Yahoo! Sports: Jeff Passan writes about MLB‘s ridiculous blackout policy.

I wrote about my issues with it here.

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FanGraphs: Dave Cameron‘s “Stat Nerd NL All-Star Roster” includes A.J. Ellis and Clayton Kershaw, but Andre Ethier just misses.

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Baseball Prospectus: Doug Thorburn dissects the slide step and doesn’t think it’s worth implementing.

It is my contention that most pitchers would do better if they both A) went faster from the windup, and B) kept their natural leg lift from the stretch. Pitch execution is the single-most important facet of every play on the diamond and the epitome of the phrase, “baseball is a game of inches.” It is therefore insane to continue throwing a wrench into 40 percent of a pitcher’s deliveries in an attempt to stop a once-per-game occurrence for which the pitcher is only fractionally responsible.

Great article.

NotGraphs: Jeremy Blachman has a humorous take on my complaints regarding the MLB‘s blackout rules. The sad thing? His list of rules isn’t that much more amusing than the real ones.

The Hardball Times: Chris Jaffe on the 50th anniversary of Dodger Stadium.

A.J. Ellis Facts: A.J. Ellis, cult hero and internet meme.

I live in Hawaii. Obviously this makes it a tad difficult to either attend games or watch local broadcasts that are over 3000 miles away. Apparently though, MLB.TV cares little about that teeny tiny issue since they prevent me from watching every single Los Angeles Dodgers game live.

Yes, that’s right, apparently the entire West Coast collection of MLB teams are blacked out in Hawaii.

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MLB.TV originally informed me on Friday that I was blacked out from watching the games of five West Coast teams. On Saturday though, after being instructed to call back and talk to a supervisor, I was informed that I was actually currently blacked out from the entire West Coast and then some, a total of nine teams.

The shift in the number or location of the teams doesn’t make it any more or less stupid, since it’s just as realistic for me to watch or attend a game in New York on a daily basis as it is in Los Angeles. However, the fact that it only got worse with clarification from a supervisor was so pathetically stupid to me that I couldn’t help but sigh and feel sorry for the support guys who had no logical answer for my common sense questions.

All he could do for me is apologize about the idiotic policy, so doesn’t that indicate a problem with the policy itself if your own employees have no idea why the hell it exists?

Never blacked out the Dodgers before, only the Giants. Now it’s the entire West Coast … for Hawaii.

— Chad Moriyama (@ChadMoriyama) April 7, 2012

My problem isn’t necessarily with MLB.TV customer support though, as they tried their best to help out. Rather the issue is with the MLB policy itself, which is apparently built on preventing people like me from watching games in Hawaii. As recently as last year, this wasn’t a problem with Dodgers games, as Hawaii was only blacked out from San Francisco Giants games, which I could tolerate. Apparently though, the new revised MLB blackout rules somehow EXPANDED Hawaii’s blackout range.

What?

Unless I’m missing a gigantic flaw in my complaint, I’m quite sure it’s reasonable enough that people in Hawaii watching games on MLB.TV are no threat to local television ratings or stadium attendance.

So what in the hell is the explanation? I’ve yet to get a reasonable one, just apologies from customer service and sighs about how “they understand” but “there’s nothing we can do here”.

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This miniature rant won’t change anything, but it’s extremely frustrating that I’m willing to pay a lot of money for a service that immensely helps out a person like me, but now I’ll likely be forced to find other ways to access the Dodgers games live.

If the goal of MLB.TV was to alienate me as a customer, then they’ve succeeded.

Congratulations.