Daily Link Dump 4/11

by JD Arney on Apr 11, 2006 9:34 AM EDT in Events

Baseball Minutia discusses the Reds big offensive start.

JinAZ has more on drafting strategies. I love this kind of stuff.

This is all over the internet, so you've probably seen it by now. But just in case, 1986 World Series Game Six Re-enacted in RBI Baseball.

Redleg Nation has put together an organizational depth chart. I'll probably use that as an excuse to never bother updating mine again. That thing ended up being a giant pain in the ass.

A lot of people are getting pretty pissed off at MLB.com's billing department:

We've received a couple of complaints about MLB.com's billing service. People like Colleen and `Major Steel' love being able to listen to home or away radio broadcasts of every game, live and archived for fifteen bucks for the season. What they abhor is their credit card being billed three times.
Or being automatically debited for a new subscription after they had already decided not to renew.
When they try to call in and get it resolved, the customer service line is always busy and/or hangs up on them. What's the deal?

Anybody here having any problems with MLB.com's services this year?

Here's a nice interview with Frank Thomas. I've always thought he's been underrated. But when you get stuck with the "bad guy" rep it gets pretty hard to get noticed for the good things, whether the rep was justified or not. And I don't think it was in Thomas' case, but you never really know.

Frank Robinson has been suspended. My wife thinks he's awesome incidentally. We were watching the Nats-Mets game when Pedro started and all of that went down, and she thought it was great how crazy Frank went. The umpires seemed really intimidated by him.

If you're looking for another fantasy league, check this one out. We're going to have a tiered structure next year if we can get this second league filled, where the top six teams from each league will play in the top league, while the bottom division teams will play in the other. This should help hold people's interest throughout the season, since finishing in the top half will mean something.

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MLB.tv

I decided not to renew, so when I received the MLB email in early March saying that I will be charged sometime around the middle of the month, I emailed customer service asking to cancel. A few hours later, I received another email, identical to the first. Never received a confirmation of cancellation.

I waited to see what would happen, because the card I used to pay last year was no longer valid. I was able to view games up until last Friday. Then I decided I actually did want the package, so I re-ordered.

I guess they ignored my request to cancel, but because the card expired, they had no choice.

The problem I have is that they introduced this new media player saying it's supposed to be improved quality. It SUCKS. The ball is even harder to follow than year. I haven't played with it enough to see if I can switch to Real Player, but I doubt it.

by Brian B on Apr 11, 2006 10:33 AM EDT 0 recs

Ray

I still hate Ray Knight. He was a moron as a player, a bigger moron as a manager. Just a moron.

by bobestes on Apr 11, 2006 11:24 AM EDT 0 recs

That RBI baseball renactment was sweet

I hadn't seen that before.

Redleg Nation: a support group for Reds obsessives.

by Chad on Apr 11, 2006 11:42 AM EDT 0 recs

MLB Audio

I miss the good old days of free Reds games online. Last year was the first year I coughed up the $15 to listen. I used one of those "disposable" credit card numbers when I signed up and I guess that was a good idea!

MLB let me listen to some games last week; I was hoping they had forgotten I didn't renew, but yesterday they wanted my $15 again. So they'll get another temporary CC number.

Go Reds!

by MirrorLakeJump on Apr 11, 2006 12:34 PM EDT 0 recs

Gameday Audio Issues

It took three days, and a TON of emails to finally get Gameday Audio working. And my laundry list of complaints matches everyone elses. No choice of player. An interface that doesn't work half the time. Terrible customer service.

Way to please the fanbase...

by Senor Pez on Apr 11, 2006 12:52 PM EDT 0 recs

More Ranting

I guess, the thing that I just have to get off my chest, is the fact that baseball seems to be in this death spiral. The steroid scandal. The expensive ballpark tickets. The fact that the same couple of teams always seem to be in contention each year.

The web portal had great potential. I've always attested that baseball audio is one of the best "workday soundtracks." It's something you can listen to while you get your work done. Instead, MLB.com combines a terribly-cluttered webpage with spotty services and awful customer service.

Instead of capitalizing on an opportunity to help the game get to a greater number of people, they instead let the almighty dollar guide them. Oh well... I'm going to go hassle with GameDay Audio.

by Senor Pez on Apr 11, 2006 2:23 PM EDT up 0 recs

mlb.tv

this is my first year with mlb.tv in the past I've just bought the season extra innings package - this year I wasn't sure I'd want to watch a whole year of the reds so going monthly.....

anyway, I too encountered the busy signals then the hangups then the this is not a working number situation.....also, my emails have not been replied to.

my issue was i bought the 14.95 mlb.tv thinking i'd have access to archived games. It appears to me now though that you need to buy the 19.95/month service to get access to archived games. I went to try to "upgrade" but it looks like it is going to charge me the full 19.95 over and above the 14.95 I already paid if I attempt to upgrade my service......

I got tired of trying to contact them and so I'm going without the archived access for this month thinking i guess I'll wait till next month and revisit......

Enough with the Homeruns and Strikeouts

by MichaelRed on Apr 11, 2006 1:39 PM EDT 0 recs

same thing here...

I was charged for gameday audio and MLB.TV today. I can't get through the phone line to have them fix it. The multimedia section on MLB.com is so clunky, they need to fix that and they need to stop billing people multiple times.

by bardstownboaters on Apr 11, 2006 2:20 PM EDT 0 recs

mlb.tv follies

mlb.tv has been a train wreck this year.

Having been a subscriber in 2005, I received a pending automatic renewal notification e-mail at the end of February '06 and felt fat, dumb and happy because I (foolishly) thought my credit card had been rebilled as advertised and was able to watch spring training games and regular season games without incident through Friday 08 April.

Once I determined the plug had in fact been pulled on me, I got off my still-fat, marginally smarter and now-unhappy butt and sent a polite WTFO e-mail to the droids at mlb.tv. Silly me to expect a reply to a cogent and detailed note as I'm virtually certain that mlb has a macro transferring all incoming "customer service" e-mail automatically into a wastebasket, unread, of course.

So, in light of mlb.tv's well-deserved reputation for unresponsiveness and incompetence, I decided I would sit tight until the Clue Birds of Life would rain enough fecal material on mlb to make them do something about it and I state WITH CAUTION that it finally appears they have done so.

Two hours ago, I attempted to log in again, just for the sake of re-kicking a cactus to see if it still does hurt my foot and lo and behold, a failed login attempt yields the following new blurb:

>>If you were a 2005 subscriber and received an auto-renewal notice and cannot access your subscription this season, please be advised that your credit card could not be processed. You will need to purchase online for the 2006 season. You will not be billed twice.<<

The money-eating one-celled organisms that are mlb's brain trust seem to have discovered the concept of self-preservation and determined their food supply is in jeopardy. Further hypothesis: Even one-celled organisms fear the wrath of the Federal Trade Commission.

Nonetheless, I advocate proceeding with caution and patience. I don't want to be caught in a re-subscription stampede.

"You will not be billed twice." Welcome to MLB-World. Where nothing can go rwong.

Finally, yes, the new media player with mlb.tv is poor. There no longer is a fast-forward button that in years past, allowed the viewer to easily skip through crass commercial messages when watching archived games. How clever of these children. System fidelity and quality in general is also down. Don't you love progress?

CFred

by CFred in Westwood on Apr 11, 2006 5:10 PM EDT 0 recs