Pas de baseball

I was wondering how we were going to screw up baseball. And the way in which we have screwed it up was genius.

For example, last night: great game. The surprising John Patterson pitches a gem. Brad Wilkerson hits one into the upper deck -- section 470, to be exact. Not an easy thing to do.

It would've been nice to have actually been able to watch, or listen to, the game.

Thanks to recent lawsuit shenanigans between Comcast and the Orioles, the only Nats games that will be televised are the ones UPN-20 has already contracted to show, which are mostly on the weekends. Thus, last night's game wasn't on TV... not even on baseball's premium Extra Innings package (which I have, b/c I'm a freak) on digital cable and satellite TV services.

Meanwhile, the "radio network" for the games is a joke. All the games are carried on 1050 AM, "Federal News Radio", which I didn't even know existed until a few weeks ago. And there's good reason, because here's a list of areas the signal covers:

NOWHERE.

Some of the games, apparently at random, are also carried on 104.1 FM, which I can pick up only marginally better. But still... the ones that aren't, I can't even pick up in my apartment. So sad.

(BTW, to add insult to injury, if you do pick up the radio broadcast, the first run scored in the game is sponsored by Fox News. I wish I was kidding. It's the "Fox News First Run of the Game." I should have expected that.)

Oh, but guess who I can watch and/or listen to? THE FUCKING ORIOLES. Oh, thank God for that. Comcast is carrying their games, as is 980 AM, which actually has a halfway decent signal.

Ugh... this is all Peter Angelos' fault, for meddling with the stupid TV rights. The whole situation is basically playing right into his hands; we can neither watch, nor listen to, our new team. But we can watch or listen to his team.

It's hard to describe the unjustifiable level of anger I feel toward Angelos. But I will try to put it in perspective. I would like to take a large metal item, sort of like a giant speculum, and jam it up his rectum. Then, I would clamp the handles together, thus causing him to be eviscerated from the inside out, in a highly gruesome manner. And then, as I'm walking away, someone would come up to me and be all, "Where's Peter Angelos?" and I would answer, "He had to split." In an inexplicably Austrian accent.

Wow, that's disgusting. Sorry. I suppose I should put up a parental warning of some kind.

---> DISGUSTINGNESS ALERT! <---

Umm, ---> IN RETROSPECT! <---

Really, there's no reason I should be THAT mad. That kind of anger should only be reserved for truly evil beings (e.g. Dan Snyder). But I am. This whole thing is ridiculous, and could have been worked out months ago if baseball not dragged its feet, over everything, as usual.

Oh well. Just call me a charter member of the Peter Angelos Giant Speculum Brigade. I'm going to go get some T-shirts printed up.