By Leonard Shapiro
Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, February 13, 2007 12:21 PM

If you are a New York Yankees fan (well, there's no accounting for taste) living in Washington, no longer will you be able to get your pinstriped cable television fix on a nightly basis this season if a proposed deal between Major League Baseball and the DirecTV satellite service is consummated in the next few weeks.

Similarly, if you are a Washington Nationals fan living in the Bronx (all seven of them, maybe), you're out of luck, too. In fact, thousands of baseball fans across the country who root, root, root for their favorite teams via television while living in areas far, far away from those markets are not going to be able to have a chance to purchase the old Extra Innings cable package available on cable since 2002.

That 10-channel service, costing $179 last year, provided an additional 60 baseball games a week to more than 230,000 cable and Dish Network subscribers last year, with another 270,000 getting it for the same price on DirecTV. In the next few weeks, baseball and DirecTV are expected to announce a new deal that will take that package exclusively to one satellite television company, a seven-year, $700 million contract that also will include the start-up of a new baseball channel that most likely will begin in 2009, also only on DirecTV.

The sports world blogosphere is atwitter about the pending agreement, and so, apparently, are some members of Congress. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) sent a letter this past Friday to Federal Communications Commissioner Chairman Kevin Martin asking him to look into the proposed deal, which still hasn't been made public by either party.

"We're a little ahead on this issue right now," Kerry spokesman Vince Morris said on Monday. "But before it does become a done deal, we'd like some answers on how it would be regulated or even if it could be stopped or amended to satisfy more baseball fans."

"Here's what bothers me," Kerry, a member of the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees telecommunications, told the New York Times last week. "You get Major League Baseball and DirecTV marshaling their forces to go out and make money while cutting out fans. In my judgment, more fans watching games strengthens baseball...There's a whole movement toward fans being screwed by consolidation which raises prices and reduces options."

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), past chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also told the Times he's asked his staff to see if the proposed new deal would constitute an antitrust violation, even if baseball still clings to a long-time anti-trust exemption handed down years ago by the Supreme Court.

But forget the legal implications for a moment. What baseball apparently is about to do just seems plain dumb to a lot of people, who point out that the league probably will be leaving millions of dollars on the table by making an exclusive deal with DirecTV instead of hammering out agreements with cable and satellite services that might have been worth $140 to $150 million a year, instead of the $100 million from just one source.

And, oh yes, why would you alienate such a substantial fan base so devoted to the game they're more than willing, in fact, now begging, to pay a premium price to watch the games?

Rich Levin, a spokesman for Major League Baseball, said the league would not comment because the deal has not been finalized.

Baseball actually did try to work a deal with a consortium of cable networks, hoping to use the Extra Innings package to get a baseball network launched on the basic tier of cable services. The consortium balked, telling baseball it preferred to sell a baseball network as a premium station on the sports tier, where only those who wanted the service would have to pay for it.

When that bargaining strategy failed, Major League Baseball went directly to DirecTV, which now covers about 16 million television homes around the country, compared to more than 75 million cable homes that had access to the Extra Innings package last year.

DirecTV also is the exclusive home of the National Football League's Sunday Ticket package of games. The NFL gets $700 million a year for Sunday Ticket, which consists of all the games being televised on Sunday by rights-holders CBS and Fox. But the package has never been available on cable television, so consumers could never argue that something had been taken away from them. They may not like the fact that Sunday Ticket is not an option, but since they never had it in the first place, the level of bile directed toward the Teflon NFL has generally been minimal.

Baseball, on the other hand, had 230,000 satisfied customers for the Extra Innings package -- 180,000 on cable, 50,000 on Dish Network -- most of them now furious at the league for taking away lots of summer pleasure from their lives. Those fans are angry as hell, writing their Congressmen, signing petitions, blogging their fingers to the bone and creating another public relations nightmare for a sport that seems to create such scenarios on a regular basis.

Major League Baseball can counter by saying that consumers who don't have DirecTV at least will be able to get the Extra Innings games on the internet via mlb.tv for about $100 a year. But really now, have you ever heard of anyone kicking back on the sofa with their feet propped up and a cold one by their side actually firing up their laptops to watch a nine-inning baseball game on a tiny screen.

That seems far too anatomically dangerous to even think about, an option only your friendly neighborhood eye doctor or chiropractor would ever think to cheer. And what about your 80-year-old grandparents living down in Del Boca Vista Del Rio Shores who love baseball but still think a mouse has two ears and wouldn't know a gigabyte from an overbite.

The other option for soon-to-be-blacked-out baseball fans would be to simply call their local cable company, cancel their service and sign up for DirecTV. Then again, think of all the apartment and condominium complexes and homeowner associations that have restrictions about mounting satellite dishes on their buildings or in their communities. How many folks living on lots with tall trees blocking any access to a satellite in the sky will be shut out?

Michael Abramowicz is an Arlington, Va., law professor at George Washington University who had been getting Extra Innings on cable. The Los Angeles Times quoted his blog on the pending deal last week.

"My reaction to this has been genuine sadness," he wrote. "Watching baseball games is my No. 1 hobby, and my house can't get DirecTV because of nearby trees. It did occur to me that if I chopped down my neighbors' trees, I would probably do a year in jail, which would leave me six years to enjoy the games."

There's also a petition currently circulating on the internet with close to 3,000 signatures protesting the pending deal, including comments from disgruntled cable viewers.

"I've been able to watch my Yankee games for three years running from an out of market city and it has truly made those summer nights enjoyable," wrote Bob Frankel (no address). "This is what they give you in return for several years of loyalty? Dishes are not allowed in my building. Hello. Is anyone home? It's 2007 and we are moving technology and viewership backwards. Please do the right thing."

Added another no-address petitioner, Barry Spiegel, "this reminds me of the comment made long ago that baseball must be a great game to survive all the fools who run it."

Leonard Shapiro can be reached at Badgerlen@hotmail.com or Badgerlen@aol.com.