Well, it's here. No what?

It's official - instant replay has officially arrived for Major League Baseball. How long before these clowns screw something up?

From now on, home run calls -- and only home run calls -- can be reviewed to determine whether or not a ball was over the fence, fair or foul, or subject to fan interference.

Which is precisely where the command center comes in. When an umpire crew chief decides that a potential home run might benefit from a peek at instant replay, he will head to a replay kiosk constructed in a separate location at every ballpark. There, the crew chief will communicate with one of MLB Advanced Media's replay engineers, who will guide him through as many available replay angles as he desires.

OK, let's see if I have this right:

* In a game criticized for being "too slow" they are now going to allow umpires to stop play and review video.

* That video won't be on site - instead, it will come from a tech compound several states away.

* The league itself isn't very sure that they are up to the task.

Phenomenal.

"It needs to be instantaneous," said Bob Bowman, president and CEO of MLB.com, a subsidiary of MLB Advanced Media. "Taking a live feed and redistributing that is one thing, but taking a live feed, cutting it, slicing it, dicing it and sending it back to the park so an umpire can see it -- all in a relatively short period of time -- is frankly a skill set that we needed to develop."

Points for honesty, not so much for practicality.

I'll be a good soldier here and wait and see what happens, but several things trouble me:

* The league says this is it as far as replay goes. That's a load of crap. This is as far as it goes until they can prop it up as a successful venture. Then, they will use it as a test case to expand "just to close tags" or "just as long as it puts the Yankees and/or Red Sox into the playoffs.

* This isn't football - time matters in baseball. Part of the excitement of a late-inning homer in a close game (especially in October) is knowing that the other team's closer isn't ready to go yet. Sure, managers stall and the poor sap on the mound preens and waits and tries to give the bullpen more time, but eventually they have to pitch after giving up a backbreaking bomb. MLB hopes the replay process will take 2 1/2 minutes - how long do you think Mo Rivera needs to get ready? What about Bobby Jenks?

* I swear that I'm not going to play the "tradition" card here. I'm not that breed of fan who tries to place the honor of the game above all else. But again, this isn't football. Teams, players and fans have been at the mercy of the umpires for as long as there have been games. By now, it's part of the strategy - it's worth a manager's time to brush up on the evening's plate umpire, just as it's worth their time to brush up on the starting pitcher. Bottom line, the umps have been 300 feet away since the 1880s - a few missed calls weren't the end of the world.

* If the replays are coming from the networks, good luck. Even with the advent of HD, it's not very easy to see where the ball is or where it's going. They zoom and pan and try to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but it's really never that great. I have a bad feeling that there will be a day in the near future that will feature two umpires squinting at the screen, knowing that they stopped the game and that the clock is ticking and will have the same thought, "Crap, I can't see a damn thing."

* Out of every time that you have seen the announcers break down a fair/foul call, how many of those have fallen into the "definitive proof" category? Sixty percent? Sixty five?

* I don't trust the commissioner. I think he's an idiot caretaker. There, I said it.

(Image taken for Siberian Baseball)

Yes, I'm happy now

Our short national nightmare came to an end late this week when Major League Baseball realized what was in the best interest of its fans responded to any combination of external stimuli and released its out-of-market games to a cable television audience.

I'd like to think that legions of unhappy fans e-mailed a few times like I did and took unsolicited shots at MLB on their survey pages, but the truth is that some series of cash-related decisions needed to be made and it just so happened that the games were returned to the cable audience.

As of Friday evening, the customer reps answering the phones for Comcast were up to their eyeballs in phone calls for the service, which makes me smile almost as much as knowing that the MLB.tv division got its ass kicked for nearly a week straight.

I know that some poor series of programming teams took the real brunt of that storm while Bud Selig washed down stupid pills with $900 a bottle wine, but I can pretend that he was hearing about how the whole product was circling the drain unless massive upgrades were going to be made shortly. If it ruined at least one morning, I'm pretty happy with the result.

In all honesty, I question how much Selig had to do with a decision this rational and pleasing to a wide spectrum of fans. I think that it's even money that someone from the future played at least a secondary role in the whole mess. Whether or not documents were moved around or someone snuck into Selig's bedroom at night with a radiation suit and a walkman, I can't say, but it's nice to have baseball back.

And at more than a two-by-three inch screen.

(Image from BlogwayBaby.com)

Major League Baseball, land of the Sodomites

Hellfire and damnation, Major League Baseball has sodomized more fans today than they can fit into most of their big league ballparks. Don't believe me? Here's the link to their blog dedicated to "fixing" the "itty-bitty" bugs they've run into today.

It's safe to say that the natives are more than just a little restless.

If I wasn't waist-deep in the backed up sewer that is the MLB.com Mosaic, I'd be absolutely giddy with the nerd war that's flaring up over there. It's an ongoing debate between whines to "Give us what you promised!" and "I'm in IT and they're doing the best that they can!" mixed in with a few folks I'm almost certain are plants to try and settle everyone down.

The reason that I'm not giddy is because the whiners are more right than the MLB.com apologists on this one. (You may want to skip down if you're not ready for an extended discourse on this - Frankie was right in his post the other day - I think this might become my pet issue for the season in varying amounts of copy).

The arguments are breaking down as follows:

* It's not the user's fault that the MLB.com servers can't handle the demand.
* It's not the user's fault that MLB.com did not properly test/spec their equipment for these types of workloads.
* While the Mosaic feature (which previews 6 games at once, albeit at a lower video quality) might be an add-on, it is something we're paying for, so it should work as advertised.
* Multiple bugs and promises to fix things "asap" are not good enough for Opening Day.
* The user has every right to be mad because of the problems from today.

What I truly suspect happened here was that all of the nerds who had previously watched all of these games on cable are now flooding the MLB.com servers and are used to the actual television quality instead of the "near television quality" that is being promised with the Premium package. I don't think it's too much to ask that a paid service provide what it has promised in writing, regardless of actual server loads or truncated schedules because of short-sightedness by the parent company.

The percentages of displaced cable fans are probably along the lines of 2 percent switched to Dish, 1 percent gave up on baseball because they felt used and 97 percent went over to MLB.tv, which is where the conspiracy theories started popping up in the first place. The more I hear that MLB tried to force the fans' hands and push them to their exclusive Web content, the more I believe it, especially after today.

When I got home later in the day - so we're not even talking issues during the bulk of the games - I saw plenty of lag, a few bugs everyone was seeing and constant freezing of the video signals. In addition, the audio signals were pretty awful. Imagine watching a YouTube video of someone videotaping their television - we've all seen those - and you get a pretty good idea of what MLB.com is charging $120 to $90 for.

From a personal standpoint, I deal with customers, technology and managing customer expectations all of the time as I work on projects. One of the golden rules for me personally is to resist any job where I feel that I'm giving the customer an inferior product, compared to what they have. (Personally, I miss being able to rewind, as I've been spoiled by TiVo. However, even with TiVo, I still missed the gem on LaRussa last night that was either caught or made up by the guys at Diamond Hoggers.)

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that a situation like that will not end well. People think they want a big, expensive system with projectors and new speakers, but in some cases, they will be worse off than they were when we stepped on site. And these are people who voluntarily call us to upgrade - not angry fans forced to use Web streaming to watch out of area games.

Now, those fans have a product that is worse than they had last year, is apparently untested and unable to keep up with demand - especially with the cable wrangling going down to the wire - and I can't see how MLB.com is going to be able to make up ground quickly enough to fix this problem.

Adding in the inconvenience or having to run everything through a computer, now there will be an unusable product, too? I can honestly say that if things don't get better within the five-day trial period, this is money that would be better spent anywhere else.

The last thing baseball needed to do was give angry fans an excuse to pull their cash out of MLB's pockets. I really wonder in future generations of fans will be able to say the name Bud Selig without spitting on the ground as well.

(Image from JSOnline.com)

At least someone is doing something right

Waiting for the final word to come down from MLB regarding the Extra Innings package - I know, I know, it's a dead horse - is like waiting for an ailing grandparent to die.

You can look at it rationally, as you lay awake in bed and say to yourself, "It would just be better if they slipped away - this is far too difficult on everyone," but you know that deep in your heart you're not really ready for that final word to come down.

Sometimes hope is more valuable than anything in these trying times.

As I continue my candlelight vigil in the hopes that a last-second settlement can be reached and that baseball will return to my cable box more than the ESPN games of the week, I got an odd letter in the mail from Comcast (which, as everyone knows, directly contributes half of all profits to Satan himself).

It seems that in an effort to make things up to me, a loyal baseball fan who has subscribed to the Extra Innings package through several years and two moves, Comcast would like to chip in 50 bucks to help ease me through this awful, awful injustice that MLB hath wrought.

The whole tone of the letter comes off as a little snarky with a fair amount of finger pointing, but the bottom line is that if I pony up for the MLB.tv package, Comcast will kick me back 50 bones for my troubles as well as keeping my Comcast cable and Internet services... hmm...

OK, I get it now.

The high points from the letter:

Dear Minneapolis Red Sox,

We regret to inform you that, due to a recent decision by Major League Baseball, it has become impossible for any cable company to distribute MLB Extra Innings beginning with the 2007 baseball season.

It goes on to say:

We love baseball as much as you do. And we're committed to delivering the in-market and out-of-market games you enjoy.

Blah, blah, please feel free to use our wonderful Internet service to stream in an inferior product that may or may not lock up entirely during critical moments in play. Also, we heard dishes drop the value of your home by up to 50 percent.

So, anyways, this now surpasses the free hot dog and a soda coupon the Twins gave me last year on the night they signed the paperwork for their new ballpark as the weirdest thing I've received from Major League Baseball.

Still, despite the obvious venomous under current coming from Comcast as they frantically point fingers back at Bud Selig, it's a nice thought. A $50 bite out of the $80 or $120 it will cost me to reward the league for screwing its fans is a pretty nice peace offering.

I think if I've learned anything here, it's that MLB is not my friend, but I should ask Comcast over the next time I fire up the grill for a few beers and a hot dog or two. They're my real friends.

(Image from HarmonySweets.com)

Go get 'em, Tiger

Bud Selig drove the final stake through the heart of every red-blooded American's heart today, announcing his unholy pact with DirecTV was official and that I was officially hosed.

Thanks for nothing, you jackass used car selling, SuperCut spokesman. I really needed that. Ass.

For those prone to stupid acts that mean nothing, but make you feel better, you can contact the two heavy-hitters in the Senate who will be addressing the deal - Sen. John Kerry can be e-mailed here and Sen. Arlen Specter has a page here.

Specter's office issued this statement yesterday:

Washington, D.C. - Senator Arlen Specter, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the following comment today concerning the “Extra Innings” deal between DirecTV and Major League Baseball (MLB):

“I welcome MLB’s announcement that MLB and DirecTV have agreed to allow MLB extra innings to be offered to, as they put it, “other incumbents.”

I believe that other satellite and cable companies should have access to MLB extra innings, and I will be analyzing the commitment to see if the term “other incumbents” goes far enough and if the conditions for other carriers are satisfactory.

“This arrangement should motivate the NFL to reconsider broader coverage on its Sunday ticket and Thursday/Saturday programming to make such games available to other carriers beyond DirecTV.

“It may be necessary for the Senate Judiciary Committee to have further hearings on the antitrust implications of the NFL and MLB tv programming and whether it is in the public interest to allow the anti-trust exemptions of the NFL and MLB to continue.”

I'm sure that'll go a long way.

(Image from BostonDirtDogs.com)

We're still waiting, Bud

The rumored deal between MLB and Direct TV sparked a bit of a firestorm at the Mothership, picking up more comments than any other post there in just a little over a year.

Most of this centered around Direct TV service and quality debates from people who had used them before or currently have the service.

For my part, I work with an engineer who spent some time working for the provider who essentially warned me about the whole dish thing - essentially, for Minnesota, the times you really want to watch TV when it's cold, or raining or there's a bad snowstorm, are the precise times when the dish is at its worst - and the whole thing took on legs from there.

Today off the Deadspin links is a friendly reminder that the issue isn't resolved yet, but with a small glimmer of hope for the baseball faithful. A million thanks to The Luke Report for giving me this small, if imperfect life raft.

Remember the Spiderman bases? Those went away pretty quickly when the fans went into an uproar - a fact that escaped me until tonight - and we can all hope that the Direct TV fiasco runs along those same lines.

Granted, it doesn't excuse keeping fans in limbo, possibly trying to force us to use the MLB.com Internet-based games or the fact that if the dish's lawyers did their homework, MLB might be caught in a legal rundown (See what I did there? Used a baseball metaphor in a baseball-related discussion. See? See? All right...) with regards to backing out of this deal, but it's something.

Maybe my one-man, one e-mail writing campaign hit the monster in its dark, money hungry heart. I doubt it, but it's nice to feel a part of the resistance.

(Image from TV-Sets.com)