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Extra Innings For All

It was recently revealed, via MLB's tax return, that Bud Selig pulls in a salary of $14.5 million as commissioner of baseball. He will probably put himself in for a raise today because baseball will have my, and thousands of other people's, money added to its coffers after finally coming to an agreement that allows digital cable subscribers to send that money baseball's way.

M.L.B. and InDemand — a consortium that is owned by the cable operators Comcast, Time Warner and Cox — agreed last night to restore Extra Innings swiftly to their systems as a free preview through sometime next week, after which it will cost a discounted $159 for a short period.

The deal was finally signed because InDemand acquiesed to MLB's demand that they carry the not yet existant MLB channel in 2009 and beyond. In return for allowing the channel on their systems the consortium gained a 20% stake in the new channel, roughly equal to Direct TV. That means all of us cable guys can look forward to a future full of programs telling us about what Ryan Howard is really like off the field, how Tommy Lasorda cooks lasagna and why given the choice between major league talent and a roster of crap Tony LaRussa always chooses the latter.

It would be lovely to say that baseball made this decision out of the goodness of their hearts and their deep respect for the fans who make baseball what it is but clearly the decision was based on what was best for Selig and his cronies. Whatever. Capitalism marches along in search of the almighty dollar with no regard for the service provided to the people who provide the money that grease the wheels. It's true in sports, music and everywhere else so I'll just choose to be happy that I can watch more baseball.

I'm Not Tired, I'm Pissed

A healthy tip of the cap to We Are The Postmen for their work digging up this gem of a videoclip on the Youtubes. It's really surprising that inline hockey doesn't get the A-level announcing talent.

Peyton Manning Does It For The Children

I didn't catch it Live on Saturday Night but I did tape and watch Saturday Night Live yesterday with Peyton Manning's debut as late night TV comedian. He was a good sport and handled himself well, no worse than any other host that I've seen in the last few seasons. The sketches were hit and miss, more of the latter but that has more to do with the show than Peyton. The highlight is above, funnier than anything else on the show by a fair margin mostly because you'll always have me laughing at bleeped out cursing.

Point, Counterpoint

Two executives are on phones in their plush, well-appointed corporate offices. iN Demand, a consortium of cable companies who are trying to make a deal to save valuable programming, picks up the phone and begins speaking to Major League Baseball, the owner of said programming.

iN Demand: As the current home for Extra Innings for more than 200,000 cable subscribers, we have extended ourselves to do our best to be able to continue to provide this package to baseball fans and our customers.   

Major League Baseball: That's great! Go ahead and fax over those agreements and we'll put together an announcement.

iN Demand: This offer meets all the conditions set forth by MLB last week.

Major League Baseball: The communication sent to our office today by iN Demand is not responsive to that offer. The response falls short of nearly all of the material conditions, among them requirements for carriage of The Baseball Channel and your share of the rights fees for Extra Innings, set forth in the Major League Baseball offer made to you on March 9.

iN Demand: By rejecting this matching offer, MLB has proven it never intended for iN Demand to have a fair and equal opportunity to bid for Extra Innings. Our offer was fully responsive to MLB's requirements and public statements.

Major League Baseball: iN Demand, you ignorant slut.

Mr. Telephone Man

David Pinto at Baseball Musings spent part of his afternoon live blogging the Direct TV - Major League Baseball conference call about the Extra Innings package. It sounds like there's a chance for cable companies and the DISH Network to keep their rights to show the out-of-market games to customers who want to buy them.

In Demand and Dish Network, the other incumbent carriers of Extra Innings can still buy the package. However, they have until the end of March, and they must pay the same rate as DirecTV, and carry the Baseball Channel as well. If neither of these providers signs on to the deal, DirecTV gets an exclusive and pays more money to MLB. MLB suggests people who get Extra Innings on Dish and In Demand call their providers to encourage them to make a deal for Extra Innings.

Encouraging news for people like me who rely on the package to continue reigning as champion of their fantasy leagues. If it wasn't for that package I'd never have had the guts to plunk down $81 of my free-agent budget for Bobby Abreu last season. It's encouraging but not quite good news since this seems like a backhanded way for MLB to avoid the ire of people who want the package but don't have or want DTV and shift said ire to cable companies who aren't willing to pony up for it. My fingers are crossed that Time Warner does the right thing.

But Peyton's No David Palmer

As a big fan of "24" I'm kinda upset that I didn't come up with this myself but the blog Zembla has uncovered the reason why Wayne Palmer is such a poor substitute for his older brother. It's because he's the Eli Manning of fictional television presidents. They've got a brilliant chart set up that perfectly explains the similarities between the two younger brothers.

If the Wayne-Eli connection continues, expect the government to continue its lackluster anti-terror efforts through at least Hour 18. Then, in the fourth quarter of the day, Wayne will return from the hospital and govern his best, making good reads and aggressive orders. He'll be aided by CTU's replacement for the late Agent Curtis, wide receiver Plaxico Burress.

Unfortunately, the first part of the day has been so screwed up that his late heroics will be useless. The three remaining bombs will explode, killing Jack Bauer and half of California before midnight, but Wayne will do an excellent job directing the "hurry-up" early-morning relief effort.

That makes Charles Logan Kurt Warner, which is a bit of an interesting comparison in its own right given Logan's recent conversion to Christianity from cowardice.

(Seen on Deadspin)

The NBA Returns To Baltimore

I can't sing the praises of The Wire highly enough. I know I've done it on these pages before but thanks to some truly visionary work by Jerry at Indeed, Indeed I get a chance to do it again. He's broken down the show and many of its characters with their NBA equivalents and he really could not have done a better job. The only gripes I have and they are pretty small ones is that he compared Steve Nash to both McNulty and Mayor Carcetti. I think McNulty is spot on, they are both smooth operators right at home in the black world despite their unyielding whiteness. Carcetti to me, though, is like John Stockton. Right at home in the black world but unwilling to change too much of himself to completely become a part of it.

There are a couple of characters left off that I will take a hack at -

Greggs/Sheryl Swoopes - Both can hang with the boys except they prefer hitting it with the girls.

Cutty/Alonzo Mourning - Hard ass ex-con Cutty runs the local gym with an eye toward helping out the younger set after getting a second chance at a clean life. Zo is making the most of his second chance while mentoring Dwayne Wade.

Bubbles/Donyell Marshall - Peas in a pod.

State Sen. Clay Davis/Walt "Clyde" Frazier - Clyde's the only guy I could picture saying "Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet" with the same gusto as the Senator.

Sgt. Landsman/Hot Plate Williams - Two fat men.

Otherwise, though, nothing's made me laugh harder all day than the comparison between Jeff Van Gundy and Levy the lawyer and nothing's made me nod my head more knowingly than the comparison between Chris and Oak except for maybe the one between Omar and Iverson. 

(First seen at Can't Stop The Bleeding)

Nationwide On K-Fed's Side

What are the odds that every guy who ends a relationship with Britney Spears ends up with a better career than she does? They just got better after seeing Kevin Federline's Super Bowl commercial. She hasn't done something that good in a really long time and looking as she does these days it seems unlikely that there's something good right around the corner.

Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kodos

If you're anything like me, you've spent some time on a Saturday morning in front of the tube wondering if Lee Corso was a Democrat or a Republican. Thanks to some smart research by Sports Media Watch I now know that Corso is a lefty through and through. 100% of the money he donated to political parties, candidates or causes went to the donkeys making his meetings with Steve Young around the ESPN watercooler quite uncomfortable. Young, like Dan Dierdorf, Cris Collinsworth and Al Michaels, is a supporter of the Grand Old Party of football talking heads.

Some other notables -

Jim Lampley, accused woman beater, is, surprisingly, a Democrat. Based on the former representative from PA Don Sherwood, I assumed that those who beat their girlfriends/mistresses were Republicans. Just goes to show you can't judge a book by its cover.

Mike Francesca is a Republican. Not surprising. No word on the Angry Puppy.

Michael Jordan gives 72% to Democrats, but is careful not to distance himself from Republicans who, after all, buy shoes too. 

Big Stein gives 51% to the Dems and 27% to the GOP, surprising because his support of Tricky Dick got him a year on the pine from Major League Baseball. More surprising is the news that former cokehead, serial dater and friend of Seinfeld Keith Hernandez is a Republican backer. Perhaps the dugout smoker is a friend of lobbyists from North Carolina and Virginia.

Sean Salisbury Making More News

You can't swing a sack of knishes on the internets today without running into Sean Salisbury. It's not the only time this has happened in recent memory and all in all may not be anything more than an announcer tripping over his own words but it's getting harder and harder to understand why ESPN keeps Salisbury on the air. He adds nothing of value to their football coverage unless you're into bullying blowhards who turn their every television appearance into a maelstrom of spittle, conjecture and incoherency. That's bad enough but he also takes pictures of his penis with his cell phone and shows them to other employees and now it seems he's prone to the occasional anti-Semetic soundbite.

During a taping of NFL Live Salisbury seems to have said, in reference to the way Peyton Manning led his team back after their rough start on Sunday, "No need to panic. We'll nip. We'll tuck. We'll go. We'll punch. We'll Jew. We'll do it all. And they nickeled and dimed them." You can hear the clip here, thanks to Pro Football Talk, and I have to say that it sounds like nothing but exactly what I've just typed based on several listens.

I first saw this on Randball, the blog of Minneapolis Star-Tribune writer Michael Rand, but it seems to have originated on a message board called The Corner Forum. Anyway, Rand got an answer from ESPN - according to an ESPN official, Sean Salisbury used the phrase “chew,” as in to chew clock, to describe a Peyton Manning drive, not “Jew” - that doesn't really ring true. He may have meant to use the word chew, Salisbury butchered an earlier part of the "commentary" when he couldn't quite get the words "reared its head" out, but he definitely says Jew. That he says nickeled and dimed right after is probably coincidental, either way it is probably time that ESPN moved on to Pat Ryan, Jim Everett or some other awful ex-quarterback for the analysis and leave Salisbury to appear in Adam Sandler movies.