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.