team like Levi's beloved Cardinals.

Labels: admin, directv

The episode of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" featuring five members of the Red Sox airs next Tuesday, June 7th, at 10:00 P.M. Eastern on Bravo (with copious repeats throughout the following week). TV Guide gives it a 9 out of 10 and includes, as a tantalizing preview, the phrase "Johnny Damon gets foil highlights."

Also in next week's TV Guide, Superstation WGN has a full-page ad (in the color section, although it's a black-and-white ad) touting their Friday afternoon telecast of the Cubs vs. Red Sox as a rematch of the 1918 World Series, for all the TV Guide readers who have been waiting for that for 87 years. Presumably, the Saturday game is on Fox (although my DirecTV edition of TV Guide only lists what's on the national Fox schedule, so it's "teams to be announced") -- and the Sunday game is in the week-after-next's TV Guide, so as far as I'm concerned, it's a complete mystery where it's going to air.

Labels: directv, johnny damon, tv, tv guide

10:00 -- Kansas City Royals at Detroit Tigers (ESPN 2 and FSN Detroit)
10:26 -- In the 2nd inning, the Detroit announcers mention Jeremy Bonderman's 14-strikeout game last year for the first time.
10:30 -- Milwaukee Brewers at Pitttsburgh Pirates (ESPN alternate feed and FSN Pittsburgh)
10:52 -- The Pirates announcers call Florida "bland." The state, that is, not the Marlins.
10:59 -- Dmitri Young of the Tigers hits his second home run. Do we have a Tuffy Rhodes in the making here?
11:00 -- New York Mets at Cincinnati Reds (ESPN and FSN Ohio)
11:08 -- For some reason, Jeff Daniels is in the booth with the FSN Detroit announcers at the Tigers game.
11:12 -- One of the FSN Ohio announcers makes up a new term, referring to today as "Starting Day."
11:19 -- Hey, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, if you're going to say "let's listen to the Reds fans' reactions to Griffey coming up to bat," you should shut up for more than two seconds after you say that. I think I will eschew ESPN's coverage of this game from here on out.
11:22 -- Talking about his Tiger Stadium memories, Jeff Daniels mentions a toilet that was located out in the open in the hallway leading to the visitors' dugout. He says he was thinking about all the greats who had used it in the past, such as Joe DiMaggio, the one time he got to use it.
11:30 -- Adam Dunn of the Reds hits one to right field. It's going, it's going -- and suddenly, my TiVo switches to GSN to record "Card Sharks" as a suggestion. This is strange for two reasons: first, it's not supposed to try recording a suggestion if you've been watching live TV; second, "Card Sharks" is already being recorded on the other tuner. This isn't something I have to deal with often because I so rarely watch live TV, so it takes me longer than it should to make sure that I'm canceling the suggestion recording, not the recording I had actually set up.
11:33 -- Dmitri Young gets hit by a pitch. He's no Tuffy, I guess, but then, who is?
11:51 -- The Tigers can get Jeff Daniels, but all they can get on FSN Pittsburgh during the Pirates game is some executive from PNC Bank.
11:59 -- Saltines and Easy Cheese: snack of champions!
Noon -- Washington Nationals at Philadelphia Phillies (not available on DirecTV, so this is the last you're going to hear about this game)
Noon -- Cleveland Indians at Chicago White Sox (Comcast SportsNet Chicago)
Noon -- Oakland A's at Baltimore Orioles (FSN Bay Area)
12:09 -- Historic video from 1994 on FSN Ohio: Pedro Martinez, then of the Expos, plunking Reggie Sanders of the Reds, thus ending a perfect game, and Sanders charging the mound.
12:11 -- Orioles Rodrigo Lopez and Javy Lopez's uniforms both say just "Lopez," no first initials.
12:22 -- Sammy Sosa! What's he doing here in Baltimore? Not hitting a home run, at this point.
12:32 -- Comcast SportsNet "forgot" to take their logo off the screen during a commercial.
12:34 -- Pedro Martinez records his 10th strikeout, to make this the 100th double-digit-strikeout game of his career. Who does he think he is, Jeremy Bonderman?
12:42 -- Dmitri Young hits his third home run! He's Tuffy after all!
12:49 -- Comcast SportsNet's audio level is lower than all the other channels, so I have to ride the volume on my remote when I switch to and from the Indians-White Sox game.
12:56 -- The P.A. announcer at Great American Ball Park announces Pedro Martinez's 100th pitch -- that's the first time I've ever heard that.
12:59 -- The Royals-Tigers game seems to have ended while I wasn't paying attention.
1:00 -- Toronto Blue Jays at Tampa Bay Devil Rays (FSN Florida)
1:00 -- San Diego Padres at Colorado Rockies (FSN Rocky Mountain)
1:00 -- The pre-produced opening for the Devil Rays game doesn't mention Alex Sanchez. (Although they probably talked about him ad nauseam on the pregame show. But pregame shows aren't included in the MLB Extra Innings package.)
1:05 -- Don Zimmer is introduced as the Devil Rays' Senior Baseball Advisor, "in his 57th major league season."
1:08 -- Yes, there are other teams that wear vest-style uniform shirts (Royals, Rockies, etc.), but only the Devil Rays manage to make them look like The Uniform of the Future.
1:13 -- FSN Florida, a television network that's located in the United States, is actually showing the singing of "O Canada" on TV! Lots of Canadians in Florida at this time of year who might protest if they didn't, I guess.
1:21 -- The turf at Tropicana Field still looks awful on TV. It doesn't help that the other games so far today are all taking place under brilliant sunshine.
1:27 -- And Tropicana Field has plenty of good seats available, as usual.
1:34 -- FSN Pittsburgh is showing fans streaming out of PNC Park and over the bridge, so I guess that game is over.
1:40 -- The Devil Rays' slogan this year, to try to get people to buy tickets to games, appears to be "Watch It Happen," which I guess is slightly better than "Come In Out of the Rain."
1:43 -- I flip to FSN Ohio and see Pete Rose eating a salad in a commercial for local Cincinnati fast-food chain Gold Star Chili. For some reason, I doubt that Pete Rose has ever eaten a salad in real life.
1:50 -- The A's announcers are talking about a USA Today survey of players and coaches that rated the field at McAfee Coliseum the best in the American League. McAfee? What happened to Network Associates? I can't keep all these corporate names straight.
1:54 -- "Devil Rays baseball on FSN Florida is brought to you in part by Quikrete concrete products," presumably because Tropicana Field is made entirely of Quikrete.
2:00 -- Chicago Cubs at Arizona Diamondbacks (ESPN 2 and WGN)
2:00 -- Minnesota Twins at Seattle Mariners (ESPN 2 alternate feed)
2:02 -- While flipping channels, I stumble across the Padres-Rockies game, which I swear wasn't listed in the DirecTV on-screen schedule as of 9:58 A.M. It's already 4-3, in the bottom of the 3rd.
2:05 -- Make that 6-3.
2:09 -- Meanwhile, the Devil Rays are down 3-1 on back-to-back homers.
2:11 -- The FSN Florida announcers, referring to Manitoba native Corey Koskie: "That ball had a lot of English on it, even though it was hit by a Canadian."
2:20 -- I switch to the Cubs-Diamondbacks game on ESPN 2 and think I see a WGN banner, so I check, and it turns out it's on WGN, too, which I didn't check beforehand. There's baseball on lots of channels!
2:30 -- I notice that DirecTV's description of the Blue Jays-Devil Rays game ends with the statement "game may be subject to blackouts in Toronto and Tampa Bay." I guarantee that anyone watching on DirecTV in Toronto is not being blacked out, since everyone watching on DirecTV in Toronto has given DirecTV a fake address somewhere in the U.S. (and since FSN Florida is what the Tampa Bay area is "supposed" to be getting, it's not being blacked out there, either).
2:34 -- Train whistles: one of the best things about watching a Mariners game.
2:46 -- The ad on the rotating board behind the home plate at Tropicana Field is for the radio station that's now carrying the games. Actually, I should put that another way: it's for the radio station that the Devil Rays are paying to carry their games. That's how woeful they are.
2:51 -- Superstation WGN's big Tuesday night movie this week is "Robocop." Hasn't everyone in the world with any interest in this movie seen it by now?
2:52 -- The Cubs are up 7-0 in the 2nd inning. Sammy who?
2:56 -- The facial hair configuration currently being sported by Toby Hall of the Devil Rays is described as "a small marsupial on his chin."
2:58 -- For the Cubs-Diamondbacks game, ESPN 2 has a beautiful, crisp picture. On Superstation WGN, the game looks like it's coming through Saran Wrap coated in Vaseline.
3:03 -- Guess the Touchstone Pictures marketing people decided not to try to sell "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" as a comedy in the TV ads (as opposed to the theatrical trailer I saw yesterday, which did make it look like it at least has certain comic elements).
3:07 -- I've been forgetting about the Padres-Rockies game, which is now 8-8 in the 6th inning. In fact, just as I flip, one of the announcers calls it "another Coors Field special."
3:15 -- In honor of the Opening Day action, I drink Cherry Coke out of an old Cubs souvenir cup.
3:20 -- The roof is being closed in Seattle even though it still looks sunny, which leads to a long discussion by the ESPN 2 Alternate Announcers on why they might be closing it. I change channels before the serious conspiracy theories can get started.
3:25 -- I see the Mets-Reds final score; looks like the Reds came back to win 7-6 after being down 6-3. In hindsight, I guess should have watched more of that game after Pedro Martinez left.
3:34 -- The Padres' sand-colored away uniforms look weird for the second year in a row.
3:39 -- The Devil Rays lose their opening game for the first time since 1999. Yes, really -- it's been the other 161 games they've had the most trouble with.
3:43 -- On the Padres-Rockies game, a 6-year-old boy is being interviewed in the stands: "Don't you have school today?" "No." "Why not?" "I'm homeschooled!"
3:59 -- The Diamondbacks still have those unexplained hot-air-balloon-shaped patches on their sleeves.
4:05 -- The FSN Rocky Mountain announcers say they're about to show a graphic with some startling statistics. When the graphic comes up, it's not all that startling; it shows that, at Coors Field, since 2003, the Padres have scored a lot more runs against the Rockies from the 9th inning on (37) than the Rockies have scored against the Padres (3). Trevor Hoffman is the big reason for the disparity. This is important because it's 10-8 in favor of the Padres in the bottom of the 8th.
4:07 -- For the first time since 10:30, I can't flip channels to avoid a commercial; all three games still going on are in a break simultaneously.
4:08 -- The problem with flipping between games is that you miss things; the Cubs announcers say something about Victor Zambrano being ejected.
4:15 -- And I flip back to the Cubs-Diamondbacks game just in time to see Derrek Lee hit a 3-run homer, and to finally hear the name of the WGN announcer whose voice I don't recognize (i.e., the one who's not Bob Brenly). It's Len Kasper -- who?
4:25 -- Despite Trevor Hoffman being on the mound, the Rockies tie their game at 10 in the bottom of the 9th.
4:26 -- And Trevor Hoffman is still on the mound when Clint Barmes hits a 2-run walk-off homer; Rockies win, 12-10.
4:35 -- The Twins-Mariners game goes final, with Seattle winning 5-1.
4:38 -- The Cubs go up 14-3 on a 2-run homer by Aramis Ramirez. Do I really have to watch the rest of this?
4:43 -- Superstation WGN ends a promo with a dig at TBS's slogan, referring to themselves as "where comedy isn't just very funny, it's super funny." This would be more piquant if it weren't a promo for "Will & Grace."
4:50 -- I take advantage of a commercial break and check my e-mail. My father informs me that at one point this afternoon, the headline on ESPN.com was "Dmitri Young, meet Tuffy Rhodes."
4:56 -- The Cubs get their 20th hit, and it's "only" the top of the 8th, with no outs.
4:57 -- Hit number 21, and it's 15-5.
4:59 -- 16-5. It's the most runs the Cubs have ever scored in an Opening Day game. No Sammy, no Moises Alou, no Tuffy!
5:08 -- Chicago to Pittsburgh for $29 each way on Southwest Airlines? That's insane. Levi and Stacey, you should visit Stephanie Losi sometime (she's going to be attending Carnegie Mellon starting in the fall).
5:15 -- Surely by now, director Arne Harris has gotten a camera shot of every single person in the Bank One Ballpark stands who's wearing Cubs apparel (or University of Illinois apparel)!
5:16 -- I stand corrected.
5:19 -- Wow, the Cubs only got one hit in the top of the 9th!
5:20 -- A promo for something called "Ultimate Arena Paintball," a Superstation WGN Original Production. Although I've never done it, I can see how participating in paintball yourself would be fun, but watching other people do it, as on this upcoming program, looks horribly boring.
5:24 -- Oh, Shawn Green, why are you prolonging the agony by getting a hit?
5:25 -- Oh, Chad Tracy, ditto.
5:26 -- "This is the only big league game still under way today." Yeah, no kidding.
5:27 -- Suddenly, it's 16-6. D-backs are coming back!
5:28 -- Wait, no, they're not. Matt Kata strikes out. Cubs win! Time for "Card Sharks."

And that's it. I probably won't be watching any more baseball on TV until the All-Star Game. Actually, I probably should watch a couple of Dodgers games this year, because who knows how much longer Vin Scully will be around?

Original comments...

thatbob: Sounds like a much better Starting Day than the one I had, watching the stupid Yankees beat up the beloved Johnny Damons.

I've never seen Robocop*, but I guess that doesn't answer your question.

(*all the way through)

Levi: I'm sure Pete Rose has eaten a salad . . . on a bet.

Labels: directv, Opening Day

Tonight I finally watched a movie that had been sitting on my TiVo since October: "The Cameraman," from 1928, starring Buster Keaton. This is relevant to this blog because there is a 5-minute sequence filmed in the then-brand-new Yankee Stadium in which Buster's character pantomimes a baseball game. (Well, of course he pantomimes it, it's a silent film.) He does so because the plot of the film is that he's attempting to impress a girl by becoming a newsreel photographer, and his attempts to film some sports action are thwarted by the fact that the Yankees are playing in St. Louis, so he sets his movie camera next to the pitcher's mound and makes his own action. Presumably, he didn't capture any of that action, because -- that's right -- he was too busy playing fake baseball to crank the camera.

Anyway, it's not as long, nor as pivotal to the film, as the baseball sequence in "The Naked Gun" (to name another non-baseball movie), but it is certainly fun, and funny.

Now it's time for real baseball. Last year, I didn't watch the Sunday night opener, and had to live vicariously through Levi's tales of Johnny Damon. I'm not making that mistake this year; I've got the TiVo set.

And then comes Monday, and once again, I'm planning to watch Opening Day baseball all day, courtesy of the fact that the MLB Extra Innings package is free for the first week of the season, at least on DirecTV. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but it looks like there are fewer Opening Day Monday games this year than there were last year (although there's a game not shown on that schedule because it's on ESPN 2 Monday evening, Cubs at Diamondbacks). For example, neither the Dodgers nor Angels start until Tuesday...although that means I won't have to switch to a non-blacked-out channel at any point on Monday.

Labels: buster keaton, directv, yankee stadium

Baseballrelated.com was represented today at the 2004 induction into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals, a.k.a. the parallel universe version of the Hall of Fame. The best part is that I didn't have to go all the way to Cooperstown for the inductions; instead, I took public transportation to Pasadena.

Where else are you going to hear Lester Rodney, the 93-year-old former sports editor of the Daily Worker, tell Jackie Robinson stories? Probably nowhere. The story about Pee Wee Reese putting his arm around Jackie never fails to move me.

Later, Dick Allen waxed eloquent about having to play Roberto Clemente and the rest of the "Lumber Yard": "They'd keep us on defense for 35, 40 minutes, and then we'd only be in the dugout for 7 minutes."

After I got home, I watched my TiVo recording of (what turned out to be) a 10-4 Cardinals victory over the Reds. DirecTV has had another free preview of the MLB Extra Innings package for the few days following the All-Star break, hoping to sell a few people on ordering it for the second half of the season (for only one-third less than what it cost at the beginning of the year). I figured I should watch the Cardinals so Levi and I will have something to talk about all those days in the car. That Scott Rolen certainly is a good player! Also, the Reds held my interest by bringing in a member of my All-Name team, Todd Van Poppel. (Among the other members of my All-Name team: Quinton McCracken and Delino DeShields.)

Since it was a home game for the Reds, it was the feed from Fox Sports Net Ohio, and something strange was going on every time announcer George Grande would do a "Reds baseball on Fox Sports Net is brought to you by..." announcement; he'd read the plugs, and then would shut up for 15 or 20 seconds until the music bed ended. (And 15 to 20 seconds of a baseball announcer being silent seems like an eternity!) My semi-educated guess is that local cable systems put in their own sponsorship announcements there, but if anyone knows differently, please use the comments below. Actually, since I don't watch much baseball on TV, for all I know, all the Fox Sports Net affiliates are doing that now.

Original comments...

Jim: Two things I forgot to mention...the induction ceremony was being interpreted for the benefit of the "Dummy" Hoy contingent, and because I was seeing it over and over, I now know the sign language for "baseball": bring your fists together in front of your chest, elbows out, as if you're in a batting stance.

Also, the first person to leap to his feet to give Lester Rodney a standing ovation was a man wearing a Dennis Kucinich T-shirt.

Levi: No, the pause is the new system where you, the viewer, supply the ad copy. Then you send Fox money.

Toby: What a Smart Alec Levi is. Yes, Jim, that slot might be for local inserts or it could be for a local station identification.

And I certainly hope Montreal's Terrmel Sledge makes your All-Name list.

Was Buck O'Neal at this gathering you attended?

Labels: baseball reliquary, Cardinals, dick allen, directv, jackie robinson, lester rodney, reds, todd van poppel

This evening, I saw the last four innings of the White Sox-Cubs game in high-definition. I'm still not convinced that HD offers that much of an advantage over the standard-definition picture I get via DirecTV (which has that crisp "digital" look anyway), although I guess I could have counted the blades of grass on the field if I'd been really bored.

What was really ridiculous, aside from the fact that the game ended with the winning run being walked in: the commercials on ESPN HD are in standard-definition, and movie ads are letterboxed, so when one of them is on, there's a lot of "blank" real estate on the screen. Oh, and the score box looks a little weird because it isn't all the way over to the left. So, in conclusion, I'm not spending several thousand dollars for a new TV. Also, I'd have to move, since there's a tree between my current apartment and the DirecTV satellite that delivers most of their HD programming.

Labels: directv, hdtv

A coworker who is also a Cardinals fan has a twelve-year-old son with whom he watches most Cardinals games with the MLB Extra Innings package.

Recently, the feed was down for a few days, but my coworker and his son still wanted to see the game. So they did the next-to-next-best thing (The next-best thing being, of course, radio): they watched the pitch-by-pitch ticker online, and they announced the game as if they were broadcasting it.

All that was really just a long preamble so I can tell you this: my coworker's six-year-old daughter said, "You guys need announcer names. Dad, your name is Bob. Ethan, your name is Aladdin."

Which gave my coworker plenty of chances to say things like, "Matt Morris sure is pitching well tonight, isn't he, Aladdin."

Labels: aladdin, Cardinals, directv

One of the quirks of DirecTV is that they not only carry ESPN, they also have channel space reserved for what they call ESPN Alternate, which means that unless there's some kind of blackout situation affecting your ZIP code, you have the opportunity to see both ESPN Wednesday night baseball games. So tonight, while Levi was forced to watch the Cardinals play the Astros on regular ESPN, I got my first look at Citizens Bank Park as the Phillies hosted the Marlins on the bizarre and strange world of Channel 210.

Now, the game actually lived up to its channel placement, and I certainly hope when we're there in August, we can get a game that's similarly bizarre and strange. The weirdness culminated in the bottom of the 9th with the score tied at 7, with Placido Polanco hitting a grounder to left field that ended up wedged under the padding on the wall. Jeff Conine threw up his hands and Polanco went all the way home, but the umpires only awarded him a ground-rule double. Larry Bowa ran out of the dugout and had a 5-minute-long apoplectic fit but managed not to get tossed out; after that performance, Jack McKeon came out of his dugout and had a slightly milder fit (because he's 73 years old) that involved a lot of gesticulating at his watch.

Oh, yeah, and Mike Lowell was almost Tuffy-esque, which I guess we have to say whenever someone hits 3 home runs. Citizens Bank Park looks good on TV (a lot different than the Vet, obviously), even if it doesn't have an existing building in the outfield the way Petco Park does. Also, it seems like their neon Liberty Bell should swing a little faster when it lights up for home runs. Actually, I'd like to get a closer look at whatever it is that's forming the batter's eye, which looks like nothing more than a tall brick wall with a suspicious jog in the middle of it.

Original comments...

Levi: Now, in today's game, the two teams have had a bench-clearing brawl.

Man, I can't wait to see Larry Bowa fired. Anyone who thinks he and his team are better off without Scott Rolen deserves to be fired, then rehired just so someone can have the joy of firing him again.

maura: my friend recently registered firebowa.com, or something similar.

i worked wednesday night's game; it was definitely fun (the marlins reporter, one of my favorite to work with, made it even more so), although at around 11 or so i was idly wondering if i was going to be stuck in the office UNTIL THE END OF TIME.

Levi: Maura-- Since there's no time in baseball, officially, even the end of time wouldn't end a game necessarily.

Labels: citizens bank park, directv, larry bowa, marlins, phillies

While you slept, Levi, you missed the game I watched on TV tonight, in which David Wells had to run from first to third (but, alas, didn't end up making it to home).

Oh, yeah, Jay Payton climbed the wall in the 5th to prevent Barry Bonds from going down in history as the first person to hit a home run in Petco Park, and the Padres came back to tie in the 9th and then came back to win in the 10th, both times on Sean Burroughs singles.

Also, in the top of the 1st, the Giants announcers were making fun of the scoreboard that was listing the count as 5 strikes and 3 balls. Then they realized it was the pitch count scoreboard. I would obviously have rather watched the game with the Padres announcers, and DirecTV usually goes with the home team version of the games in their Extra Innings package...but only when the home team is on a regional sports network that DirecTV carries. The Padres are on a cable-only network.

Labels: david wells, directv, giants, padres

I set the TiVo to record the MLB Extra Innings feed of this morning's game. If I'd been 100% sure it would be showing up for free, I might have woken up earlier to watch it; as it was, I had to fast-forward through major portions of the game, which turned out to be a good thing. It was the Yankees' YES Network coverage, and it looked like they had dug up a lot of old films of teams and players visiting Japan in the past, including Mickey Mantle celebrating his 24th birthday while the Yankees were on a barnstorming tour of Asia. (Actually, maybe ESPN showed the same footage yesterday morning, but I wouldn't know.) Also, there will be a suitable-for-framing 8x10 photo of a Yankee great inside the Sunday Daily News every week.

Anyway, now that we know I'll be getting MLB Extra Innings free for the first week of the season, Levi, you're invited to my nameless apartment for the real Opening Day on Monday. It kicks off with Tigers at Blue Jays at 10:00 A.M. (And then the question is, since this morning's game was the first one in the Extra Innings package, will they define "first week" as lasting only until next Wednesday, or all the way through Sunday the 11th?)

Labels: devil rays, directv, yankees

You know, I didn't even mention the Fox Sports Net promo in which the burglars are ransacking a house, but stop and put all the stuff back after they spy...some Devil Rays autographed collector's items. At the end of the spot, the burglars leave a note: "Sorry about the window."

I'm pretty sure this is a promo used in every FSN region, with the only difference being a different team's merchandise in the point-of-view shot. But, really, shouldn't Fox Sports Net Florida have also re-edited it so that the note read "Sorry about the Devil Rays"?

But it's all moot, as far as I'm concerned, now that I informed a DirecTV "entertainment consultant" of my sincere desire to not have my DirecTV bill go up by $35.00 a month after my introductory period ends. I think it's a little creepy that they can take away channels instantly while you're still on the phone with them (it seems to take hours, if not days, for the cable company to make changes). Kind of makes you wonder what else they can take away.

Actually, as I understand it, the MLB pay-per-view package is probably going to be free for the first week of the season, so maybe I'll end up watching a Devil Rays regular-season game, assuming every other game being played simultaneously is in a rain delay (or snow delay) and my TiVo has failed to record any "Match Game" episodes recently.

Labels: devil rays, directv

Because my DirecTV introductory offer is up in a few days, I'm going to be canceling their sports channel package (turns out it's not going to be worth $12.00 a month to be able to watch "The Best Damn Sports Show Period" on 15 different channels). However, I took advantage of it one last time today to watch some spring training baseball...Tigers vs. Devil Rays, from "Progress Energy Park, home of Al Lang Field," as the announcers were careful to say.

During one commercial break, there was a promo for Devil Rays tickets: two kids on the beach arguing about who's better, Aubrey Huff or Tino Martinez. "Tino's the man!" "Aubrey's the man!" Meanwhile, there's sand being thrown on them; eventually, the scene widens to show that Pansy the Wuss-Wuss Fish has constructed a giant replica World Series trophy out of sand. Then one of the kids yells, "We're trying to make sandcastles here!"

Oh, yeah, Rays 11, Tigers 3, but to be fair, it seemed like the Rays were using a lot of actual players, while the Tigers were using a lot of players with uniform numbers above 70, including some 3-digit numbers.

Labels: aubrey huff, devil rays, directv, pansy, tigers, tino martinez