News-Record.com

Colleague Rob Daniels has heard plenty of ranting from me on how Peter Angelos, the owner of his beloved Baltimore Orioles, only agreed to "allow" Washington to have a baseball team in exchange for the TV rights to the Nationals' games. Angelos is actually the Nats' ally in a legal battle with Comcast, the cable operator that refuses to let its subscribers see the Nationals. But, that said, the Nats have a terrible TV deal -- you pretty much need direcTV to see them in their own market -- by which they can't make any money and Angelos has total control.

My theory being that Angelos has set it up to a) ruin his unwanted neighbor's chances of survival or b) if they're popular, he'll profit from it to the benefit of his franchise, not DC's. You can watch all the Orioles baseball you want in Washington, by the way.

And, as I learned last night, you can watch the O's on Fox Sports South in the Raleigh TV market but not the Braves when they're on FSN South. Because of some twisted geographical logic, RDU is in the O's region, not the Braves' (or Nats, for that matter). Given that there are probably 10 Braves fans in the area for every one Orioles fan, I'd be irate about that arrangement if I were a tomahawk-chopper and letting Time-Warner Cable hear about it. TWC also doesn't offer Turner South in the Raleigh market, cutting down on televised Braves games even further.

I don't care for the Braves personally, but find it perfectly acceptable that TWC makes Braves games available on TBS, FSN South and Turner South in the Triad. Given their majority (or at least plurality) support throughout NC, I find it almost indefensible that the Orioles, not the Braves, hold sway in the Triangle.