MLB Gameday

Since Evelin and I don't believe in cable or satellite television, and since WEEI(AM) can't reach anywhere near D.C. with its 50 kW nighttime directional signal, I have been using the MLB Gameday webcast thing to watch some Red Sox games in near real time.

For the most part this works okay. I can flip back and forth between work or other webpages and the Gameday screen, but sometimes it takes forever for Gameday to update. For example, bottom of the 4th, Gameday told me that the bases were loaded and that Bellhorn had hit the ball into play with "run(s) scored," but it took forever for the page to update, letting me know that McCarty, Youkilis and Damon had made it home and that Bellhorn was on second after a throwing error. Actually, it didn’t update until Manny was at bat, which meant Ortiz was on first and Bellhorn had made it home, too.

Generally such a lag is just plain annoying, but there are times that I'm hitting refresh or jumping to another game and back to the Red Sox game thinking that if I force the applet to restart it will give me more information. Sadly, that never works.

The other annoying thing is, when the Sox play the O's, Gameday lags behind the radio commentary, so if I'm listening to the game and watching the webcast, the webcast is at least a pitch or three behind the game.

Complaints aside, it is better than having to wait until the next morning's newspaper to see who won and how.

[ASIDE: It's really too funny that http://www.orioles.com/ is the site of the U.S. Beer Drinking Team. (Other valid URLS for the team are http://www.usbdt.com/ and http://www.usbeerdrinkingteam.com/.) The official Baltimore Orioles website is http://www.theorioles.com/.]