I have to say, what a horrible way to open up the Major League season. No buzz, nobody watching, completely disconnected from reality. I get that MLB wants to "grow the game" or what have you, this is just sad and misguided.

I got up to watch the first 1.5 innings. Then I went back to bed. My excuse is that I have McCarthy in all 2 of my fantasy leagues this year. He looked good.

This is the only way to play regular-season games in Japan without being totally unfair to the teams involved, I guess, so I don't really mind. I'm sure the M's and A's get paid off well, and this particular gimmick matchup is unlikely to affect any of the playoff races.

Two boring, boring teams do battle half a world away. If they fell, would they make a sound?

Two Suzukis, one Japanese and one American. The Japanese version went 4 for 5. The American, just 1 for 5.

648 hits? That would bring Ichiro over 3000.

For the people that have MLB.TV and live in Toronto, what games/teams are blacked out besides Jays and National Games(ESPN Sunday Night Baseball/Fox)?

Only Jays games.

"Only Jays games."

That is good to know. I'm thinking about buying the season package or individual months later in the season. I know the blackout rules are asinine for certain areas so I was worried about missing out on a lot of other teams.

I have to say, what a horrible way to open up the Major League season. No buzz, nobody watching, completely disconnected from reality. I get that MLB wants to "grow the game" or what have you, this is just sad and misguided.

The stadium was packed - that's hardly nobody. Can you exapnd on why it is "misguided"?

I don't mean to speak for anyone else,  but I know when i saw the headline I linked to, my reaction was "There was a game that coiunted today? Why di I not know this???" Then I heard two major local sportscasters here in NorTex say essentially the same thing, and commenting on baseball is their profession.

What seems misguided to me -- and by no means am I asuming this is what anyone else meant -- is how criminally underpublicized this game was!!!

The stadium was packed - that's hardly nobody. Can you exapnd on why it is "misguided"?

Today's game was at 5.05 AM EST, and 2.05 AM PST. So when I say nobody watched, what I mean is that nobody watched. If you aren't a baseball fan you'd be hard pressed to know that games were even going on.

This is really the only way to do it if MLB wants to play games in Japan, so I do appreciate that to a certain extent. And we can just pretend this isn't the real start of the season too I suppose. But it hardly gets people rev'd up for the baseball season, which is presumably what you want to do at the start of the baseball season. (Don't even get me started on the regular opening weekend, where a bunch of teams play their opener, have a day off, then play two more games, and that many of these openers start on a weekday afternoon, when the majority of the population is otherwise engaged.) 

False.  Everybody else is 1 win behind, but 1 loss ahead.

Anders, my understanding of the day off after the opening day was done because of worries about inclement weather in certain cities.

Today's game was at 5.05 AM EST, and 2.05 AM PST. So when I say nobody watched, what I mean is that nobody watched. If you aren't a baseball fan you'd be hard pressed to know that games were even going on.

Isn't this just a touch North American centric?

What if you add the words "in Japan" to your second and third sentences - would you still stand by them? I do not think these games are designed to attract a large American viewing audience, do you?