Enjoying Major League Baseball on TV

For the past week and a half, I have been enjoying the opening games in the Major League Baseball regular season.  As I had written in an earlier article, I decided to focus my attention on the East Division teams in each league, with the intent on getting to know the lineups by position, batting order, and pitching rotations.  It's been fun looking these things up on the computer...ESPN is a great reference.  I click on "MLB", then "Teams", then the team in the pop-up window, then either its depth chart or "Transactions" (which lists players out with injuries).  Some of the teams I've seen play more than others...naturally I see more of the Tampa Bay Rays and Miami Marlins but also the Toronto Blue Jays, Philadelphia Phillies, and especially the Washington Nationals.  So far the only team in the East I've missed has been the New York Mets, but it's just a matter of time before they show up on my screen.  The team that impresses me the most so far is Washington.

I also decided that it would be a good idea to take the other four divisions in baseball and pick one team in each to follow and get to know as well.  Logically, I picked the biggest markets...so I am also following the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Angels in the American League and the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers in the National. 

I was lucky this first week in April in that my local cable provider was giving us a free sneak preview to both HBO and the Major League Baseball channels.  So for a while I was channel surfing back and forth among several games at a time...as well as Game of Thrones (which seemed to be going on 24/7 on one of the HBO channels).  But that freebie is over now, and I am confined to watching either the Rays/Marlins games on a couple of Florida sports channels, Cubs/White Sox games on WGN, assorted games on the MLB Network (which isn't a premium channel on my cable lineup), or whatever ESPN happens to be offering.  As it turns out, the MLB Network is the only one right now offering a game, but it is a good one: Boston Red Sox at the New York Yankees!