Baseball’s TV deal could leave this fan nothing to run home to

There’s no crying in baseball.

So, we’re left with profane mutterings. We’re left holding the bat on our shoulders and trudging back to the dugout of reality, once again reminded that we, the fans, are wildly overmatched when it comes to the hard-throwing money men of Major League Baseball.

Pardon me for sounding like I just arrived on Flying Monkey Airlines from the Emerald City, but I thought baseball cared about its most loyal fans. Or at least acknowledged our existence. I thought they got a kick out of knowing that we’re out here, in love with the game and near-reverential about its pleasures.

OK, we’re probably a little nutty. I don’t apologize for that. Being called nutty isn’t the insult. The insult is realizing how expendable you are.

The Lords of MLB announced a deal this week with DirecTV that would give it the exclusive right to broadcast what fans generally call “the baseball package,” a daily cornucopia of ballgames from both leagues and available on cable TV.

For me, it’s the best $149 I spend all year.

The only way the deal won’t be exclusive, MLB says, is if the providers to the cable companies pony up a bit more and include in their standard tier of programming a new baseball channel DirecTV has planned for 2009. So far, the cable side of the equation is saying it won’t do so, because it would jack up cable rates for all subscribers, not just those of us willing to pay for baseball.

I’m not here to debate the deal. I’m not a Wall Street analyst or an MBA or even a newspaper guy who writes about baseball or the media.

I’m just a stinkin’ baseball fan. I’m a stinkin’ guy who in the eternal search for a simple pleasure or two finally found one -- the chance to come home after a day of work and watch baseball from around the country.

I thought MLB liked me.

I got the package mainly to see my favorite team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. When I first heard the games were available, it was like, “You’ve got to be kidding!”

Watching the Pirates four or five times a week from my Southern California livingroom was like hitting the motherlode. And that’s with a team that stinks. Imagine if they start winning this year.

But even though the Pirates were the impetus, I like the full menu of games. On some summer nights, I’ll spend a couple innings with Tampa Bay and Kansas City before switching over to Cleveland-Detroit or the Phillies and Mets.

It’s simple enjoyment. A little solace. A tiny diversion for which I’m most grateful.

So, naturally, in this game of take-away that life seems to pride itself on, the package is now on the blocks. Cable subscribers will have to switch to

DirecTV, unless a compromise is worked out by opening day.

Sure, I could switch. The fact that the cable universe is much vaster than the DirecTV universe apparently doesn’t matter.

But here’s the kicker: It’s not at all certain that my apartment has the proper southern sky exposure to pick up the satellite signal.

My unit doesn’t face that way, and my apartment managers don’t allow satellite dishes on the rooftops. DirecTV would have to mount the dish on my balcony, a lovely addition to any abode.

I figure it’s 50-50 if I can get DirecTV. I’ll find out in a couple of weeks when the installation guy shows up.

In a sense, that’s not even the point.

What makes me fume is that MLB is utterly cavalier about losing people like me, estimated by an DirecTV exec at about 230,000 people nationwide. That exec said only about 5,000 of them wouldn’t have access to DirecTV, for various reasons.

Maybe I’ll be one of the unlucky 5,000. Or maybe, the number is much greater than that.

To me, the solution would have been obvious: MLB should have made sure that both dish and cable subscribers could get the package.

What a sap I am. No way that would happen when DirecTV laid out $700 million over seven years and pushed for exclusivity. And then added extortion to the equation.

Get a life, eh?

I do have a life. It just so happens that one of its most enjoyable aspects is watching baseball in the summer. Except for screaming about Pirate ineptitude, I don’t think I was hurting anybody. I realize it’s not a birthright; that’s why I was willing to pay for it.

I won’t cry.

I insist, however, on muttering profanely against the fates.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.