Word on the street is that Major League Baseball is close to making a decision to offer their MLB Extra Innings broadcast package exclusively on DirecTV starting this year. What does it mean for those of us Dish Network owners whose only reason for going satellite was to get access to broadcast packages like MLB Extra Innings? It means rotsa ruck, that’s what it means. As John Donovan of Sports Illustrated’s Inside Baseball explains:

Major League Baseball is in the process of negotiating exclusive rights to its Extra Innings package of out-of-market games to satellite giant DirecTV, and that means a lot of fans are about to get absolutely crushed into the dirt. The Extra Innings package, for the hundreds of thousands of fans who have shelled out the $170 or so for it already know, is a seamhead’s dream: almost unlimited baseball broadcast by home-team announcers for six months. Up to 60 regular-season games a week.

But now, if this deal between MLB and DirecTV goes through as expected, you won’t be able to get Extra Innings through your local cable TV outfit. Or through Dish Network, either. If you want the Extra Innings package, starting with the 2007 season, you’ll have to be a DirecTV subscriber. No exceptions. That, as I understand the concept, is the whole “exclusive rights” thing.

This really bums me out, and my guess is a lot of other baseball fans will feel the same way. Here’s the problem: let’s say (for the sake of argument) you’re a – oh, I don’t know – a Boston Red Sox fan living in, say, the Phoenix, AZ area. (Not that I know anyone like that!) If you don’t get the MLB Extra Innings package, the only baseball you’re going to see is Arizona Diamondbacks games (on the regional Fox Sports), the Fox national game of the week, and the games ESPN broadcasts twice a week during the regular season. If, as expected, MLB Extra Innings goes exclusively to DirecTV, the only alternatives for us Dish Network owners is either to: a) switch to DirecTV, or subscribe to MLB.tv, Major League Baseball’s Internet-based version of Extra Innings.

For me, this presents quite the dilemma. I mean, I certainly have the broadband hookup needed for MLB.tv, and, as a ‘Monster Member’ of Red Sox Nation, my membership comes with a regular-season subscription to MLB.tv, but I’m just not crazy about the idea of watching baseball games on a 20-inch monitor while seated at a desk. And the thought of changing from a Dish Network subscriber to DirecTV and all the hassles that would be involved (swapping hardware, installation charges, billing changes, etc.) just gives me the willies.

The most disheartening thing about this, however, is recalling last year’s Dish Network fiasco where I thought I had ordered a DirecTV installation, only to find out after the install was complete that I had gotten Dish Network instead. If I had gotten what I thought I was getting, I wouldn’t be composing this blog entry.

Look, I know in the grand scheme of things that this is not a big deal – after all, we’re not talking about going hungry, being homeless or jobless, or contracting some life-threatening illness here. It’s just one of those inconvenient kind of things that disrupts one’s simple pleasures of life and makes you shake your head. But that doesn’t mean I have to like or accept it, and not want to try and figure out a better way.