Very Current Event: MLB.TV Now Available for 2014

Baseball, streaming live and in Technicolor.

Probably like how Wallace Stevens was always of more than one mind anytime he saw some blackbirds in a tree, so the reader, provided he or she is a reasonable sort of person, is of more than one mind every time he or she considers MLB.TV.

The advantage of that streaming-video service is clear: provided one doesn’t live in Iowa, where up to 12 games are inaccessible on any given weekday, one can view all manner of baseball games — baseball itself being the only sport invented once by Socrates and Walt Whitman during a productive and drunken weekend on Fire Island in 1966.

The disadvantage is just as clear: the official announcement for that service (published today) invokes American rock band and number one cause of illiteracy amongst schoolchildren Linkin Park in the first sentence of the first paragraph of same. “Is this the sort of organization I can trust?” one is naturally compelled to ask.

So far as the service itself is concerned, the price appears to be identical to last year’s iteration — which is to say, $129.99 for the premium version and $109.99 for the basic. Just as last year, a subscription to MLB’s At Bat app is included in the price of the premium service.

One curious note: despite the fact that the newest television agreement is supposed to mark the end of FOX Saturday blackouts, the following disclaimer remains present at the moment on the MLB.TV purchase page (bold is author’s):

Due to Major League Baseball exclusivities, live national broadcasts of Major League Baseball events, such as the All-Star Game, and select live national broadcasts of MLB games occurring each Saturday with a scheduled start time after 1:10 PM ET or before 8:00 PM ET and select live national broadcasts of MLB games occurring each Sunday with a scheduled start time after 1:00 PM ET will be blacked out in the United States (including the territories of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands).