Two days ago, I grumbled about the MLB Extra Innings broadcast of the Yankee game going out at exactly 11 PM in the middle of the bottom of the 10th inning. I was fuming and emailed DirecTV. Today I got a response, and it was friendly and specific enough that it satisfies me.
Tag: baseball
Ahhhhhhhh!
It was the bottom of the 10th inning, 2 outs, and Jeter was at the plate. Yanks down 4-2 and two men on base. The clock struck 11 PM on the east coast–and the channel on which I was watching the game (one of the MLB Extra Inning channels I get on DirecTV) went black with a message that this programming wasn’t available in my area. The game ended 5 minutes later and the Yankees lost. At that point, the channel came back on just fine. So essentially, I missed the most important part of the game. It was a little suspicious that this happened at the top of the hour exactly.
Well! I just sent an email to DirecTV customer support that breathes flame. I pleaded with them to have someone who is a baseball fan read the email message so that they can empathize with my frustration. I asked for a discount or some kind of refund for the five minutes and told them in all seriousness that I didn’t care if they gave me a 5-cent discount, but that they owned me for this. Finally, I asked them to let me know exactly what steps they are taking to prevent this from happening again.
There is nothing more frustrating than investing 4 hours in a game and missing the crucial last 5 minutes. I don’t really expect to get an answer but the fact that this happened upset me far more than the fact that the Yankees ended up losing the game.
The Cooperstown Trip
It is official! Doug and I will be making a roadtrip to Cooperstown. Doug is going to fly into town on Friday, June 8. I’ve rented us a nice car from Hertz and we’re going to drive up to Cooperstown on Friday, June 9. It’s about a 6-1/2 hour drive from where I live, but we’ll probably take longer. For one thing, I’ve promised Eric that I’d stop by his place in Albany on the way up.
We’ll be staying at the Tunnicliff Inn, which is a mere 500 feet from the Baseball Hall of Fame. We’ll have all day Saturday to explore.
Sunday we’ll head back home, stopping for a few hours in New York City to see jen_ashlock and Jason.
Doug then heads home on Monday, June 12.
Should be fun and I can’t wait!
MLB.com vs DirecTV
I canceled my MLB.com subscription today, and instead, ordered the sports package on DirecTV (not the “Extra Innings” package but the monthly premium package). There are several reasons:
- MLB.com was not working well on my Macs and I didn’t want to use it on my work PC.
- MLB.com is $15/month and the resolution is fair at best
- The premium sports package on DirecTV is $10/month (because I already have the HBO package)
- The premium sports package includes several dozen channels including YES, NESN and many FOX Sports channels. I can see just as many Yankee games and ultimately, at a cheaper price.
Incidentally, I was on hold for a hair over 15 minutes waiting to cancel my MLB.com subscription. But I finally got through to a rep, cancelled the subscription and received a confirmation by email.
And by the time I got home from work, my sports package was already working so I can watch the Yankee game on YES tonight.
Eric and Ryane’s visit: Day 2
We went to the Oriole’s/Angels game today and that was a lot of fun. Especially for Ryane because the Angels clobbered the O’s 9-3. I kept score during the game and it was a tricky score-keeping game indeed. During the second inning, Javy Lopez hit what was clearly a homerun to left-center. For some reason, Miguel Tejada stopped running at 2nd base–perhaps because he thought the ball was caught. In the meantime, Lopez passed Tejada on the baselines. Well, that confused things even more. Ultimately, while the ball was clearly a homerun, it was ruled a single and the batter was OUT because the batter passed another runner on the basepaths. Tejada was allowed to score. I’d never seen anything like that before.
After the game, we headed to the Inner Harbor. We stopped at Capitol City Brewery for some beers and appetizers and then spent some time walking around the harbor. We headed home just as it looked as though it were about to start raining.
On the way home, we stopped at the grocery store to get some ice cream and walked into the store one minute before it was scheduled to close–early because of Easter Sunday. We got our ice cream, however, and headed home.
We watched Garden State in the evening because Eric and Ryane had never seen it before.
They head back home tomorrow.
Mets Scorecards
As mentioned earlier, here are my scorecards from the Mets game on Sunday. I use a modified version of the traditional way of score-keeping, so somethings may look unfamilar.
Marlin’s scorecard
Mets scorecard
At Day At Shea
For the first time in more than 20 years, I went to a ball game at Shea Stadium, courtesy of Norm and Vicky, where were given three tickets to the game. We had great seats in the Mezzanine Box (section 2, box 504C, seats 4-6) right behind home plate and had a great view of the game. I kept score the whole game, and did a pretty good job at it (my totals matches those published online, so I was doing something right).
Norm and Vicky arrived shortly into the top of the 1st inning and we had a great time, eating, watching the game and commenting on various players names and fans with annoying-sounding voices.
The Mets were losing most of the game, tied it up in the late innings, and even managed to win with a walkoff sac-fly in the bottom of the 9th, so Vicky got to experience those rare Mets victories at home.
I had a really fun time and once again, I had Norm and Vicky to thank for it.
In an interesting post script, today was supposed to be the first of my Oriole’s games for my season tickets this year, but because I was in NY, I couldn’t go and gave the tickets to Kevin, who is a Red Sox fan and probably enjoyed the game more than I would have. And as it turned out, I got to see a ball game after all!)
For Vicky
This entry is for Vicky, who checked in today to make sure I was keeping this blog up-to-date, lest she not know what I had for lunch today. I figure if she saw her name here, she’d be content. Vicky is “special”. You see, she is a Mets fan. Enough said, right? So I try to be accommodating.
Baseball is back!
I did manage to stay up last night and watch all but the bottom of the 9th inning of the opening day game of the Yankees and Oakland. It was a great game, and I got to watch the powerful Yankee office beat Oakland 15-2. In fact, they knocked Barry Zito out of the game after 1-1/3 innings. A-Rod had a grand slam, Matsui went 4-for-4 with a 3-run jack. Jeter had 2 hits, Damon had 3 hits. Every started but Posada had at least one hit. And Randy Johnson pitched very well, allowing only 1 run (a homerun). Great start to the new season. I finally got to bed at about 1:15 AM.
Season tickets are here
When I got home from work this evening, my Oriole’s season tickets for 2006 were here. Same seats as the last two years. This year, I noticed, there are more game times that are “TBA” than in previous years (at least 4 game times are “TBA”).
I called Dad to let him know that the tickets arrived.
“Tessie”
I have a terrible secret.
For reasons I can simply not explain, I really like that song “Tessie” by Dropkick Murphy.
This song was most recently featured in the movie Fever Pitch and it is probably better known in the Boston area as the theme song of the Boston Red Sox. The Boston-Fracking-Red Sox! This is my secret shame.
To be honest, I think I enjoy the song because of it’s pacing and it is one of those rare rock-songs about baseball–and you gotta love rock songs about baseball, Boston or not. It’s also got a great chorus. I just downloaded it from the Apple Music Store. Listening to it now makes me forget, for a moment, that I’ve been sick for the last couple of days and makes me feel like it’s the beginning of baseball, spring has sprung, and summer is just around the corner.
Still sick
Well, I woke up still feeling feverish this morning and my throat was still scratchy. I’m going to be pissed if this turns out to be the flu because it will have been a big waste of $18 for that flu shot.
I just called the Oriole’s ticket office in order to get an extra ticket to the Sunday, April 16 game against the Angels. Eric and Ryane are going to be coming down for that game (Ryane is an Angel’s fan) and I got a ticket exactly two rows behind where my season seats are located (section 29 row J, seats 9-10). The cool thing was the extra ticket cost less than half what they go for in the regular season because I’m a season ticket holder.
It’s very bright and sunny out but it’s cooled off quite a bit since yesterday so the bright sunshine is a bit of an illusion.
I spent the morning play MVP baseball 2005. I didn’t have energy to do much else, but it’s about time I got off my butt and started Getting Things Done this weekend. I’m also hoping to finish up Foundation’s Triumph today, although I haven’t decide what it is I am going to read next.
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