756, Barry Bonds, and Beating A Dead Horse

No, the horse in question has nothing to do with steroids.

First of all, congratulations to Barry Bonds for becoming the MLB home run king. I lived in the Bay Area in the late 1990s and saw Bonds in person more times than I can count. The year he hit 73 home runs, we went to close to 20 games and I swear it wasn't until August that we went to a game where he didn't hit a homer. Leaving aside the question of what substances he may have used to aid him, I feel privileged to have seen the greatest home run hitter in major league history up close (And I do mean up close, thanks to our friend Art's incredible seats) numerous times.


Photo of the swing, taken by Brady and available on Flickr.

For all the Giants fans out there, I'm sure it was a nice moment last night, when Bonds hit a ball deep into right-center field to break the record, and the scoreboard played a message from Hank Aaron, with Willie Mays and Bonds' family on the field to celebrate with him.

I wish I could have seen it. But, thanks to MLB's asinine blackout rules, I couldn't. As I've posted about numerous times before, I live in an area where four teams, the Pirates, Phillies, Nationals, and Orioles, are blacked out. That meant that last night's game, broadcast on ESPN2, wasn't available to me, even though I don't get Nationals games OTA or on my cable system. In fact, when you look at the map of MLB blackouts, you can see that the Nationals' blackout area covers all or part of six states.

That's all of the District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia, and parts of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. By my estimates, this area covers a population of over 22,000,000. I have no way of knowing how many of those people get Nats games OTA or on their cable or dish systems, but I guarantee you it's less than half. If people living in Harrisburg, 120 miles from Washington, don't get the games, what are the chances that people living in Charlotte, 400 miles away, do?

I and many others have railed for years about the MLB blackout rules, which are both arbitrary and unfair. I don't begrudge a blackout system -- local television channels generate revenue from their airing of MLB games, and I understand their right to protect that in their territories. But preventing people outside those ares from watching games is counter-productive, and actively hurts MLB.

Here's how the blackouts should work. If you get a channel, either over the air or on your cable or dish system that broadcasts a team's games, that team's games should be blacked out on Extra Innings, ESPN, etc. If you can't receive a team's games on a local channel, that team's games should be available to you. It's that simple.

Here in Harrisburg, that would mean the Phillies would continue to be blacked out, since we get Phillies games on CW15 and Comcast SportsNet. The Pirates, Orioles, and Nationals games should be made available to us, at least until Comcast decides to carry MASN in PA like it's supposed to.

This would open up large areas of the country to see lots more games, which would build allegiances and create new fans, and it would be done without hurting the revenue streams of the local broadcasters or the teams themselves. In fact, I'd wager it would increase attendance (and therefore revenue), since a person would be much more likely to drive to see a team in person if he's had the opportunity to watch the team on TV.

As long as this ridiculousness persists, people are going to complain about it. Major League Baseball, it's time to start paying attention, make some changes, and stop alienating the very people who have made the league the success it is today.