Major League Baseball has thrown its fans a curveball. Starting today the new MLB.TV app is going to be available on the App Store and Android Marketplace. This time there is a twist. The basic app is completely free to download, where in the past it was $14.99 to download. MLB now offeres a subscription service. You can pay a 1 time fee of $14.99 and get live gameday audio of every team, pitch tracking, and play-by-play updates, plus a free live video stream of one game per day, as selected by MLB. Or you can pay a monthly subscription of $2.99 a month on a month to month basis and get all the stuff that is offered in the one time payment version. Here is the kicker. In the past you had to pay $14.99 each for the phone app and the tablet app. Now the $14.99 fee is on your account. Pay it once and it is good across all platforms. Pay $129.99 for MLB.TV Premium and get the $14.99 option for free. If you are a huge baseball fan like I am, then you will agree that this new payment plan is a great way to save a potential $30 a year.

Also launching this season is a separate location-based app. You can check in for rewards and team offers, get parking information and concourse maps, and have access to mobile food ordering in any ballparks that offer such features. Other features include closed captioning, the ability to send a text message to security officials, and social sharing to your networks like Facebook and Twitter.