If you've been watching the 'Mickey Mouse' baseball broadcasts on
TBS lately, you've surely noticed the multiple technical glitches. Wacky audio issues that make each pitch seem like it hits the catcher's mitt
twice, numerous video screen freezes and intermittent screen snow—not to mention the generally lousy quality of their broadcast crews (with the exception of
Don Orsillo,
Dennis Eckersley and
Buck Martinez). Apparently the screw-ups have been so noticeable, that MLB felt obliged to
issue a statement on the issue. According to MLB, the mess-ups were
not due (as we had thought) to the TBS gerbil falling off his treadmill. No, believe it or not, it's the
sun causing TBS to look like
Cable Access Duluth. Citing so-called "sun outages", the MLB statement veers off into what amounts to a high school physics lecture,
"As the sun's path across the sky gets lower each day, there are times when it is in a direct line behind a communication satellite that is sending signals to a receiving satellite dish here on earth. When the dish antenna is looking into the sun, the interference from the sun overrides the signals from the satellite. This is when a sun outage occurs." The effect of all this solar activity?:
"At first, the outage is minimal, beginning as 'sparkles' in the picture during the first days. Gradually, it worsens to the point of total outage." We're sure that
Bud Selig did all the research on this by GOOGLING the topic on his computer—wait. Never mind.
