craven.fr (.ox.ac.uk)

When French people meet me for the first time in a social setting, upon learning that I am American one of the first questions they always ask is what I miss most, not living in the US any more. My stock response has always been "baseball". In reality I miss the whole cycle of American sports, but there's no quick way to explain this to a Frenchman, and since baseball is the sport I miss the most, it's a handy simplification.

Usually they simply reply that, indeed, no one plays baseball here and quickly the conversation turns to soccer (or food, because the French will steer any conversation towards food if they can.) Occasionally though they will try to talk a bit about baseball, and point out that, although they don't understand the rules of the game that well, it seems like it is a bit dull since the batter doesn't always hit the ball. I feel bad when this happens, because my response—that it's more exciting when they don't hit the ball!—inevitably leaves them even more mystified about what the appeal of this sport could possibly be.

So, given this, and given its failure as an Olympic sport, I had given up all hope that the French would ever take an interest in baseball, and as a result, I had no hope of getting to watch baseball on TV. Fortunately, technology has caught up to my expatriate isolation, and I can at last watch every Major League Baseball game, with the home or away announcers, through the internet.

MLB.tv is not a new service, but it is new to me, and a lot of important features have been added for the 2009 season, the most important of which is the addition of an HD quality picture if your internet connexion is up to it (and in Europe our connexions are much faster than in the US because the infrastructure was put in later—and the population density makes such things easier to roll out). This means I can watch full screen on my iMac, from the couch, and anyone would think I'm watching real TV, not some jerky, pixelated internet feed. If it didn't have the quality I don't think I'd be able to sit through nine innings of it.

The worst thing about the service, of course, is that you have to pay for it, and if you live in the US, then blackout restrictions apply, so it's only worthwhile if the team you're following is far away. Although if you're in the US, you would probably pay for cable or satelite instead of an internet service anyway. Still, for one in my situation, I believe that it will be worth it since it is the only way to get TV coverage of baseball.

The other issue I've seen so far is that although archived games are supposed to be added 45 minutes after the game ends, a lot of games are missing (marked "available soon") even a couple days later. (With the time difference, I can only watch early afternoon games live, so most often I'll be watching games the next day.) The season has just begun, though, so maybe they are still working out some bugs, which is annoying in a product you pay for. But, there still are a lot of games, and I've been baseball deprived for so many years that just having any is so nice, that I'm willing to be forgiving.

So thus far I'm a happy customer, although at some point I'll have to work out a technology solution to get the picture on in the living room, because although there's nothing wrong with viewing on a 22" LCD, it is a little strange to do so when there's a 42" plasma downstairs... If I get something workable set up I may post a how-to guide later on. Until then, play ball!