THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

I thought the condensed games were pretty worthless when I had mlb.tv. I was hoping they would show every single pitch without the wait in between the catcher catching the ball (or end of a batted ball play) and the windup of the next pitch. I guess that would be too much work.

Not to turn this into an MLB.TV-hatefest, but the new media player MLB.TV uses is very, very Linux-unfriendly. I subscribed in March, and at that time I was able to find a workaround for the old media player, but apparently that player has been dropped entirely. Would have been nice to know that before paying.

I had the same disappointment as ultxmxpx, though I would have been satisfied with condensation to every play result rather than every pitch. But on average I’d say the condensed games only showed half of the play results. In the end I didn’t use the feature much, preferring to use the by half-inning feature and fast forwarding within the inning quite a bit - which makes the viewing experience pretty heavily interactive ...

They changed (deleted) a bunch of features this year, and of course didn’t tell anybody.  There are no more clickable line scores or condensed games.  They advertise 1.2 M for their games but they only archive at 800 K. 

And good luck with their customer service.  It’s terrible!  I’ve been hung up on, yelled at, cursed at, told that I should enjoy advertisements because they’re so clever…

The product they provide is good, but the interface and customer service is pretty bad.  Sounds like MLB to me.

Not being able to click on the line scores anymore is particularly frustrating (and it’s not as if it that’s really a labor-intensive feature to provide, either).

I was never able to get the linescore-clicking feature to work at all.

Nevertheless, it amazes me how terrible MLB is handling this awesome product. It’s awesome because of the sport, not how they present it. It’s mind-boggling that they have these massive archives that they just completely hide away from the public. They zealously put in copyright claims on any part of any game found on YouTube, and now they have removed all the condensed games from their archives. Why, exactly? If other companies were allowed to provide this service MLB’s version would crumple and die within the year.

"If other companies were allowed to provide this service MLB’s version would crumple and die within the year.”

We’ll soon find out, funnily enough…

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Apr 10, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE)—Yahoo! (Nasdaq:YHOO) and MLB Advanced Media, LP (MLBAM), the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball, today announced a three-year video and advertising partnership that includes access to out-of-market MLB games on Yahoo! Sports. The agreement will make MLB.TV available on Yahoo! Sports, bringing Yahoo! users more than 2,400 out-of-market Major League Baseball games each year, live and on-demand, through the 2010 season

http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=304066

Oh, man.  MLB.TV customer service must be the worst in the known universe (click on name).

I love baseball, and I’m willing to spend money on it, but it’s gotten to the point where I dread making a purchase.  I don’t know if I’ll get what I ordered, or when I’ll get it if I do.  I’m afraid random, unapproved charges will appear on my credit card statement.  While it’s always been worked out in the end, I’ve spent so much time scrutinizing my credit card statements and on the phone to customer service it’s ridiculous.

last year they charged me five times in one month, causing me to overdraw my checking account, but they refused to pay my bank charges.

i am not a customer this year.  i’ve been a baseball fan for all of my 31 years of life, but MLB is starting to lose me.

More MLB.tv hell:

http://griddle.baseballtoaster.com/archives/950552.html

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/newsstand/discussion/timmermann_mlbtv_i_cant_say_i_wasnt_warned_updated_with_less_interesting_in/

Lots of cancellations apparently.  And these are your early adopters, the people you don’t want to upset.

I wrote to MLB.tv to ask them to respond to the complaints in this thread and that I’ve linked to.  In less than 24 hours, I’ve received three identical automated messages:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for your email, as we have received your inquiry and will respond as soon
as possible.

As you can imagine, the volume of correspondence has been great and we appreciate
your patience as we work to ensure that each inquiry receives the detailed response
that it deserves.

Thank you again for taking the time to write!

Regards,
MLB.com Support

Maybe I should withdraw the ticket, so that you guys who want to cancel won’t be slowed down by my inquiry.

Funny.  I got a 4th automated message, then finally a “live” message that reads:

Dear Fan:

Thank you for sending your email.  We appreciate your feedback.

Please call the toll-free customer service hotline at 1-866-800-1275 in order to do some troubleshooting and perhaps improve your experience. Thank you again for taking the time to write!

Sincerely,

Customer Response Team
MLB.com

A canned response to a non-existing issue.

That says it all…

LOL!  Welcome to MLB tech support hell.

I had both MLB.TV and MiLB.TV subscriptions last year, and the year before.  I have not subscribed this year, at least so far.  Every once in awhile I think about it...then I remember the weeks of calls and e-mails to customer service that will likely be involved, and decide I can make do with Gameday.