A few days after we learned that the MLB Extra Innings package will fall exclusively on DirecTV’s lap this year [why haven’t we heard anything on DISH?], now comes the news that MLB’s New Media Goons have indeed found ways to supplement the sources of revenue they eliminated on that infamous deal.

From Apple Insider:

Apple Inc. said friday it plans to embrace the 2007 Major League Baseball season by offering highlights for the 2007 season on its ubiquitous iTunes Store, giving fans the ability to catch all the action of their favorite teams anywhere, anytime.

MLB video programming on iTunes will include a daily 25 minute “MLB.com Daily Rewind” highlight show and two weekly “Games of the Week,” featuring full versions of the best games from the National and American Leagues.

Customers will be able to download individual episodes of “MLB.com Daily Rewind” and each “Game of the Week” for $1.99, or purchase a Multi-Pass for a month of Daily Rewind shows for $7.99 or a Season Pass for every “Game of the Week” at just $19.99.

“We’re thrilled to be teaming with iTunes to give baseball fans access to MLB highlights via the world’s most popular online TV store,” said Kenny Gersh, senior vice president, business development of MLB Advanced Media. “We’re excited that baseball fans now have the opportunity to enjoy America’s favorite pastime in a unique way by taking MLB with them on their computers and iPods wherever they go.”

So the season preview was supposed to be free. I’m sure it was; too bad I was too late to the party, and, even though it’s clearly visible on the front page of the iTunes store (first image to the right), it really wasn’t available (second image below).

Whatever the case, I have to think this new entrepreneurial initiative on behalf of baseball has its merits. I dunno if anyone noticed, but last year, Baseball was offering per-game downloads at $3.95 a pop, but now they’ll offer a “Game of the Week” on iTunes for almost $2 dollars less.

But placed in the context of the recent developments, going as far back as last year, when MLB New Media decided to pull podcasts from the iTunes store, it’s a puzzling move.

One thing’s clear; these New Media Goons sure know how to make money.

I’m sure Steve Jobs and Apple had a stronger sense of self than iNDemand and its cable parents. Regardless, the content being offered in iTunes does not, and will not, supplant the experience of watching live baseball in your living room.

This is text-book capitalism, explore new sources of revenue for your already-sold product, maximizing profit to the fullest.

I just don’t see where benefit to the fan…er… consumer, really is.

UPDATE [Sun. 04/01 - 10:20 a.m.] : I had a chance to read Joe Nocera’s Talking Business column in yesterday’s New York Times. Here’s the link, but unfortunately, it’s a TimesSelect column, so you’d have to pay for it (or have an email address with an .edu extension to get it free).

Nocera basically recaps the MLB / DirecTV deal nicely, giving it good light in business terms, but, much like everyone else who opined on this deal, he concludes that it’s a “dumb” move on behalf of Baseball. Yes, he said dumb. I’ll share some passages with you, fellow readers, after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

I wanted to share this message that my buddy Paul posted on our fantasy bulletin board:

Tomorrow’s “Civil Rights Game”, where MLB will honor the efforts of the civil rights movement and its catalysts, will feature the Cleveland Indians - A team whose logo features a man with red skin coupled with the fine detail of the red feather protruding from his headband.

Irony.

Irony, indeed. I’ve never bought the fact that any team named after a Native American tribe could be considered a tribute to those people, even names like the Blackhawks and Seminoles. But whatever. It doesn’t keep me up at night. What does really amaze me are teams that continue to use logos like the Cleveland Indian’s “Chief Wahoo” or names like “Indians or, even better, “Redskins.” I swear to god, if I ever get a sports team, I’m going to name it the Atlanta Negros and our mascot is going to be a white guy running around in black-face. You know, as a tribute to the African American people.

Seriously, would that be any more offensive than calling a team the Redskins? Why is it that we’re totally cool with offending one ethnic group, but not another?

It’s no secret that this all comes down to money. In today’s corporate world, “branding” is everything. If you have an established brand, that’s priceless. But when that brand starts to be represent racism, more than winning or family fun, I think it’s time to think about switching mascots. The Washington Bullets, now Wizards, did it. Cleveland, what are you waiting for?

Is it opening day yet? Because there’s only so much that one can write about games that don’t count. Thank god for Mia and Nomar popping out those babies and Steinbrenner excommunicating his son-in-law, or else this blog might have gone out of business entirely.

And if you think I’m the only person stretching for storylines in this last weekend of spring training, check this out.

Yesterday, the Boston Globe’s story stealing Dan Shaughnessy wrote an entire column about a media lunch with Daisuke Matsuzaka. What did we learn?

When the waitress came around, Matsuzaka said, “Iced tea, please,” in English, then “crunchy chicken wrap, cole slaw,” again in English.

He has great posture and perfect manners. He kept his napkin on his lap at all times and did not start eating until everyone at the table was served. He drank his iced tea through a straw.

Thanks Dan. That’s info I couldn’t have lived without.

Then there’s the LA Times’ Steve Springer and Bill Shaikin, who today bring us the story of new Dodger Luis Gonzalez, who apparently got lost on his way to the ballpark.

Outfielder Luis Gonzalez, signed as a free agent in the off-season, was shaking his head as he stood as his locker stall Thursday evening after his drive to Dodger Stadium.

“I don’t know how many interstates I was on,” he said. “I’m glad I have a navigation system.”

Interstates? Where had Gonzalez come from?

“Manhattan Beach.

Maybe that story is funnier if you’re from L.A. But I doubt it.

Finally, we’ve got the biggest ink waster of them all, the guy who prints song lyrics at the end of his blog posts, Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter David O’Brien, who brings us not one, but TWO crazy stories about Andruw Jones. The first one involves a clever batting practice jersey:

By the way, Andruw took batting practice wearing a jersey with “Dos Cinco” instead of his name above his No. 25. I’ll be stunned if he’s wearing it when they come back on the field for the game.

That won’t fly with Bobby, who doesn’t even let players wear their sunglasses on top of their hats when they’re taking batting practice. But for B.P., on the last day of spring in Florida, and with Andruw, the manager let it slide.

Wow. That would almost be cool if it hadn’t already been done.

Then there’s this story of an exchange between Jones and Braves manager Bobby Cox that had O’Brien “just about on the floor, laughing so hard”:

A few of us are talking to Bobby Cox in the dugout and Andruw comes off the field during batting practice to get a drink of water.

“Play short today?” he asks Cox, the 1,000th or so time that Andruw has asked the manager about the possibility of the Gold Glove center fielder getting to play shortstop, where Andruw often takes ground balls in batting practice.

“Free agent year, I don’t think I should,” Cox says, laughing.

“[Bleep] free agent,” Jones answers, and spits out a mouthful of water. “It don’t mean nothing.”

Cox laughs and says, “That’s what I say. We’re on the same page, Andruw.”

I guess you had to be there.

Seriously, is it time for real baseball yet?

Dodgertown at last!

After driving more than 1000 miles criss-crossing back and forth across Florida for 5 days, we finally arrived in peaceful Vero Beach - a sleepy little town that time is already starting to forget. Once a popular vacation town, Vero beach is increasingly becoming a retirement community as the tourists stop coming, lured away by much ritzier resorts further down the coast.

When we arrived yesterday evening we drove down to the beach and along the town’s main street, which looks much the same as it must have in the 1950s. Only now, half the storefronts are vacant, and half the beachfront hotels are boarded up.

After next year, the Dodgers will be gone too.

But for now they are still here. This morning we drove down the highway to Dodgertown, which has been the spring training home of the Dodgers for 60 years, and took in the last game of spring training. Like Vero Beach, Dodgertown has long become an anachronism. It is the relic of a bygone era, a time when other teams were training in the Caribbean, and Walter O’Malley bought an old abandoned naval base for a song and turned it into a slice of baseball heaven.

Unlike every other team’s spring training facilities, which are little more than a few fields and offices, Dogertown is literally an entire town, complete with streets named after famous Dodgers of yore, a complex of bungalows where the players live, its own post office, its own golf and tennis courts and olympic-size pool, and even its own elementary school - Dodgertown Elementary, which is supported by donations from the Dodgers and is often visited by Dodgers players who read to the children or help them with their studies.

In an age of extreme commercialization of the game and reclusive superstar players with superstar egos to match, Dodgertown harkens back to an earlier time when players were more accessible and the game was more intimate. At Dodgertown, fans are allowed to wander the complex at will, walking among the practice fields and batting cages and watching the players stretch, warm up, and run laps before the game. There are almost no advertisements anywhere. The press box is an open seating area in the middle of the stands, and there are no dugouts - just two sets of two benches on either side of the field, so fans in the first row are literally sitting one row behind the players and can hear all their conversations and even chat with them during the game.

The fans at Dodgertown seem to understand that in exchange for this greater intimacy with the players they should be more respectful. At every other park we visited this trip, as soon as fans saw a player they would mob him and shove pens and balls and programs in his face to get autographs. But at Dodgertown, there were hardly any autograph seekers, and most people just wanted to chat with players rather than demand their signatures or pictures with them. When Tommy Lasorda appeared at the Mets homefield a few days ago, he was mobbed the entire game by a constant stream of fans, mostly wearing Mets gear, all trying to get an autograph or a picture. But when Tommy appeared in Holman Stadium today, people just said “hi” to him or left him alone to watch the game in peace. Fans expect to find themselves mingling with players and living legends in Dodgertown, and treat it as a matter of course.

Everything about Dodgertown is clean and classy, and rich with legacy and legend. These are the exact same fields that Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, and Sandy Koufax trained on. And they look just the same now as they did then. The buildings are old, but perfectly maintained, and the grounds are unchanged but spotlessly groomed. Everything is shining green and white and blue, and one is reminded of exactly why the Dodgers were the classiest organization in all of sports for decades, at least until Fox bought the team in 1997.

But two years from now, all of this will be gone. In spring 2009, the Dodgers will move into their new home in Surprise, Arizona, a complex that they will share with the Chicago White Sox, and which will undoubtedly be fully part of 21st century baseball, with its luxury boxes, its blaring rock music, its off-limits, state of the art training facilities, its advertisements on every free square inch, its sullen superstars, its lack of peace, and solace, and soul.

And if you look closely, you can already see signs of Dodgertown starting to slip away back into the past, and into the land of memory. This year, the Dodgers moved their single-A minor league franchise out of Dodgertown, switching affiliation to the Great Lakes Loons of the Midwest League, and the Vero Beach Dodgers became the Vero Beach Devil Rays, so starting April 6, there will be future Devil Rays playing on the fields of Dodgertown.

Dodgertown is also a lot emptier nowadays. Back in the 1950s, there used to be as many as 700 ballplayers living and training at Dodgertown each spring, but these days there are only about 100, most of whom live offsite in fancy condos, so many of the bungalows are unoccupied.

And with the Dodgers moving away, the McCourts have clearly decided not to put anymore money into Dodgertown than they have to. Although Holman Stadium is still a gorgeous place to watch a ballgame, the seats are rusty and look like the same ones that have been there since the place was built in 1953. This year, the McCourts decided to stop maintaining the golf course, which is now almost unrecognizable, and heart-shaped lake that Walter O’Malley had made and named after his wife Lynn is increasingly less heart-shaped as it is no longer dredged annually.

The phrase I heard most from the friendly staffers at Dodgertown - many of whom have worked here for their entire adult lives - was “Well, we still have one more year left.” It was a curious shared denial, as if it is not worth thinking about the fact that the Dodgers will be gone until at least next spring. But gone they will be, and although I heard several people say that another team will surely want to come to a place as beautiful as Dodgertown, Vero Beach is pretty out of the way, and all the other teams already have spring training homes.

The fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers made “Wait ’til next year” their famous slogan in the 1950s, as team after Dodgers team would steamroll through the National League, only to lose to the Yankees in the World Series, before the losing streak was finally broken in 1995.

But here at Dodgertown, on the same fields where those legendary Brooklyn teams once trained, everyone except for Frank McCourt is wishing from the bottom of their broken blue hearts that next year will never come.

For centuries, maybe longer, it has been accepted practice that the best way to get ahead in business is to marry the boss’s daughter. Still, it has always seemed strange to me that this works even at the highest levels of corporate America. After all, it’s one thing when control of the local hardware shop is on the line. But the New York Yankees?

Yet, today we hear that the heir to the throne of Yankeeville, Steve Swindal, has lost his place in line after his wife (the boss’s daughter) divorced him. From the New York Times:

When Swindal leaves the family, he will effectively leave the Yankees. According to an individual with direct knowledge of the matter, Steinbrenner no longer plans to promote him, and he would seem to have no future with the team. But the situation is complicated because Swindal has a small financial interest in the team — among other things, he is listed as the chairman of Yankee Global Enterprises, the umbrella company for the club and the YES network — and the specifics of that interest will have to be untangled. Rubenstein would not say if Swindal still worked for the Yankees.

Is this really how it works? Of course it is. After all, when Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig left to become MLB commissioner he put his daughter in charge. This kind of thing happens all the time.

But when there are hundreds, maybe thousands of employees whose livelihoods are at stake, not to mention billions of dollars of revenue, it just seems crazy to treat an organization like it’s the House of Windsor, instead of a major company.

All that said, you’ve got to feel for Swindal here. It’s got to be hard enough to enter a family business when your father-in-law is the boss, but when your father in law is THE BOSS, well, that’s another matter altogether.

Now the question becomes, who is next in line? And I want to go on the record saying that if they don’t hand the job to the winner of next season’s The Apprentice, I’m going to be disappointed. How awesome would an Apprentice hosted by George Steinbrenner be? Very awesome, I say. Much better than the version they tried with Martha Stewart and at least as compelling as the Trump-led show.

I have been waiting for this day ever since I heard Nomar Garciaparra, who was then the beloved shortstop of the Boston Red Sox, and Mia Hamm, who was then the idol of every soccer-playing girl in the Western Hemisphere (including this one), were an item.

Like two champion racehorses carefully selected for speed, agility, and bone strength, Nomar and Mia have produced two infants of prodigious athletic ability. The twins, whose dam surely spent the gestation carefully monitoring her intake of folic acid, calcium, and whey protein, are expected to hit .400, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and start speaking in about two years. With Garciaparra as their sire, however, doctors should carefully monitor their tendons.

From the AP:

LOS ANGELES –Former soccer star Mia Hamm, wife of Dodgers first baseman Nomar Garciaparra, delivered twin girls late Tuesday.

“Both are healthy and over five pounds,” Dodgers spokesman Josh Rawitch said, adding the births took place in the Los Angeles area.

While 5 lbs may not seem like much, we must take into account that at 3% bodyfat, the tykes are still in the 99th percentile for their age (1 day). Moreover, there’s nothing wrong with them that a little time and HGH won’t cure.

Here’s a heartwarming local-man-makes-good story, courtesy of the Atlanta Braves. It seems a local pest exterminator beat out a dozen professional voice and radio contestants to win the job of Braves’ PA announcer. From the AJC:

Casey Motter of Newnan, who works for Northwest Exterminator but calls youth football and baseball games in Peachtree City, was named Wednesday as the Braves announcer — with a catch.

He’ll take the mike at Turner Field for Friday and Saturday’s exhibition games against the Chicago White Sox. If all goes well, the job is his, according to the team.

Motter, 38, auditioned last week with 12 other finalists, all of whom had worked in voice or radio.

Motter has worked at the Senoia Raceway, but his longest gig was making $40 a game as the voice of the Peachtree City Packers youth football league.

Motter was discovered by Braves assistant general manager Frank Wren when he was calling a playoff game for Landmark Christian, a team that includes Wren’s son.

“He told me I had a very commanding voice and a southernness to it and that’s what we’re looking for,” said Motter. “I didn’t have the training, but had that southernness.”

Everybody loves southerness and you just can’t fake it, as Hillary Clinton learned the hard way.

The story of Motter beating out a bunch of pros just goes to show that anything can happen. You just have to believe.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting super stoked for the Braves’ 2007 season, aka, Mission: Possible.

Cleveland Indians ace C.C. Sabathia was struck on the lower left arm by a line drive in the first inning of his final spring start against the Blue Jays on Wednesday. Sabathia, who was scheduled to pitch the Indians’ season opener next week in Chicago, couldn’t shield himself from a bullet off the bat of Reed Johnson. From the AP:

“Indians coaches and trainers sprinted from the dugout to the mound to assist Sabathia, who shook his hand and shouted a loud profanity. He was immediately taken to the clubhouse to assess his condition.”

The club is awaiting X-rays, although the initial diagnosis by team doctors was that Sabathia sustained a bruised left forearm.

Wednesday’s injury is the most recent in a string of early season debilitations for Sabathia. In April of 2003, he left his second start of the season with a hyperextension of his throwing elbow. In April of ‘04, he was scratched from a start because of irritation in his throwing shoulder. Sabathia began the ‘05 season on the disabled list after straining an oblique muscle during Spring Training. Last year, he left his Opening Day start after only 2 1/3 innings with an abdominal injury. He was sidelined for an entire month.

Now, I like C.C. Sabathia. I really do. I like big burly pitchers with good stuff. I like the tilted hat. I like the attitude.

What I don’t like is this developing injury pattern. How many more springs can it be until until someone includes Sabathia’s name with the likes of Prior and Wood? Just as is the case with the Cubs, any injury to their No. 1 starter would be another blow to the Indians, who will already begin the season without their other left-hander Cliff Lee.

***Updated at 4:05 pm Eastern

From the AP:

Sabathia has been “taken to a hospital for X-rays,

which did not reveal any broken bones, the team said.

He will be examined again Thursday, but his availability

for the April 2 season opener remains in doubt.”

It’s pretty clear that nobody has any idea who will win this year’s World Series. The Angels are a trendy pick. Ditto with the Mets and Red Sox. Of course the Yankees are always a contender. But, as last season taught us, you just never know.

Fortunately, it’s much easier to predict who the worst team in the league will be. This year, the choice is almost unanimous: the Washington Nationals.

How bad will the Nats be? That’s debatable. Buster Olney reported recently that some scouts think the Nats could lose as many as 130 games. That would be impressive.

Recently, fellow Umpbumper Nick, who is currently on a whirlwind tour of the Grapefruit League, said that he thought the Nationals opening day lineup was one of the worst in history.

But not everybody is so down on the Nats. From today’s Washington Post:

With less than a week before Opening Day, the Nats don’t look as lousy in Florida as they might prefer. “That No. 1 overall draft pick may be gone already,” laughed a Nats exec. “How about No. 3?”

Shawn Hill has a 0.96 ERA in five starts. Rookie lefty Matt Chico is ahead of schedule for a rotation spot. Jerome Williams (3.38 ERA) always had a fine arm. John Patterson hasn’t fallen into a manhole yet. The bullpen’s deep. Cristian Guzman, still only 29, is 16 for 36. Was the shoulder injury that cost him the ‘06 season part of the reason he hit .219 in ‘05? If so, did the Nats just rediscover the shortstop from three Twins playoff teams? It’s only exhibitions, but versatile Kory Casto, shortstop Josh Wilson, outfielder Chris Snelling and catcher Jesus Flores (Rule 5) all look like big league hitters. And solid utilityman Ronnie Belliard fell into the Nats’ hands. That’s a lot of positives for one spring training. “Hysteria was premature,” Kasten said.

Is it possible that the Nationals are going to be better than we thought? Could the Nats be this year’s Cinderella team, the way the Marlins were in 2006?

It seems like a stretch. Last year’s Marlins team was based around a core of young, talented players. It was a youth movement. This year’s Nats team looks like the cast from Major League. It’s a group of mostly veteran castoffs, with the exception of the young and extremely talented Ryan Zimmerman.

Still, if you want a reason to believe, just look to the bright lights of Las Vegas:

Las Vegas has noticed. Scouts were recently quoted as saying the Nats were so bad they could lose 130. Talk’s cheap. The smart money disagrees. The over-under for the Nats is 68-94 — just three more loses than last year.

Only three more losses than last year, after losing Alfonso Soriano, Jose Vidro, and Nick Johnson for at least half the season, would be a major moral victory. But don’t hold your breath. It’s likely this team will be more like the 2006 Royals than the 2006 Marlins. And they might be even worse than that.

Last season, after a year spent on the DL, White Sox DH Jim Thome hit 42 HRs, 109 RBIs and a .288 AVG on his way to the comeback player of the year award.

This season, Thome won’t take anybody by surprise. But here’s a list of players who are top candidates for 2007 Comeback Player of the Year:

1. Sammy Sosa Slammin’ Sammy is back from baseball purgatory. He spent a year sitting on his duff in his native Dominican, after a couple of seasons with the Orioles that saw him completely implode as a hitter and a Congressional hearing that took a lot of the shine off his formerly glowing image. Now he’s on the Rangers and spent most of spring training absolutely tearing the cover off the ball. If Sosa can keep it up, he’s the logical choice for the CPOYA, but then again voters might find it hard to vote for a guy who forgot how to speak English when asked about steroid use and who, not so long ago, got caught with a corked bat.

2. Garrett Anderson One of the most liked players in the game, Anderson didn’t live up to expectations the last few seasons due to injury. This is a guy who hit 235, 28, 29, and 29 homers between 2000-2003. The last three years he’s hit 14, 17 and 17. That’s not awful, but it’s not what we cam to expect from Anderson. This year, Anderson says he is finally healthy. He’s only 34, so he should still have gas left in the tank. If his injuries really are a thing of the past, he could be primed for a big year.

3. Dmitri Young This guy has nowhere to go but up, after getting cut by the Tigers last season, then entering rehab following a domestic violence incident. Now he’s playing first base for the Nationals, which might be an even bigger challenge than quitting drinking. But don’t underestimate him. He can hit. In 2003, he hit 29 HR, 85 RBI and .297 AVG with the Tigers. You don’t luck your way into those numbers. And he was probably drunk. Imagine what he will do sober.

4. Wade Miller It seems like forever ago that the Astros were planning their future around Miller and Roy Oswalt. Miller won 16, 15 and 14 games from 2001-2003. But the last few seasons, he just couldn’t stay healthy. Now he’s earned a spot as the Cubs fifth starter. A return to form could be the difference between the Cubs finishing in first or last.

5. Mark Prior and Kerry Wood Stranger things have happened, but one is scheduled to open the season in the minors and one will start on the DL, so don’t hold your breath.