I recently decided that I will not be purchasing the MLB Extra Innings package. Last year, I didn’t use it nearly as much as I expected that I would. A few times, we’d be out in the backyard on the weekend and a game from the NL or AL Central would finish and we would flip over and watch a west coast game, but we didn’t do it often enough to justify $200 for the package.
I was at Twenty Sports Grille (proud sponsor of Ivy Envy) a few weeks ago and a guy informed me of the MLB At-Bat application for iPhone, Blackberry and Android. The details for 2010 have not been released, but this app cost only $10 last year and it includes Pitch-by-Pitch, video highlights, video of 1 or 2 live games per day, as well as the home and away radio feeds for every game (no blackouts). This seems like an adequate and affordable replacement for me.
But imagining laying in bed listening to the radio broadcast of west coast games really takes me back to my childhood.

This idea makes me feel like an old-timer. I’m only 32, but growing up, my family didn’t have cable and I relied on the radio for my baseball fix. Sadly, living in central Illinois, this fix was taken care of by the St. Louis Cardinals, via Jack Buck and Mike Shannon. Being a Cubs fan, I fell asleep every summer night, rooting for whoever the Cardinals were playing.
But the game is different on the radio. Obviously, the announcers are relied upon to paint a visual picture of the game for the listeners. But it’s more than that. There is a cadence to calling a game on the radio. Ron Santo doesn’t quite have this cadence down yet.
Baseball seems more pure to me on the radio. I can’t see what actually happened during a play. I am trusting the call of the announcer. On television, I can see Soriano’s gaffes in the field clearly. I can form my own opinion of the play of each person on the field. On the radio, I only know what the guy in the booth wants me to know. I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it’s quite the opposite. There is an element of innocence to listening to the game. You listen for the love of the game. I don’t listen to a game on the radio ready to second-guess and question every ball and strike call. I don’t over-analyze the route an outfielder takes to the ball. I find myself not questioning managerial decisions as much. It’s pure and it’s America’s past-time.
We take it all too seriously. It’s ridiculous how closely we, and the rest of the Cubs blog-world, watches these guys. It’s absurd, the scrupulous nature of our attention to the Cubs. But it’s what fandom has become and there’s no turning back. So I will watch the Cubs on television and critique every step and every swing. I’ll just listen to the radio broadcasts of west coast games for my “love of the game” fix now.
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