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You won't need MLB.com to see Ryan Zimmerman.
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URK. I JUST PAID
Urk.
One hundred nineteen bucks to watch my beloved, now hopefully steroid-free San Francisco Giants on a 14-inch laptop screen.
Urk.
I suppose there's something poetic in the fact that now that the Giants have rid themselves of Barry Bonds, the screen I'll be watching them on has shrunk down from Barry size to Barney Fife size. Purists might say this is my penance for enjoying all those artificially enhanced 450-foot home runs as a Giants fan.
I am forced to stream live games over the Internet instead of watching them on television because I recently signed up for Verizon FiOS TV. And it seems to be a surprise to Verizon Communications that baseball season begins
Verizon is currently in negotiations with baseball on a deal to carry Extra Innings, a package that provides subscribers with up to 80 out-of-market games a week. For viewers in our area, this means no Washington Nationals or Baltimore Orioles games. Those games are available to local fans on MASN. Extra Innings has virtually every out-of-market game that's not a national Fox Game of the Week or postseason game.
To be fair to Verizon, Major League Baseball is so greedy and unreasonable that it's very difficult to deal with. To paraphrase Barack Obama's minister, Bud Selig can never know what it's like to be a poor baseball fan living in a rich baseball mogul's country.
But I'm upset with Verizon for what will happen after any deal is made with baseball: Even it the two parties work out a deal, it will take up to two months for Verizon to phase in reconfiguring its channel lineup at its 13 video hubs around the country. That means it could be June before I could see my favorite team on FiOS.
That's consistent with Verizon's overall slowpoke approach in delivering to customers. FiOS is a great product with a superior picture and wonderful features, but this is the kind
"This is a popular service, and we want to be able to offer that to FiOS customers," Eric Rabe, Verizon's senior vice president of media relations, told Multichannel News. "We're hopefully finishing up the negotiations" with baseball. But, he said, "I can't guarantee that the deal will be done."
Harry Mitchell, Verizon's regional spokesman, told me this week he couldn't add anything to that.
Extra Innings is popular with rabid fans like me who favor teams from outside the area. I suspect the majority of Extra Innings subscribers in our area are New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox fans.
They're the same obnoxious people you've probably seen at sports bars like Glory Days wearing New York and Boston caps, gloating, lording it over you as they sit at the bar and watch Red Sox and Yankees games. Growing up, older fans of out-of-market teams could see their teams only when they were featured on the national game of the week. In recent years, ESPN and satellite have made it more bearable. Now Extra Innings makes both digital cable and satellite DirecTV viewers feel they're actually living in New York, Boston, St. Louis, Los Angeles or wherever their favorite team is based. It allows local 1960s Washington Senators fans like my friend Brad Cooper, who transferred their loyalty to the Rangers when the team moved to Texas, to follow that team closely.
Extra Innings is available on DirecTV, Comcast and Cox.
According to regional spokesman Alex Horowitz, Cox is charging an "early-bird" price of $159.96 for those who order by April 15. After that, the price is $199.96. There's a free preview from April 2 to April 15.
According to its Web site, Comcast is charging $119 as its early-bird price until April 6, then $159. It's offering a free preview from March 31 to April 6.
According to DirecTV's Web site, the satellite TV service's early-bird price is $179 till April 6, then $199.
On MLB.com, the premium package for the season, with a better picture, is $119. That includes radio as well as TV coverage. The basic package is $89. If you want to wait for Verizon, you can sign up month by month at MLB.com at $19. An advantage of the MLB.com online package is that games are archived, so if you miss one, the whole season is at your fingertips without filling up your TiVo with games. Archived games may be viewed in their entirety, or you can watch only pitches that were put in play, or only game highlights.
Ironically, my frugal grandfather Joe Zitz is to blame for costing me money on Extra Innings. He grew up in New York before the Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958. When he moved from New York to North Stafford to find work at the Sylvania Plant as a young man as the Depression ground to an end, he brought his loyalty to the Giants with him. Because of him, a passion for the team has been passed on from generation to generation. And I'd like to pass it along to my 6- and 4-year-old sons, Robbie and Jay. That's what baseball is all about. It binds families together over time.
That's such a positive thing that it's worth being fleeced by baseball and the cable companies, and paying outrageous ticket and concession prices at the new Nationals Park and at Camden Yards to keep it going.
Baseball's worth all that, and worth getting stuck in traffic on the way to the new ballpark in Washington, too.
It's even worth paying a lot to watch games on a tiny laptop screen.
Urk.
Michael Zitz: 540/846-5163
Email: mikez@freelancestar.com
