I’ll admit it, I’ve been looking forward to the day that mlb.com unveils mlb.tv for the season. Now that’s finally happened, I’m pretty pumped to say the least! As I have subscribed to mlb.tv for the last 3 years now, I’ll be continuing to do so, even though everygame I watch is pretty much archived (except for sundays). I paid the little bit extra to get mlb.tv premium, and it was sure as hell worth it. Perhaps my favourite feature that was introduced last year was the ability to have home and away feeds. Sometimes I love listening to the announcers of the Tigers opponents, or when I’m watching a random game, it’s great to be able to switch between say Vin Scully, and Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper. Also, I find that if you watch the game with another team’s broadcasters, you get a better perspective of what that team is going through, in terms of inside information that the announcers pick up, like who’s got the hot hand for example. After all, they’ve been watching all season, so they should know what they’re talking about. Still it comes as a relief that I can retort back to Mario Impemba and Rod Allen on FSN Detroit rather than have to suffer through 3 hours of Ken Harrelson screaming ‘put it on the board, YEEEESSSSSSSSSS!’ Honestly, as much as I love getting a flavour of other teams broadcasts, there’s nothing worse than an over zealous, biased commentator. Everyonce in a while, I’ll tolerate, ’2-0 good guys’, but seriously, only in small doses. And if it’s a key game, then it’s FSN D all the way.

The second feature I’m gonna love about mlb.tv this year is the ability to switch between radio and tv commentary. I haven’t really listened very much to radio broadcasts, but when I have, I’ve found it to be a much more entertaining listen in many ways. Just the fact that radio announcers have to literally ‘paint’ a picture in your mind of what they see if brilliant. It really makes you think about the little things a whole lot more and in todays game, I think it’s really important to remember all the small things. Sometimes it’s too easy to forget that the catcher is using a different set of signs because its the fifth inning and the battery is changing the signs based on odd or even numbered innings. When was the last time you tried to ‘steal’ the signs on tv? It’s pretty fun trying to figure it out.

Speaking of keeping connected with the little things, I’ve always found that scoring a game yourself is one of the best ways to do this. What’s even greater is trying to score that run down of the runner on first that went from the 1st baseman to the shortstop to the pitcher covering first to the second baseman back to the 1st baseman for the out. (that’s 3-6-1-4-3 for those of you scoring at home!) Matt Smith over at BaseballGB is putting together a keeping score season for you scoring enthusiasts out there, or for those of you that aren’t and want to know how. When I first started following baseball about a decade ago, I’d be completely lost at times. When I discovered how to keep score, I decided to give it a shot and it really helped me learn the intricacies of the game. What I love about scoring a game yourself is that you can pretty much create your own scoring system. Want to write ppo instead of p on a popout? Go ahead. Fancy drawing an infield diamond in every box and filling in the box as the batter progresses around the bases? Be my guest. It’s flexible, and fun. And now with mlb.tv’s rewind function, if you don’t agree with the official scorer’s call on a ball that shorthopped the David Wright, then go ahead and take another look. Imagine this one too. You accidently dropped your scorecard and had to tear yourself away to retrieve it, while in the meantime Carlos Guillen singled and took second on the throw from the right fielder to home trying to nail Curtis Granderson at the plate. Go back and take another look at it. Now there’s definitely something you can’t do at the ballpark.

Only 6 days to go…..