MVN: Most Valuable Network

About three weeks ago I posted a blog where I wrote: "Angels new radio home off to a good start."

Forget what I said.

The Angels new radio home - as Bart Simpson once famously put - both sucks and blows.

I, like thousands of other Angels fans, eagerly awaited the first spring training game today to be broadcast at 2 p.m. so I flipped onto KLAA-830 in Southern California and found the Jerry Doyle show!?!

I figured it was either a programming mistake or maybe the Angels were not going to air their first spring training game. But after I checked some message boards, I discovered the Angels will not broadcast the Angels' spring training games until 6 p.m.!!

I called the Angels front office and the apologetic staff said there was nothing they could do; I was even transferred to the Angels communications department where an employee tried to explain to me the contractual reasons why the Angels spring training game could not be shown, but I don't think she even knew the exact reasons. She also said they had received a number of complaints already.

This is something the Angels need to fix. One of the things I have been looking forward to for weeks is flipping on the radio and listening to Terry Smith call the first few games of spring, listening to minor league guys who may never play in the majors get - maybe - their only shots at the majors. Spring training games are so much more relaxed and laid back; you can hear the lemonade guys in the background yelling, you can hear the crack of the bat and the creaking of Garret Anderson's knees.

I am fearful that the thinking behind this is that the Angels are planning to earn better ratings by delaying the games and broadcasting them in the evenings. While I will watch regular season games in the evening, I will not sit around and listen to radio broadcast games - particularly when the outcome has been decided. I like listening to Angels games in the afternoon when I am on my lunchbreak but I don't want to make the time later in the day. If they decided to air the Angels games at 3 or 4 p.m. when more people are in rush hour traffic, I might be in favor of the delays.

Another possibility - this is just a theory - for the delay is that MLB wants people to buy the audio broadcasts so they can listen to games on the Internet; delaying the games might force people to buy the audio package offered by MLB.com. If that is the case, then, I hate you Bud Selig, I hate you!!

(Speaking of which, is this something that is unique to the Angels? Are other teams also having to delay their spring training games? It would be good to know. We can all write a letter to Bud Selig asking him to fix this situation and he will get right on it, just like he did with the steroids issue. Oh wait.)

The most ironic thing about all of this is that just those few weeks ago I wrote about how much I liked the Angels' new broadcast home and how much I admired the clarity of the Angels' new broadcast signal.

Well, it turns out that no matter how clear the broadcast comes in, it doesn't matter IF YOU CAN'T LISTEN TO THE GAME!!

Arte, fix this.

OK, that's it. My rant is over. We now return you to your regularly scheduled Angels spring training preview.