Relief for the shut-out Phillies fan?

I spent 10 minutes on WIP-AM this morning, talking about Mrs. Jessie Foyle, 94, the Phillies fan who can't watch most of her team's games anymore because her retirement home can't get Comcast SportsNet. She's caught in a squeeze play between Comcast and DirecTV

I mentioned all the suggestions from readers at the end of my column in Thursday's paper. Well-intentioned, but they weren't going to solve her problems.

DirecTV doesn't carry most games because Comcast won't sell it the feed, citing a loophole in federal law. Dish has that problem, too.

MLB.com won't let her watch the games live in the Internet. It delays home-team games, and if you think that is not fair, write to Major League Baseball, the majority owner, as well as partners DirecTV, Comcast and Time-Warner. Hmm.

Verizon FIOS isn't in Philly yet.

That leaves Slingbox, a clever suggestion made by a couple of readers. After listening to my pitch on WIP this morning, listener Tristram Consoli offered to give Mrs. Foyle his unopened Slingbox unit.

Which would let her watch games live as long as one of her grandsons, say, hook up the device in his place and set up a laptop in her apartment that she could connect to.

A real solution. But there's a catch: "Mom-mom," as her kids call her is "technologically challenged," says the Rev. Lin Crowe, her son-in-law. Big time. But the family will look into Consoli's generous offer. He's a 22-year-old college student who acquired Slingbox in hopes of watching Phillies games in Tampa, where he's in college.

He felt for the woman, who's been called Cape Lady for the three garments she owns that are stitched with World Series ticket stubs. She went to every game over 44 years, until the first game in Tampa last fall.

Posted by Daniel Rubin @ 12:27 PM Permalink | 1 comment

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0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:22 PM, 06/26/2009

die comcast die

— rothstein12

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About Metro Mashup

Metro columnist Karen Heller has been an Inquirer staff writer since 1986. She has won national, state and local awards for feature writing, investigative reporting and criticism, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary. E-mail Karen here; read her columns here.

An award-winning columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Annette John-Hall’s twice weekly metro columns always illuminate. Her topics and storytelling challenge readers to reflect on their own perceptions, to turn off the auto response and forge a different kind of conversation. She has been nominated twice by the Inquirer for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary. E-mail Annette here; read her columns here.

Kevin Riordan’s daily newspaper byline debuted in 1972, when he was a child prodigy. He got his first real newspaper job four years later, and joined the Inquirer in 2010. A native of western Massachusetts, he lives in Haddon Heights, NJ. E-mail Kevin here; read his columns here.

Since joining The Inquirer as a staff writer in 1988, Daniel Rubin has reported from 27 countries, but most of them were small. He's a metro columnist and has been the European Correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers. For two years he sat at home and wrote Blinq, the paper's first daily blog. Dan began newspaper work in Norfolk and Louisville, Ky., after getting his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Northwestern University. He has lived in all four commonwealths, most recently in Pennsylvania. He teaches urban journalism at the University of Pennsylvania. E-mail Daniel here; read his columns here.

Monica Yant Kinney joined the Inquirer as a suburban reporter in 1996, moved to the City Hall Bureau two years later and was named a metro columnist in 2001 at the age of 30. As a columnist, Kinney speaks to, and for, the curious and infuriated masses, writing often about gun violence, casinos, politics, pop culture and parenting. She logs so many miles reporting in the city, suburbs and South Jersey, she finally bought a Prius. E-mail Monica here; read her columns here.

Visit Blinq 1.0 here.

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