So I get home just in time to tune in to the first inning of the All-Star game (in progress) and since I don’t have a working TV, I log on to MLB.tv. To my surprise, the broadcast is not the same TV broadcast (as was the case for the Home Run Derby last night), but instead, is a direct feed from nine different camera angles around the new Busch Stadium. Freaking cool!

The video player is very similar to the MLB.tv player, and it gives you the option to watch anywhere from one camera to four simultaneously. Switching between them is as easy as clicking on the grid, then clicking on the new angle available as a list or placed geographically on a graphic of the ball park.

I was asked for my MLB.com account login info, not my MLB.tv, but in my case, they happen to be the same. Not sure if non-MLB.tv subscribers can watch it gratis, tho. Also, I hadn’t heard of this at all, I did some googling to try and figure when/if it had been announced, and the only thing I could find was a press release for a similar broadcast Fox Interactive did for the BCS.

And the best part? No broadcasters! Just pure unfiltered stadium ambience sounds. Beautiful! Darn. The first three camera angles (X-MO Low Home, High Homeplate, and Centerfield) do have the Fox broadcast audio.

(The main Fox online broadcast itself is blacked out, but is available through MLB.tv, as is Game Day audio).

I’m sorry, but I have to say this is freaking awesome. I take most of it back Bud, Robert, you too Donald, who’s a good new media goonie? who’s it, who’s it? yes you.

For the record, I just have to say, it is unjust to lambaste Manny for a) that weirdo 390 foot single in Game 5 or for b) not sliding into home plate in the same game.

First, I flew into a rage Friday morning en route to work when I was listening to Boston’s sports radio station, WEEI, and the announcers not only criticized Manny, saying they “hadn’t even noticed it until a Tom Verducci article” that mentioned the non-slide. Then they also slammed a caller who criticized Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. It is hard to overstate the robustness of the Boston radio team’s defense of Buck and McCarver. It was as if they were literally watering at the mouth over how “excellent” they supposedly are. “Excellent.” Yes. They actually used that word. They even said they learned from listening to them!

[Sputter, fume, seethe, sputter.]

But as I was saying:

1. Re: the homer that wasn’t, the eggheads at BP have already said they thought it was a home run. I, for one, accept Cleveland’s crazy-ass ground rules but I still think that any ball that hits “the top” of the wall is “over” the wall and hence ought to be called a “home run.” Nonetheless, I think it’s transparent that Manny wasn’t running hard on that ball because he thought it was caught, not because he assumed it was out. If he’d assumed it was out, he would have stood at the plate with his hands in the air. Yes, he should have made it to second on that play, but it was understandably confusing. If that happens to David Ortiz, I guarantee you nobody mentions it.

2. Re: the slide that wasn’t, what the heck was Manny supposed to do? Kill Victor Martinez to make him drop the ball? Slide the 3.7 miles to home plate? If there’s one person to be blamed for that play, it’s clearly Demarlo Hale, the Red Sox third base coach. Maybe Jacoby Ellsbury can score from second on a shallow liner to right, but Manny Ramirez can’t.

So, yeah. There you have it. The only people who think otherwise are the kind of people who actually learn from Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Do you want to be that kind of person? Be honest. No, no you don’t.

During the top of the sixth inning of tonight’s game five, Tim McCarver said something shocking. McCarver noted that Tony LaRussa was playing Chris Duncan in right field, and that that wasn’t a very good idea.

“Duncan isn’t a very good defensive player,” McCarver said. “I think LaRussa should have a better defensive player in instead of Duncan. Somebody like Preston Wilson should be in. They should be playing four innings of defense.”

What was shocking about that statement? It wasn’t what McCarver said that was shocking. It was that he was right. On the next play, Duncan badly misplayed a Sean Casey pop-up and Casey ended up at second with a double (he was later stranded there).

McCarver is a lot of things, but he is almost never right. And in this instance, he was very, VERY right. Wow.

Check out Steven Kaus’ Huff-Po column on FOX’s Monopoly on Saturday baseball.

I hate FOX, I hate their dull-ass Saturday broadcasts. I hate the fact that the ChiSox will never be on my TV on a lazy Saturday afternoon because of blackouts and regional broadcasts of lame Marlins’/Braves’ Games, nor will they be available on the luxurious MLB Extra Innings or the posh MLB.TV.

Now I’ll have to put up with Tim McCarver and Joe Buck for 26 reg. season games instead of 18. And Jeanne Zelasko. Ugh. Anybody watching the HR Derby on Monday witnessed the instant drop in the quality of the broadcast once Zelasko opened her pie hole to spew cornball cliché after conrball cliché on Tuesday.

Oh the Humanity!

And what’s worse, the Division Series are no longer on ESPN.

Why?! Doesn’t Selig read shutuptimmccarver.com ? or the I Hate Tim McCarver Home Page? or the countless other sites dedicated to purging our airwaves and otherwise fine baseball-dedicated afternoons and evenings from this douche bag and his posse?