How a Baseball Dork Who Won’t Pay for MLB.TV Follows All the Games

by
April 9, 2015

It’s Baseball Week at TechGraphs. Our writers are sharing the tools they use to follow along in the season. Michael Tunney’s thoughts are below.

For the average baseball fan, an MLB.TV subscription that costs over $100 per season probably seems like an overpriced luxury. But for baseball fanatics, procuring an MLB.TV subscription is a fait accompli, an annual rite of passage. My reasons for not doing so are twofold: 1. the price point and 2. an intense fear that all of my worldly obligations will be thrown to the wind upon receipt of said subscription.

Instead, I have collected a number of means by which I am able to keep up with all the games without throwing my life away in the pursuit of watching all of the baseball things.

First, I use the MLB At Bat app to keep up with individual games, watch highlights, and subject myself to terrible White Sox broadcasts with Ed Farmer and Darrin Jackson because I hate myself. I’ve made it clear, repeatedly, on TechGraphs that I’m a fan of Bob Bowman’s efforts with MLB Advanced Media, and find this app gives me 80 percent of what I need to follow any particular game.

For $20 you get a whole season’s worth of radio broadcasts for all 30 teams, Pitch f/x, in-game video highlights, and MLB.TV’s Game of the Day. Instead of listening to tunes or podcasts during the season I usually listen to radio broadcasts of whatever game interests me at the moment, whether it’s a good matchup or one of my fantasy pitchers are on the bump.

Second, Twitter. Not just any kind of Twitter, “baseball Twitter.” I use it to follow all the latest news and deals, and  keep up with injury updates and roster moves. I went through all of my follows and made a baseball Twitter list you can follow here. If you have any suggestion please add them in comments! One of my favorites for keeping up with the annual fantasy closer carousel is @closernews. I don’t know who maintains this feed or why, but I am eternally grateful and it’s one of the reasons I always finish near the top of my fantasy league in saves.

I only participate in one longstanding fantasy league because life, so I’m always checking in on Yahoo’s Fantasy Sports site, as well as their Yahoo! Fantasy Sports app, which can be maddening at times (I missed a Drew Hutchison quality start on Opening Day because it didn’t show he was starting when I checked, but also because I’m an idiot).

I also check Rotographs and Razzball on a regular basis, as well as Buster Olney and Keith Law’s blogs via ESPN Insider. Buster gives a daily rundown of everything that happened in baseball the day before, which I scroll through every morning to check for news on my fantasy team and to stay in the loop in general.

All this baseball buffoonery was put to the test this week as I was on the road, pretending to work in a Santa Monica cafe on Opening Day, and I was able to keep up with everything I needed by toggling between the MLB At Bat app, Twitter, and FanGraphs’ live chat throughout the day. If any readers have suggestions for ways to follow baseball without MLB.TV (or an actual TV) please add them in the comments, along with the best baseball Twitter follows!

(Image via Tony)

 

 

 





 

Michael Tunney is a managing editor at Contently. He has also worked on marketing campaigns for bestselling authors like Robert Greene, Ryan Holiday, and James Altucher. Follow him on Twitter @mike_tunney.

16 Comments
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M W
9 years ago

If you aren’t doing so already you should be following Jason Martinez of rosterresource.com (formerly mlbdepthcharts.com).

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Peter Greene
9 years ago

How about just paying for cable. This way you can get Dodger, Angel, and ESPN games. You could even watch them while pretending to work at that cafe in Santa Monica.

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Bill
9 years ago
Reply to  Peter Greene

If he isn’t willing to $100 a month for TV broadcast of all the games, why would he pay nearly this just to get Dodger, Angel, and ESPN games?

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My echo and bunnymen
9 years ago
Reply to  Bill

pay nearly this PER MONTH

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Smurf
9 years ago
Reply to  Peter Greene

Iknowright? I mean, if this guy was really serious, he’d just line his walls with flat-screens to put every game on at once.

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M G
9 years ago

While games are in progress, the daily omnichatter thread at Baseball Think Factory is a good digest of highlights and happenings:

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/newsstand/beats/omnichatter/

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Mike
9 years ago

I feel bad for you. You have no idea what you are missing. Skip going to some movies or eating out for a couple months, and enjoy the subscription. Hell eat at home in front the the games.

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Bill
9 years ago

I’m with you though. In fact, I mostly prefer listening to the games anyways. I can do other things (like, live life) while listening. If I want to see a game on TV, I’ll go to a bar. Baseball on TV is better with beer and company.

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CJ
9 years ago

MLB.TV is awesome and completely worth if you are a baseball fan. Every post game is condensed to 11-12 minutes which shows every plate appearance.

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Zach Sanders
9 years ago
Reply to  CJ

Shit, since when? I’m been asking them to do this for years now.

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Bill
9 years ago
Reply to  CJ

This is something that might make it worth my while. I could watch the entirety of a few games in less time than it would take to see Sportscenter. $100 a year. $8.33 a month.

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MikeY
9 years ago

XM radio is great for listening to games. Can do this in the car or via computer or smartphone. A great way to combine exercise (for my old bones that means walking on the beach) along with listening to the games.

I have also found that even though MLB wants the local radio stations that carry the games to NOT stream the radio broadcast, some of them ignore this directive and stream them anyway.

Of course, if you have a station with good reception in your area that carries your favorite team, even though it seems old school, to just listen to your team on the radio via the airwaves certainly works.

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Josh M
9 years ago
Reply to  MikeY

I have XM as well and I gotta say its great, I dont pay extra for the online part of it (remember when it used to be included for free?) but I spend a lot of time in my vehicle for work. In addition to broadcasts of every MLB game there is MLB radio and fantasy sports radio to get your baseball fix. I’d probably go for MLB At Bat if I didnt already have XM but XM is great for everything baseball.

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Evo
9 years ago

For in-game player alerts, I use http://www.ownersbox.com/. Not perfect, but the best I have seen.

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Pat
9 years ago

Does MLB.TV still black out home games if you’re in the team’s broadcast reach? If so.. that’s why I haven’t subscribed. It seemed to me that $100/year for less than half (blackouts of home games PLUS national games PLUS something else I’ve erased from memory) of my team’s games was frustrating.

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subductive_forces
9 years ago

Kodi yo. Kodi + Sportsdevil = cable free bliss

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