It's October again, and the Red Sox are playing the Angels in the ALDS. Many of you have likely heard my cheapskate-socialist rant about how the airwaves belong to the people - I refuse to pay to be advertised to, so I don't have cable. For the playoffs, since I'm in Berkeley, I'm stuck watching the Red Sox on whatever free media doo-hickey I can find on the web. In this case it's TBS "Hot Corner" and MLB Gameday. The best way I've found is to have Gameday open so you can see the diagram of the "field action", and the line score, then have Gameday Mini open so you can see the pitch count and the locations. Then have TBS Hot Corner next to that, and put it all up on the big Sorny TV.Thankfully, there's no pseudo-broadcast this year in Hot Corners - it's just four stationary camera shots with the crowd sound. I love the crowd sound not only cause you can hear the Red Sox fans chanting in LA (Anaheim/Orange County, whatever), but because it feels more like going to the game.
Of course, I missed all the defensive plays (you can sorta see the put-outs at first base in the distance, behind the pitcher), but I did see K-Rod's reaction to Drew's HR - he pointed up in the air like it was a pop-up. A blue-dot shows up on the Gameday Mini, "In play, run(s)". Then the Sox dugout went nuts, and K-Rod covered his face with the glove. I also got to see Papelbon's reaction at the end of the game: Gameday shows a red dot, "Swinging strike", and check the upper left camera frame: Paps yelling in at Tek.
One thing you do get to see that you don't on the "broadcasts" is the stuff that happens between innings - the pitchers warming up, the activity in the dugout as the team gets ready to bat, etc. And, for some reason, they showed a bunch of Rally Monkey footage. If you need a monkey to tell you to cheer on your team, there's something wrong. How is it to win in the 9th after watching all that? Sweet.
That was a great game. We're up 2-0.
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