Do you think I would be giving away my age if I were to tell you that as a kid the word "cable" to me was something you used to see on the back of a tow truck? How about a message being sent from one place to another far away?

 

The word sure has changed meanings over the last half-century or so and today there are so many families that depend on it almost as much as food as they get their daily dose of information and entertainment from cable television and now high-speed Internet.

 

Simply put, disposable cash isn't at an all time high these days and taking the wife and kiddies out for a night on the town usually means burning up a month's bill from your provider - maybe more.

 

Who knew that The Saturday Evening Post, started in 1821, would be ahead of its time when they took on artist Norman Rockwell and drew some of the most famous depiction's of family hovering around a fireplace and a radio. Today it is more like 52" LCD Hi-Defs or simply a 13" glassy bubble front TV with a cable stuck in the back of it.

 

It wasn't all that long ago we were being told of a world with 500 or more channels and many of us scoffed. Heck, I thought that CDs would NEVER send cassettes the way of the 8-Track or the old LP. Vinyl? That's clothes today folks, not something music came from unless you are old enough to remember.

 

Ah, what fun.

 

Taping a penny or a quarter, depending on how scratched the record was, on the needle arm to stop it from skipping or get one final play before it literally wore out. Now thems were the days.

 

But back to the old boob-tube. They called it that because people thought you were a boob simply for watching (imagine what they called those who sat in a theater watching the first moving pictures with someone on the side providing the piano music as the action unfolded?).

 

As we all laughed our way through the 500 channel rumors, we looked up one day and there it was, in glorious high definition, right there in our living rooms.

 

If you are lucky enough to live in that world, there doesn't seem a day goes by without another channel of some sort being added. There are no boundaries any more as there are stations for any number of ethnic groups, gays and lesbians, women, men, people who don't know if they are men or women, some old lady telling young people how to grab a private part and what to do with it if you are alone or with a partner - or two, or ten.

 

Heck, back in my day poor old Lucille Ball could not even say pregnant on I Love Lucy when it was obvious that she had "something in the oven" and now the only thing left taboo is what George Carlin said about those dirty words in one of his skits.

 

Ah, cable.

 

For the right price you can even hear those words said ad nauseum unless it is Comedy Central's South Park who actually put a counter on how many times they could say a certain four-letter word on the basic tier.

 

But enough about the past and present. I'm here to tell you about the future, one that you have no control of, something like being a cable subscriber. Whether you like it or not they add and delete at will and the bill never goes anywhere but up.

 

Right up to the satellite where your programming comes from.

 

Do you think that WGN out of Chicago is received with a very powerful set of rabbit-ears? Atlanta is closer but the last time I dialed up my a school, TBS, TNT, The Weather Channel, CNN and whatever else they own didn't get to your television by osmosis.

 

When they put those hunks of metal up in space it was a boon to the industry. Not only could a live event be transmitted around the world, but that little piece of black or white cable that plugs into the back of your set let you in on it.

 

Personally, I have grown with this new form and am absolutely spoiled. Yes, I may pay through the nose and ears and mouth and any other orifice Bright House can suck a little more green out of me but they are the ones who spoiled me.

 

Every day was Christmas. For the right price it was give, give, give and I was more than willing to fork over what I thought was a just price for the privilege.

 

What I was NOT told was that as easy as they giveth, it can be taketh away.

 

Ever since Major League Baseball made their Extra Innings package available to cable customers through iNDEMAND, I have been a loyal subscriber, just one of the three-quarters of a million according to the Sports Business Journal.

 

Now we are on the verge of Baseball Armageddon as commissioner Bud Selig and his cronies are selling their fans down the river - again.

 

We have endured work stoppages, a disappearing World Series, an All Star tie in a sport that doesn't use a "T" column in their standings. And of course a commish that is first, last and always, an owner rather than an impartial leader for the entire sport.

 

We get it Bud. You are the 2007 winner of the Jerry Maguire Award because you yelled, "Show me the money," and DirecTV came a-callin' with checkbook in hand.

 

iNDEMAND offered up three times what you were getting under their previous deal - THREE TIMES! Earth to Selig, MLB is not the National Football League and after all your blunders as boss, the NFL would have to literally implode for you to be even half of what it is today.

 

DirecTV scribbled down a $700 million figure and Selig jumped so high there might be a dent in the fake ceiling in his Park Avenue office.

 

Fans? What fans? We have fans? Screw them. We got the money.

 

One problem Bud. That's $700 million OVER SEVEN YEARS. The NFL gets that PER YEAR. Yeah, you sure are a great businessman, aren't you? Take the money and take away baseball from 750,000 fans who fork over around $150 per season.

 

I live in a condo. No dishes allowed. There are home communities that have the same restrictions. Lots of them. And of course there are those who would not put one of those dishes on their homes on a bet.

 

Nice job, Bud.

 

Your sport is in a renaissance right now despite everything you have done to kill the goose that laid the golden egg but this is downright theft, both from DirecTV and the fans who want to watch other games or follow their team from another city.

 

And for those like me that are still old school when it comes to day baseball? Fuggetaboutit. You have just been robbed.

 

But what did you expect? This is baseball after all.

 

And for once I won't have to yell at my cable rep.