The MLB.TV anniversary is a happy one for baseball fans

Today is the 10th anniversary of MLB.TV, which is only one of the greatest things ever, if you ask me.



It was a brilliant business idea, since I would have to imagine the profit margins would be pretty high due to the raw material (the local broadcasts of the games) being readily available and the costs therefore being for the infrastructure required to stream the games.

I've had the service for seven or eight years, watching on a full-size computer, a laptop, my iPod and now, thanks to my Roku, a television. The stream can be somewhat balky, particularly early in the season or on days my wireless Internet is being goofy, and my laptop can't handle HD broadcasts, but overall, I can't complain too much.

As a Yankees fan living in Massachusetts, the service is tailor-made for guys like me, and it's worth the $100 or so I spend each year for that alone. But I'll also check out games that seem interesting, especially as the playoff races come down to the end ...

... and I get Vin Scully, and I get him for at least another year. Just today, as I was watching the Dodgers-Marlins game, when the Dodgers made a pitching change before Giancarlo Stanton came up, instead of saying the obvious (Stanton is pretty good), Scully asked how many meetings Stanton was going to force over the course of his career.

I've never heard it described quite that way.

Also, in talking about how televised baseball has changed over the years, he told the story of MLB Network's first program, Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. He said he had never seen the game other than when he was broadcasting it, but he could only watch one inning before going back to the football game he was watching, not because he was upset with the Dodgers losing ... but because the broadcast was so boring.


Of course, MLB.TV has subjected me to the awfulness of Bob Carpenter and F.P. Santangelo on Nationals games, but the announcers can't all be great ... or even mediocre, as these guys prove.

So here's to 10 years, MLB.TV. Here's to many more.

Giving up the ghost in Boston

It's easy to forget now, but the New York Yankees missed the playoffs in 2008.

Aside from Mike Mussina, who won 20 games for the only time in his career, the pitchers were either injured or not especially effective. Jorge Posada and Hideki Matsui had injury problems, and the storybook farewell to the old Yankee Stadium didn't happen.

So they went out and did something about it. The signed CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett to shore up the pitching staff and got Mark Teixeira to play first base. They also traded for Nick Swisher, although that wasn't nearly as big a deal as the others.

They won the World Series the next year, have made the playoffs every year since, and three of those four players are still contributors. Sabathia is the unquestioned ace of the staff. Although I hate his streaky ways, Teixeira is still a force in the middle of the order and top-flight first baseman, and Swisher has been productive. And as far as everything I've heard, they're all good in the clubhouse.

Even Burnett had a pretty good year in 2009, going 13-9 with a 4.04 ERA in 33 starts before falling apart and eventually being shipped to Pittsburgh.

The Boston Red Sox missed the playoffs in 2010, in large part because they had a ton of injuries, including season-enders for Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis. So they went out and got one of the most-coveted free agents in Carl Crawford and traded for Adrian Gonzalez, who everyone save perhaps the Yankees (because of Teixeira) and the Cardinals (who had some guy named Albert Pujols) were drooling for a chance to get when he inevitably became to rich for the San Diego Padres' blood.

Before the season started, the Boston Herald declared the team the best Red Sox squad ever. Eric Ortiz shot even higher, saying the Red Sox could challenge the 1927 Yankees as the best team of all time. As someone who lives near Boston, I can tell you that I'm only being slightly facetious when I say there were people around these parts who literally thought they could go 162-0.

Yeah, not so much. September happened. Chicken and beer happened. Terry Francona was scapegoated by a team that wasn't going to have scapegoats.

And then there's this year, which makes last September seem like the good old days, to the point where management finally surrendered, trading Josh Beckett, Gonzalez, Crawford (and Nick Punto, don't forget Punto!) to the Dodgers.

But my point isn't that the Yankees got it all right and the Red Sox got it all wrong. My point is that the Yankees and Red Sox could be in opposite positions today. What if Gonzalez and Crawford had been what was expected, that Beckett pitched like the ace he was supposed to be, that John Lackey was the guy they thought they had signed? (I always thought Lackey was an overrated phony, but even I never imagined it would be this bad.)

And what if Sabathia wound up regretting going to New York instead of his native California? Or Swisher was a flake who didn't hit? Or Teixeira was more interested in making excuses than winning?

Or if any number of other factors were different for either team?

Simply put, the moves worked out for the Yankees, and they didn't for the Red Sox, even though in both cases, they made a lot of sense at the time.

The 2011 Red Sox possess all the pieces to have a season for the ages. If everything falls into place and the breaks go their way, they could do more than set records and become champions. They could do more than take their place on Immortality Peak and end up being mentioned in the same sentence as legendary clubs of the past: the 1929 A’s, the epic Yankees teams of the ‘30s, the 1970 Orioles, the 1976 Reds. The 2011 Red Sox could accomplish a feat that has never been done. They could unseat the 1927 Yankees as the greatest major league team of all time. That would be something to celebrate.

Read more at: http://www.nesn.com/2011/01/2011-red-sox-will-challenge-1927-yankees-for-title-of-greatest-team-in-major-league-history.html

The 2011 Red Sox possess all the pieces to have a season for the ages. If everything falls into place and the breaks go their way, they could do more than set records and become champions. They could do more than take their place on Immortality Peak and end up being mentioned in the same sentence as legendary clubs of the past: the 1929 A’s, the epic Yankees teams of the ‘30s, the 1970 Orioles, the 1976 Reds. The 2011 Red Sox could accomplish a feat that has never been done. They could unseat the 1927 Yankees as the greatest major league team of all time. That would be something to celebrate.

Read more at: http://www.nesn.com/2011/01/2011-red-sox-will-challenge-1927-yankees-for-title-of-greatest-team-in-major-league-history.html

The 2011 Red Sox possess all the pieces to have a season for the ages. If everything falls into place and the breaks go their way, they could do more than set records and become champions. They could do more than take their place on Immortality Peak and end up being mentioned in the same sentence as legendary clubs of the past: the 1929 A’s, the epic Yankees teams of the ‘30s, the 1970 Orioles, the 1976 Reds. The 2011 Red Sox could accomplish a feat that has never been done. They could unseat the 1927 Yankees as the greatest major league team of all time. That would be something to celebrate.

Read more at: http://www.nesn.com/2011/01/2011-red-sox-will-challenge-1927-yankees-for-title-of-greatest-team-in-major-league-history.html

The 2011 Red Sox possess all the pieces to have a season for the ages. If everything falls into place and the breaks go their way, they could do more than set records and become champions. They could do more than take their place on Immortality Peak and end up being mentioned in the same sentence as legendary clubs of the past: the 1929 A’s, the epic Yankees teams of the ‘30s, the 1970 Orioles, the 1976 Reds. The 2011 Red Sox could accomplish a feat that has never been done. They could unseat the 1927 Yankees as the greatest major league team of all time. That would be something to celebrate.

Read more at: http://www.nesn.com/2011/01/2011-red-sox-will-challenge-1927-yankees-for-title-of-greatest-team-in-major-league-history.html

Derek Jeter, Skip Bayless and the cult of popularity

I don't watch First Take on ESPN much, if only because I work during the day. But I've heard that Skip Bayless caused a bit of a kerfuffle over something he said about Derek Jeter. (The quote is from the linked article.)

Bayless engaged in a heated debate in which he quoted BALCO founder Victor Conte as saying synthetic testosterone use is “rampant” in the majors today. He then asked, “If you are Derek Jeter, would you think about using HGH right now?” Bayless backed off accusing Jeter of any wrongdoing.
“I am not saying he uses a thing,” Bayless said. “I have no idea. But within the confines of his sport, it is fair for all of us, in fact you are remiss, if you don’t at least think about this.”

For this, he has taken a fair amount of criticism.

What was most depressing about Derek Jeter being "accused" by Skip Bayless of using PEDs — and "accused" is a verb that gives Bayless's dipshittery far more credit than it deserves — is not that Bayless did it; this is what Bayless does. It's that someone actually asked Jeter about it. He had to give a legitimate response. And then that response itself becomes news, with the headline "Jeter brushes off PED talk." There is no talk. There is only Bayless.

But let's step back for just a minute and ponder these three sets of numbers, remembering that they came during the time encompassing the subject's 36th through 38th birthdays, and he's a shortstop ... and make the subject not be Derek Jeter, perhaps the most-respected player in baseball:

2010: .270 (batting average)/.340 (on-base percentage)/.370 (slugging percentage)/10 (home runs).
2011: /297/.355/.388/6 (after a first half so bad that there was open speculation about what his future would hold).
2012 (so far):.324/.364/.450/13, plus a league-leading 169 hits.

What would people be saying?

I'm a big Derek Jeter fan. More than anyone else -- and there are certainly other worthy candidates like Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte -- he symbolizes to me the great Yankee era of my adulthood like Ruth, Mantle or DiMaggio did for people before me.

And I don't think he has used performance-enhancing drugs. If we ever find out he did, I'll be disappointed. I'll be unhappy. Maybe I'll even be mad.

But I don't think he has.

But why do I think that way?

For the same reason everyone ripping Bayless does (and also that they don't like Bayless).

Derek Jeter wouldn't do such a thing.

Melky Cabrera? Sure. Bartolo Colon? Ummm...yeah! (Upon learning the news, the great Ken Tremendous, who I believe has thumped on this tub before, wrote on Twitter, "Wait a second...Bartolo Colon was using PEDs?! Who in the world could've possibly imagined such a thing except everyone in the universe?!")

But not Derek Jeter.

Because he's the most-respected player in baseball.

With every fiber of my being, I want Skip Bayless to be wrong, to be proven as the idiot who can do no better than saying stupid things about white Redskins fans supporting a white quarterback over a black one. I think he is.

However, we need to decide ... is everyone who has an unexpectedly good season suspect, or is no one? Because one of these days, someone who "nobody thought" would ever use PEDs is going to get nailed.

A Yankees fan defends the Red Sox (really!)

Make no mistake about it, I am taking great happiness in seeing the Boston Red Sox season disintegrating in a sizzling pit of dysfunction.

That being said, their players are getting hosed today.

Apparently, only four current players went to team icon Johnny Pesky's funeral, something for which they rightly should be criticized. Joe Fitzgerald of the Boston Herald does so here.

After Tuesday’s magnificent pre-game tribute, including the thrilling playing of taps, and the lump-in-the-throat spectacle of 40 players wearing No. 6, busloads of this town’s big-leaguers showing up for a last goodbye was a fastball down the pike, ripe for blasting, a can’t-miss moment.

All they had to do was show up.

What a shame they didn’t, not for Johnny, but for them.

But the Herald's Inside Track column, a collection of Boston-area gossip that I have gotten my fair share of entertainment from when the paper was more-readily available in my workplace, chose to take it one step further.

By contrast, that same night, nearly the entire team turned out for pitcher Josh Beckett’s annual Beckett Bowl and country music show at Lucky Strike Lanes and the House of Blues.

Just like those spoiled, chicken-and-beer Red Sox, right? Going out and having a good time on the day of a beloved man's funeral. But while I'm sure a good time was had by most, if not all, there's one thing the writers didn't mention ...

... Beckett Bowl is a charity event.

Boston Sports Media Watch does a little better.

Making matters worse was the entire team made it to Josh Beckett’s charity bowling event later that night.

There are lots of things the players could have done to compound the error of not going to Pesky's funeral. They could have randomly gone and tied one on. They could have held another whine-fest about Bobby Valentine, this time in public. They could have blown off a charity event planned months in advance, something like ... Beckett Bowl.

But actually going to a charity event does not make the original screw-up worse.

You have the lily. There's no need to gild it.