Game 16 - Detroit vs. AAA's -- Over Before It Started
By The Anti-Blez on Thursday, April 20, 2006
I'm fed up with Major League Baseball and the way it fucks over its fans.
Earlier this month, I subscribed to the MLB.tv package so I could watch games on my Macintosh. According to the MLB.tv FAQ, the service supports Macintosh computers that are running OSX (which I am), use the Safari 1.3 web browser (which I do), and have the RealPlayer media player (which I have).
In fact, Safari 1.3 is the RECOMMENDED browser by MLB.tv.
So, I tried watching a couple of the season-opening games. Guess what? I got an error message on the MLB.tv website indicating that my browser (the RECOMMENDED browser) "is not fully supported," and suggesting I use Microsoft Internet Explorer instead. HUH?
So, I launched my ancient copy of the, crappy Explorer (aka Exploder) browser and tried to access one of the video feeds. Again, it was a no-go. I received an error message indicating that I needed to have the Windows Media Player installed.
I used the MLB.tv "customer service" webform to send them an inquiry. I fully described the issue, explaining that I had read their technical FAQ before signing up for the service, and was using their recommended setup for Macintosh users (OSX, Safari 1.3 and RealPlayer).
A couple of days later, I received a form-letter reply from MLB.com addressed to "Valued Fan." The form letter indicated my email (the webform I submitted) had been lost, and therefore they were contacting me to ask that I send my message again.
Um, somebody please explain this to me. If MLB.com had lost my email, HOW IN HELL DID THEY KNOW TO CONTACT ME?
The form letter went on to suggest that if I was experiencing technical difficulties, I should read their technical FAQ. (Which is exactly what I told them in my original inquiry that I had already done. Of course, they couldn't know this, because they lost my original email, right. WHAT FUCKING BULLSHIT!)
Anyway, I re-sent my inquiry (at their invitation) in the hopes that a real person might read it and tell me how I could use their service AS THEY HAD ADVERTISED IT COULD BE USED.
That was two weeks ago. I have yet to receive a reply--despite the fact that I have re-sent that same email inquiry six times since then.
OK, fast-forward to now. A day ago, I decided I'd never be able to use the MLB.tv, so figured I'd subscribe to the Gameday Audio package instead. This would allow me to listen to the games online. (I can't listen over the radio, because I live in Japan.)
I listened to yesterday's shitty game live. It sucked the AAA's lost, but at least the online radio thing worked. (Well, it worked OK, but the feed sounds like shit--something that was a problem last year, too. Only the AAA's feed sounds like shit--all the other teams are miked properly. I've emailed Robert Buan, the guy in charge of the AAA's Internet broadcasts, about this, but apparently he has the same disease that affects all other customer-service people in the MLB that forces him to ignore all reasonable requests for assistance.)
Anyway, I can live with the shitty sound quality, as long as I can listen to the games. Including "archived" broadcasts. If I was to have listened to today's game live, I would have had to get up at 4 in the morning here in Japan. Instead, I wanted to listen to the game beginning around noon here, as I sat in my office and ate lunch.
So, around noon, I launched the Gameday Audio archive for today's game, and guess what? The audio player launched, Ken Korach began doing the pregame show, AND A HUGE HEADLINE IN THE AUDIO PLAYER'S WINDOW ANNOUNCES "TIGERS RALLY IN 9TH TO WIN."
So, for me, the game was over before I even got a chance to listen to a minute of the broadcast.
I am now convinced that everyone who works for MLB is a complete fucking moron.
FUCK THE MLB. AND FUCK THE AAA'S
Earlier this month, I subscribed to the MLB.tv package so I could watch games on my Macintosh. According to the MLB.tv FAQ, the service supports Macintosh computers that are running OSX (which I am), use the Safari 1.3 web browser (which I do), and have the RealPlayer media player (which I have).
In fact, Safari 1.3 is the RECOMMENDED browser by MLB.tv.
So, I tried watching a couple of the season-opening games. Guess what? I got an error message on the MLB.tv website indicating that my browser (the RECOMMENDED browser) "is not fully supported," and suggesting I use Microsoft Internet Explorer instead. HUH?
So, I launched my ancient copy of the, crappy Explorer (aka Exploder) browser and tried to access one of the video feeds. Again, it was a no-go. I received an error message indicating that I needed to have the Windows Media Player installed.
I used the MLB.tv "customer service" webform to send them an inquiry. I fully described the issue, explaining that I had read their technical FAQ before signing up for the service, and was using their recommended setup for Macintosh users (OSX, Safari 1.3 and RealPlayer).
A couple of days later, I received a form-letter reply from MLB.com addressed to "Valued Fan." The form letter indicated my email (the webform I submitted) had been lost, and therefore they were contacting me to ask that I send my message again.
Um, somebody please explain this to me. If MLB.com had lost my email, HOW IN HELL DID THEY KNOW TO CONTACT ME?
The form letter went on to suggest that if I was experiencing technical difficulties, I should read their technical FAQ. (Which is exactly what I told them in my original inquiry that I had already done. Of course, they couldn't know this, because they lost my original email, right. WHAT FUCKING BULLSHIT!)
Anyway, I re-sent my inquiry (at their invitation) in the hopes that a real person might read it and tell me how I could use their service AS THEY HAD ADVERTISED IT COULD BE USED.
That was two weeks ago. I have yet to receive a reply--despite the fact that I have re-sent that same email inquiry six times since then.
OK, fast-forward to now. A day ago, I decided I'd never be able to use the MLB.tv, so figured I'd subscribe to the Gameday Audio package instead. This would allow me to listen to the games online. (I can't listen over the radio, because I live in Japan.)
I listened to yesterday's shitty game live. It sucked the AAA's lost, but at least the online radio thing worked. (Well, it worked OK, but the feed sounds like shit--something that was a problem last year, too. Only the AAA's feed sounds like shit--all the other teams are miked properly. I've emailed Robert Buan, the guy in charge of the AAA's Internet broadcasts, about this, but apparently he has the same disease that affects all other customer-service people in the MLB that forces him to ignore all reasonable requests for assistance.)
Anyway, I can live with the shitty sound quality, as long as I can listen to the games. Including "archived" broadcasts. If I was to have listened to today's game live, I would have had to get up at 4 in the morning here in Japan. Instead, I wanted to listen to the game beginning around noon here, as I sat in my office and ate lunch.
So, around noon, I launched the Gameday Audio archive for today's game, and guess what? The audio player launched, Ken Korach began doing the pregame show, AND A HUGE HEADLINE IN THE AUDIO PLAYER'S WINDOW ANNOUNCES "TIGERS RALLY IN 9TH TO WIN."
So, for me, the game was over before I even got a chance to listen to a minute of the broadcast.
I am now convinced that everyone who works for MLB is a complete fucking moron.
FUCK THE MLB. AND FUCK THE AAA'S
5 Comments:
I have a Mac as well(OsX and Windows Media Player on it) and and a regular crap PC. I'm having issues with MLBtv on both, regardless of what browser I'm using. It's not just you. I've heard other user complaints. MLB doesn't care, they already have your money for the season.
Kerry...
Yeah, you're right. I've read numerous posts on the Internet about the problems this season with mlb.tv and Gameday Audio.
They've gone to the Flash-based player, and that's screwed up everything.
I remember back when the online radio streams were free. You could access them through Yahoo.com.
I signed up for Gameday Audio the first year that mlb.com started charging for the streams. I think that was about five or six years ago. In the first couple of weeks of the season, they were posting the final scores on the same page as the audio archive links.
That sucked, so I sent and email to mlb.com customer service and asked them to fix it. They sent me a PERSONAL reply, indicating that they had received many requests from fans to remove the final scores, and they were going to do just that. And they did!
That was back when mlb.com was still a fledgling website, not the crap flash-based monstrosity that it is now.
Email will probably get you nowhere. Try one of the numbers suggested here:
link
Ken...
Thanks for the numbers.
Unfortunately, it costs $3 a minute to call from Japan to the States, so that's not really an option for me.
Ouch, Oober...
That hurts!
;-)
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