Still shot of AT&T's coverage of the Cardinals game yesterday in San Francisco.

If I could for just a moment I’d like to take you for a brief trip and give you a little background information on yours truly. I currently live in St. Louis but you see it hasn’t always been that way. I’m actually originally from Iowa which some of you may or may not know is the Bermuda Triangle of Major League Baseball. It’s a State in which MLB basically forces you to only watch the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox due to their blackout restrictions which is also applied to MLB.TV.  Of course I could have subscribed to DirecTV to avoid this inconvenience except for the fact I lived in an apartment and therefore was stuck with the local cable provider.  Let’s just say I found myself at numerous local bars with satellite on more than one occasion so I could watch my beloved Cardinals. The only exception to the rule was that the local WB channel picked up the feed of KSDK which broadcast almost every Sunday Cardinals game.

Fast forward to yesterday, Sunday April 10, 2011 in St. Louis, Missouri. All the MLB blackout BS is a thing of the past for me, right? WRONG. Coming into the season Fox Sports Midwest made the announcement that it had purchased the rights to all the local broadcasts including all Sunday broadcasts. In other words they will televise all Cardinals games unless they are picked up by Fox, TBS or ESPN for National broadcasts (scheduled to be 152 as of now). I was cool with that I suppose, until yesterday. You see yesterday I wasn’t able to watch the local nine play in San Francisco because I unfortunately have AT&T Uverse who was the only major cable/satellite provider in the St. Louis area unable to come to financial terms with FSMW in regards to the additional games. Here’s a link to what I’m talking about if you’re interested.  I called AT&T customer service for an explanation but unfortunately the gentleman in the Philippines (seriously, I asked him) was unable to provide me with an answer other than providing me with some examples as to why sporting events get blacked out. Not his fault but he didn’t even know what St. Louis Cardinals meant. I just find it completely unacceptable that I now live in St. Louis and still find myself blacked out from watching the Cardinals. I’m also blacked out from the first two games of the series in Arizona which start tonight.

I think I  just added an additional must have feature in my ongoing house hunt: No trees obstructing the view of the satellite dish that’s going to go on my roof. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Middle fingers in the air at you AT&T. You’re not off the hook either FSM. $$$$$$$$$$$$$ End Rant. Thanks for listening.

Until next time…