As spring training games commenced, I bit the bullet and signed up for another season of mlb.tv (premium, naturally).  As an NRAF since 1982, mlb.tv has been an incredible blessing. Instead of relying on catching them playing the local AL team or appearing on national TV, I've gotten to follow the A's, game in and game out, on internet radio and internet TV for years now.  I got to experience Bill King's last years of broadcasting, which were truly a joy. 

But as my fellow mlb.tv customers sufferers know all too well, there is only one problem with this rosy picture: mlb.tv sucks.

Even if they've finally managed to solve the many technical difficulties that often make games unwatchable (and given MLB's track record at solving major difficulties, my money is on "not"), there's still the ridiculous blackout rules. 

I spent most of last season in Germany, where nothing was blacked out.  Sure the games were on at ridiculous hours. But I could always, always get them...except when mlb.tv was experiencing technical difficulties of course.

Now I'm back in Oklahoma, which is understandably in Texas Rangers' territory. After all, we're three hours from Dallas. Our AAA team is in the Rangers' system.  We get Ranger games on basic cable. There's at least an argument that Ranger games should be blacked out.

But somehow we're also in Royals, Cardinals, and Astros blackout territory.  Why?  None of these teams is remotely nearby:  KC is about a five hour car ride. Houston is a six-and-a-half hour drive.  St. Louis is eight hours away.  And while we get some Astros games on cable, we get no Royals or Cards tilts.

But just as the folks who run baseball can't screw up the game, no matter how hard they try, mlb.tv remains an incredible lifeline despite its desperate suckitude.  $110 or so later, I'm officially back for another year of laggy audio and blacked-out games!

So I'm watching Mike & Mike on ESPN2 this morning (I know, I know...what do I deserve if I'm watching these two?).  And they're having a conversation in which they're both puzzled at the low TV ratings this World Series is getting.  Is it because the Cards were an 83-win team?  Or that the Tigers are a wildcard?  Well, the Steelers were a wildcard, and nobody minded that. And everyone loved George Mason in the NCAA hoops tournament. People like underdogs!  Could it be the small market thing? Nope. St. Louis is a huge baseball town and the Cards have a regional following.  Besides, the Tigers were the feel good story of the year. In short, Mike and Mike were stumped at the low ratings.

I have an idea, boys.  Could it possibly have something to do with the fact that your network, which rules the roost in national sports coverage, had spent an entire season pretending that only two teams--the Yankees and the Red Sox--mattered at all?  

If I were Bud Selig and I were not a complete flippin' idiot (I know, that's already an impossible wish), I'd have long since been on the horn to Bristol screaming at the network executives about this rather predictable result of the kind of coverage they gave baseball all season.

This is jumping the gun a bit, I know, but while I'm enjoying all of the Hot Stove League talk on AN, and also can't wait for Spring Training, there's still baseball to be played this fall...and I'm still interested.

I, for one, am excited about the possibility of a Tigers-Cardinals World Series.  This feels to me like a classic match-up, two teams with rich histories, neither of whom has won a series in years.

The Tigers and Cards have met in only two Series in the past:  1934 and 1968.  Both went seven games, with the Cards winning in '34 and the Tigers in '68.

I'm also interested in watching both teams: the Tigers because they're a generally likeable and talented bunch, who seem to be back in midseason form after fading badly at the end of the year (and because it will feel better to have been dominated by the eventual WS Champs); the Cards because of the LaRussa factor and, of course, the fun of watching Albert Pujols.

In fact, the only thing wrong with this potential World Series (besides, of course, the A's not being in it) is that the two teams have already met this season, which spoils some of the mystique of the matchup. But that problem is a predictable result of the idiocy that is interleague play. I still hope that we can put that genie back in the bottle if and when Bud Selig decides to leave baseball in favor of ruining something else for a while.

Years and years ago, during the 1988-1990 run, when the A's were making it to the World Series three years in a row, but winning only one of them, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who was a die-hard Mets fan. The Mets were pretty good during those years, especially '88, but they never made it to the Series.

Both my friend and I agreed that the most important thing wasn't winning a Division, or even winning the Series, it was winning the Pennant and making it to the Series.

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For some reason I'm becoming the font of wiki-related suggestions...

Wikipedia has just announced an effort to improve all their baseball-related articles to featured article status.  Information about this project can be found here.

Projects such as this involve two stages: first, each week, Wikipedians nominate and vote on a single article to focus on during the next week.  Then the article that gets the most votes is the focus of the project effort for the next week. For example, the following articles are currently under consideration to be the first featured article (voting ends this Sunday): New York Yankees, Nolan Ryan, Dave Stieb, Cy Young, Steve Garvey, Players League, Catfish Hunter (I'm not providing links 'cause I'm lazy and you can just go to the project page linked to above and follow the links from there).

Since ANers are a truly impressive repository of baseball knowledge I figure some of us might be willing and able to help all stages of this project.  I imagine there'd be particular interest in Catfish Hunter if the article on him becomes the focus of the Article Improvement Drive.

Watching the Tigers-Halos game reminded me how totally awesome the Tigers' home uniforms are.  For some reason this also brought to mind Detroit's other awesome sports threads, the Red Wings' home uniforms.  This, in turn, got me thinking about the following question: what American city has the best uniforms?  Here are the groundrules for this exploration of the truly irrelevant:  

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Last night, I drove down to Ameriquest Field at Arlington (or whatever its official title is) to catch the A's-Rangers tilt.  Here, in no particular order, are some notes on the trip, the stadium, and the game...

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