DirecTV hit is out of some parks

Blogs are popping up all over, and e-mails are being written fast, furiously, and passionately.

"I love Major League Baseball's 'Extra Innings' but I hate greed" is the underlying theme of virtually every correspondence.

The subject is not exorbitant ticket prices or players' salaries, but the likelihood Major League Baseball will move its "Extra Innings" pay-per-view package exclusively to DirecTV.

DirecTV has proposed a $700 million deal for seven years to MLB, which will be available to 15 million subscribers. The "Extra Innings" package has been available for five years on cable, DirecTV, or the Dish Network to about 75 million viewers.

The package costs $179 a season, but InDemand sources said that price is not the bottom line; MLB wants to launch a baseball channel, similar to the NFL Network.

Major League Baseball and DirecTV would not comment on the matter, but with the season weeks away, fans might be tuned out unless they switch to DirecTV.

Senator John Kerry is calling for an investigation and wrote a letter to Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin. "I am opposed to anything that deprives people of reasonable choices," Kerry wrote. "In this day and age, consumers should have more choices -- not fewer. A Red Sox fan ought to be able to watch their team without having to switch to DirecTV."

That's exactly how John Tierney feels. He is a Red Sox fan living in Syracuse, N.Y., and he expressed dismay. "Ever since the package was available to my cable company [Time Warner], I bought it and I love it," said Tierney. "My wife and I center our lives around it in the summer. Football was always on DirecTV, but that's just once a week. Baseball was on cable, and now they're taking it away. Then they tell me I can watch it on the computer; well, that's no good, I sit in front of a computer enough all day.

"This is heartbreaking, really."

"Since I live in an apartment complex and am unable to have a dish, I will be terribly disappointed if this happens," wrote Mary Dana of Medway. Ditto for Susan Scanlon, a Yankees fan living in a townhouse in Boston who "doesn't have access to a dish/satellite service, but I watch 90 percent of the games."

Bob Levine of Marlborough was one of the hundreds who e-mailed InDemand with his displeasure.

He said his house doesn't have the needed exposure for a dish, and getting the game on streaming video is inadequate.

"This whole thing stinks," he said. "MLB has revenues in the billions; why alienate so many people?"

ESPN's "SportsCenter" airs its 30,000th live edition Sunday at 10:30 p.m. Anchors Stuart Scott and Steve Levy will host the 90-minute show that will cover the day's news, as usual, and look back on some of the standout shows. Hosting each of three segments in the retrospective will be Chris Berman, Dan Patrick, and Bob Ley . . . Pancho Gonzalez never got the recognition he deserved as an amateur tennis player and professional champion. A new documentary on his life, "Pancho Gonzalez: Warrior of the Court," will air Sunday at noon on WGBX (Channel 44 in Boston) . . . WTIC (1080) NewsTalk of Greater Hartford has extended its 50-year relationship with the Red Sox, signing a multiyear contract. WTIC has carried Red Sox baseball longer than any other network affiliate . . . Fred Cusick, the legendary former announcer for the Bruins, is doing live webcasts of high school hockey games from Charles Moore Arena in Orleans. The next game is Wednesday at 4 p.m.

Susan Bickelhaupt can be reached at bickelhaupt@globe.com.