Cain Throws Gem in Home Opener, but We Didn’t See It in Honolulu, 2,387 Miles from San Francisco; We’re in the Giants’ ‘Home TV Territory’ – IYCBI

Matt Cain had a perfect game through 6.2 innings in his 1-hitter.

If You Can Believe It, baseball fans in Hawaii have started a fourth season of "prevention baseball" -- prevented from watching nearly all games played by West Coast baseball teams and their opponents. Are you playing attention, Red Sox fans? The state out here in the middle of the Pacific is designated as in the home TV territory of covetous TV rights holders for the West Coast teams.

Comcast blames Time-Warner for not making the Giants and A’s games available, and Time-Warner says Comcast wants too much money. The Giants organization shrugs, and Major League Baseball says nothing about it at all.

For several years through the 2008 season, the best way to end the work day was to pull out the laptop, head for the lanai and watch the Giants game begin in Pac Bell Park at pau hana and cocktail time in Honolulu. That ended without warning at the start of the 2009 season, and despite dozens of complaints and inquiries since then by baseball fans throughout Hawaii, nobody inside baseball is showing even a smidgen of interest in ending the blackout.

Can DKI Fix It?

Senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii has been a member of Congress since Statehood in 1959. The senator has “delivered” time and again for this isolated and often overlooked state, and some say he saves on travel expenses by walking instead of flying to the mainland.

Senator Dan is one of several senators looking into the blackout, and we’re putting our faith in them to wake up Bud Selig and the rest of the profiteers who seemingly have forgotten the fans.

So until the suits get out of the way and let us subscribe to MLB.com again to watch Giants games as they’re streamed “live,” the only action we’ll see is on SportsCenter and video replays at SFGiants.com, including Matt Cain’s 1-hitter today, and that sucks.