IT'S NOT EASY BEING A FAN OF BASEBALL.(Sports)

Byline: TOMMY TRUJILLO

There you are, staring at your television set, eyes focused on that stupid line with tiny letters on the bottom of the screen.

It's Headline News, flashing baseball and soccer scores you don't care about. You've been watching so long, you already know when the baseball score you do care about is about to come up.

It's four away, three away, two away, then the network goes to commercial. That would be OK had the score line picked up where it left off, but no. You have to wait through all those other scores again.

And when your score does come up, there's no guarantee it's going to be updated.

There were old days, back when you could watch your team on TV for maybe 150 of its 162-game season. But when Major League Baseball intervened and sold its soul to Fox and ESPN, the number of those games from local broadcasts were seriously dwindled, and the numbers of games that could be broadcast were limited by MLB. Also, Fox and ESPN could decide which games they would exclusively show.

It wasn't bad when it was just a few games a week, but through the years, this exclusivity crap has taken away Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday night games. And teams usually have their days off on Monday and Thursday, when they're traveling, so if you want to watch a game -- for free, albeit you still have to pay for cable -- your days are limited to Tuesday and Friday, and any day a game is scheduled around the national broadcast.

And that's just for Atlanta Braves fans, who are fortunate enough to have a cable system broadcasting games. TCI doesn't offer WGN -- Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox -- or WOR -- New York Mets. I can hardly wait to see what Comcast cable is going to offer in its lineup when it -- thank goodness -- takes over for TCI later this spring.

If you're a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, or a Florida Marlins fan, you're done. You'll probably never -- ever -- see your team on television.

It's not like the NFL season, when you can go to your local tavern and watch any game you want. While bars are more than willing to spring for that special NFL broadcast package, I don't know of any bars who will pay for the multibroadcasts of baseball games. You could pay for it yourself, but that's a big hit.

And a story just moved over the wire that Internet broadcasts of baseball games also will cost a fan money. Just two seasons ago, you could go to a team's Web site and link up to a FREE live broadcast. Last year, you had to go to the Major League Baseball site and link up to its broadcast. If your team was on the road, you'd have to listen to the home team's broadcast. This season, you'll have to pay $9.95 for the feeds for the entire season. Through this deal, Major League Baseball is guaranteed $20 million over three years.

It sure makes it tough to be a baseball fan, especially when a network that has paid billions for the rights tells you what game you're going to watch, and when you're going to watch it.

And you thought the players were greedy.

By the way, speaking of baseball, is Albuquerque, which will be without its minor-league baseball franchise beginning this season, still considered to be the Duke City?