During the 2010 season Burnett’s pitching was quite disastrous, as he went 10-15, 5.26 ERA. 2011 hasn’t been any better for the right-hander, as his record is 11-11 with a 5.15 ERA. The Yankees skipper, Joe Giradi, had removed the erratic Burnett from the post season rotation, but was forced to re-insert him for Game 4 after Game 1 was suspended for rain. Burnett was quoted as saying:

“Believe it or not, I have pretty good confidence every start. I always go out believing I can throw a no-hitter, even last year when I couldn’t get out of the first inning. I had good games and bad games this season, but my confidence has never been a problem.”

Although Burnett is confident in himself, his coach doesn’t seem to share the same sentiment. Giradi told ESPN that Burnett will likely have a very short leash. Die hard Yankees fans have flocked to Twitter to share their thoughts and their predictions on what will happen when Burnett takes the mound tonight… most of them are pure doom and gloom though:

How do you think AJ Burnett will do tonight? Let us know your thoughts.

Now, Google has announced further expansion of its MLB results. This time, it’s from MLB.com. Now, for MLB.com results, users will see more information, lie the latest scores, schedules and team standings.

Additionally, there will be direct links to game previews, live updates, recaps, and box scores.

The offering follows an announcement from Yahoo this week about an expansion of its own partnership with MLB.com, which is comes with the launch of MLB Full Count on Yahoo Sports.

“MLB.com Full Count lets fans follow live Major League Baseball action throughout the remainder of the regular season featuring live look-ins to key plays and pivotal moments, and in-progress video highlights from around the league, as well as statistical data and historical footage relevant to the day’s action,” a spokesperson for Yahoo told us.

Google of course, has been doing quite a few other things with its search results.

“MLB.com Full Count lets fans follow live Major League Baseball action throughout the remainder of the regular season featuring live look-ins to key plays and pivotal moments, and in-progress video highlights from around the league, as well as statistical data and historical footage relevant to the day’s action,” a spokesperson for Yahoo tells WebProNews.

It’s free and is immediately available here.

Next year, the product will cover the entire regular season, starting with the first full day of games. It will also later expand to be available on mobile and tablet devices.

MLB.com is also providing Yahoo with access to daily highlights from every game.

“This product continues our seven-year relationship with MLB.com and builds on our leadership as the No. 1 general sports site online,” said Ken Fuchs, vice president, Yahoo Media Network. “MLB.com is one of our most innovative partners, and they have delivered a product that will provide avid baseball fans a fast-paced daily destination to follow their teams and the biggest games, players and moments as well as unique video and integrated solutions for our advertising partners.”
 
“We have built Full Count to deliver MLB highlights to fans as they happen in a user-friendly, media-rich environment,” said Kenny Gersh, senior vice president, business development, MLB.com. “We are pleased to continue to bring MLB content to Yahoo!’s massive audience.”

Yahoo sports, by the way, is credited as the top sports property online with over 48 million monthly users.

If you need more recent examples, I present to you the genius of Kenny Britt and the 9/11 – Osama Bin Laden fueled rants of Rashard Mendenhall.

In an effort to control what is broadcast by their players, the NFL has implemented a tweet-free environment when it comes to actual league events. The NBA later followed suit. Last week, the NBA further restricted Twitter during the lockout, suggesting that contact between players and teams on the social media platform could result in a million dollar fine.

But Major League Baseball is taking steps to further integrate social media with its players and is not only allowing Facebook and Twitter updates during this year’s All-Star festivities, but encouraging it.

A select group of players will be live-tweeting the Home Run Derby tonight. These players include both participants and spectating players. Here’s the list from MLB.com –

[David] Ortiz (@davidortiz), [Jose] Bautista (@JoeyBats19) and [Matt] Kemp (@TheRealMattKemp) will be tweeting on their accounts during the course of the event as participants, and so will other gathered All-Stars including Heath Bell (@HeathBell21), Gio Gonzalez (@GioGonzalez47), Hunter Pence (@HunterPence9), Brandon Phillips (@DatDudeBP), Gaby Sanchez (@GabySanchez215), Justin Upton (@RealJustinUpton), C.J. Wilson (@str8edgeracer), Howie Kendrick (@HKendrick47) and Joel Hanrahan (@hanrahan4457).

Players that aren’t already heavily involved in Twitter will be participating in the live-tweeting (read: talking smack) via official MLB accounts like @MLB and @MLB_PLAYERS. Participants and spectators are both being encouraged by the MLB to interact with Facebook during the competition.

If players don’t have their own mobile devices to post with during the Derby, they can use designated social media station set up on the field. These stations will have laptops, tablets and cameras. Everyone (including fans) us being asked to use the hashtag #HRDerby when discussing the event on Twitter.

Between batters, some of the live-tweets will be shown on the big screen at Chase Field as they roll in.

The Home Run Derby will air at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN. It will also be broadcast as a live stream on mlb.com and espn3.com.

[Image Courtesy mlbreports]

In an email to WebProNews, a YouTube representative provided some more details in the form of bullet points.  One highlight is that "[f]ull-length, catch-up MLB games [will be] available in Japan 36 hours after they air."  Historic game footage will be offered, too, along with profiles of Japanese players.

That’s almost bound to go over well, since baseball is quite popular in Japan.

Furthermore, according to the representative, "Baseball fans in Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, and Russia [will get] access to the full range of MLB’s highlight clips and archives on YouTube," and both organizations hope this will increase local interest in the sport.

Anyway, regardless of what occurs next or how baseball’s perceived in any particular area, this arrangement is supposed to represent "the largest partnership for premium sports content in YouTube history," making it quite significant.

Other large, sports-related deals YouTube’s managed to complete involved cricket and wrestling of the not-quite-real variety.

Postseason.TV will launch Wednesday, October 7, when the Division Series begins on TBS. It will be accessible from MLB.com, FoxSports.com, MSN and MLB.com/TBSHotCorner.

Postseason.TV is a subscription service available to baseball fans for $9.95. Fans will be able to customize their online viewing by choosing from up to 10 different stationary camera angles from every MLB Postseason game, blackout free.

Postseason.TV will allow fans to watch the Division Series and the National League Championship Series broadcast on TBS and the American League Championship Series and World Series on Fox.

Subscribers can choose to watch one of the available camera angles or up to any four different angles at the same time in the multi-view option. In addition, TBS HotCorner and Fox Feeds will provide access to in-game video highlights, real-time statistics and play-by-play and a live Twitter feed.

Fans with an iPhone or an iPod touch who have the MLB.com At Bat 2009 app, will be able to access Postseason.TV as well.

"These agreements are an important part of our global effort to give fans greater access to our game," said Baseball Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig.

Allan Selig

"It is important that fans in local markets have portable flexibility to stay connected to their favorite team if they can’t be at the ballpark, and I believe this represents a significant step in that direction."

Under the deal, Cablevision Internet customers who receive the Yankee’s YES network will be able to buy a package to see the games live online. The offering will be implemented through authentication process managed by Cablevision and the interactive media arm of Major League Baseball.

The Yankees on YES package is available for $49.95 for the rest of the season or $19.95 for any 30-day period. The service will launch on Wednesday, July 8 at 8:00 p.m. (EDT) with the YES Network’s Yankees Twins broadcast.

Major League Baseball was the first professional sports league to make every game available for out-of-market fans in 2003 and has served over 250 million live streams since that time. It marks the first time live games will be available online to fans living in a home team territory.

Major League Baseball said a second live streaming deal is expected to be announced next week.

Some select programming will NOT be available to app users such as MLB play-by-play, NFL play-by-play, NASCAR Radio, and Howard Stern. (Esentially, all the reasons people have Sirius XM Radio)

With the free app users will be given acess to Oprah Radio, MLB Home Plate, Martha Stewart, Sirius NFL Radio, Opie & Anthony, Jamie Foxx, Blue Collar Comedy, E Street Radio, The Grateful Dead Channel, Eminem’s Shade 45, Jimmy Buffett’s Radio Margaritaville, Elvis Radio, Siriusly Sinatra, Metropolitan Opera Radio and many others.

Mel Karmazin, CEO of Sirius XM, had the following to say about the new app…

"The Sirius XM app allows new and existing subscribers to access great music, talk and sports almost anywhere they go. For millions of users, the best radio on radio is now the best audio content on their iPhone or iPod touch."

The Sirius XM app is available for free from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at iTunes App Store and Sirius XM App site

Earlier this month, MLB.TV went on sale with its full-season package (March-October 2009) for $109.95, a $10 discount off the 2008 price. NHL will launch its standalone Race for the Cup service on February 16 for $79.95. The bundled subscription for the two leagues will be available February 16 for $139.95.

The content partnership will allows subscribers to watch every regular season game, more than 100 spring training games and the first two rounds of the World Baseball Classic on MLB.com.

NHL.com will offer 40 out-of market games per week for the rest of the current regular season as well as select Stanley Cup Playoff games.

"We believe this partnership with the NHL is an important initial step in the future of online subscription programming for valuable content providers," said Bob Bowman, MLB.com President and Chief Executive Officer.

MLB.com is introducing an improved MLB.TV video player with high-definition video. Technology by Swarmcast will detect the speed of a user’s Internet connection to adjust and control the quality of the video.

The player will offer DVR functionality, multi-game viewing options, game radio option and real time player tracker alerts.

"MLB.com has built a great business by engaging their audience with a best-in-breed product," said NHL Chief Operating Officer John Collins.

"This partnership is all about our mutual commitment to deliver world class digital sports experiences to sports fans everywhere."

Fantasy sports, specifically fantasy baseball seem to be as popular as ever even though they’ve been around for something like twenty-five years according to the LA Times.

I had no idea they’d been around so long, but apparently this is how long it has taken for MLB to decide that it doesn’t want to give up the information required for a fantasy league for free.

They have taken CBC Distribution (which runs fantasy leagues) to two courts already, which ruled in favor of CBC, but have decided to appeal to the Surpeme Court, which is expected to decide today whether or not it will hear the case.

The lower courts have ruled in favor of CBC basically based on the concept of free speech. The names of players and their statistics are generally considered public knowledge. They are after all reported in newspapers and other media outlets.

CBC attorney Rudy Telscher is quoted: "When you’re using mass information, it’s protected under the First Amendment."

MLB disagrees however. They feel that this information is their property, particularly when it comes to using it for profit as many fantasy leagues do. They consider the fantasy leagues as games that are using players’ identities.

It reminds me of when EA sports obtained exclusive rights to the NFL and the names of its players so that no other video games could legally contain them. But on the other hand, there’s still Fantasy football. I wonder if the NFL has similar concerns as MLB.

If the Supreme Court decides to hear the case the NFL, NBA, NHL, etc. will surely all be paying close attention, and the outcome of the case will have a tremendous effect on the future of online fantasy sports.

If the fact that companies are profiting off of player information is the biggest concern, maybe free games are not in any jeopardy, which would be good news for the many fans who just play for fun rather than money.

Update: The Supreme Court has rejected the case.