For most people, Major League Baseball's online presence is just a place to get the latest news on your favorite team or buy licensed merchandise. But some die-hard baseball fans pay to use MLB's blogging service. For MLBloggers, the technical problems that plague MLB's internet endeavors are more than a matter of inconvenience; they're a matter of real money.

Early this century, each team was responsible for its own web site. Some teams fielded excellent pages, and were understandably upset when MLB centralized and standardized them in 2001. Now every team's website looks exactly like every other team's website. It's great for consistency in navigation, but, like most anything that's been centralized and standardized, it's encouraged mediocrity.

For example, if you go to any team's website as of this writing and do a search from the front page, you will receive only news items from 2005. It is possible to get news items from this year, but going to the news archives to get hits from the year we're already three months into isn't very intuitive.

Or, if you're looking at the boxscore and click on one of the players' names, you're taken to a player stats page that does not include the player's name. You have to click a second time to load the player bio in order to find that kind of information.

And don't even get me started on the weekly online chats that are supposedly available to anyone who's willing to add their e-mail address to the MLB database. I haven't yet been able to log into one, and the text of the “Help” file, which helpfully instructs me to type my comments into the box but provides no troubleshooting information at all, fails to help much.

At least I can honestly say that I haven't missed an e-mail offer to buy MLB.tv yet.

These things drive me completely nuts, but at the end of the day, they're just annoyances. I use free services, and I get what I pay for. Alternately, I've now received e-mail messages from two separate paying customers of MLBlogs who have inexplicably found themselves unable to log into their accounts. They don't know what's causing the problem, and the help information and links to technical support are only available after you log in.

In one case, even a call to technical support couldn't resolve the issue. They told him to make sure cookies were enabled.

Major League Baseball isn't a fly-by-night organization. They have the capacity to provide a quality product. With as much money as their online endeavors could bring in, they should make their blogging software a priority. What better user testimonials could they ask for than their own MLBloggers? These are people who are paying MLB to participate in a buzz marketing campaign for baseball.

To be more exact, right now they're paying MLB to tell them to ensure cookies are enabled.

Bloggers are among the most dedicated baseball fans there are; MLB has to wake up and make things right for these valuable users. The sport needs to demonstrate that it values its online community for more than just the $5 a month in MLBlog fees.

Despite continuing heroics from Dewayne Wise and Edwin Encarnación, the Reds lost to the Phillies 4-1 yesterday afternoon in Clearwater.

Justin Germano allowed three runs on five hits through four innings of work. Jake Robbins, Ryan Wagner, and Mike Burns each pitched a scoreless inning. Todd Coffey gave up a run in his inning of work.

Wise provided the entirety of the Reds score with a home run in the first inning. Wise also threw out a runner at home from right field to save Germano even more pain. Encarnación went 2-for-3 with a double.

The loss brings the Reds' record to 7-6. The Reds host the Twins tonight at 7:05 p.m.

Jason LaRue will be the guest at the MLB online chat this afternoon. I've run up against technical problems for the last two online chats, so I'm not even going to try anymore. If you manage to get in, send him a big cyber-smooch for me and let him know that when he gets all sweaty during games, I just want to get all sweaty with him.

Chat's at 3 p.m. Register here.

The Reds outlasted the Blue Jays to win 7-6 in the tenth inning in Sarasota yesterday.

Brandon “Pickle Man” Claussen got his second spring training start. He allowed two earned runs on five hits in four innings of work. He's well on his way to getting into the seventh inning, like he promised after his last start.

Jimmy Journell and Matt Belisle each contributed a scoreless inning of relief and Brian Shackelford contributed two scoreless innings. Jason Standridge's two strike outs in his inning of work were drowned out by the two home runs he allowed to blow the lead. Allan Simpson came in in the tenth to walk one, strike out one, give up an unearned run on an error he himself made, and get the unearned win in the bottom of the inning.

Third baseman Edwin Encarnación continued his spring training hotness by going 2-for-3. Dewayne Wise went 1-for-2 with a home run in the seventh inning. It was Wise's second home run of spring training, making him only the second Red with more than one home run.

The win brought the Reds record to 7-5.

Another Saturday, another post to RHM's Red Hot Diaries. This time I want to type a few words about EE - Edwin Encarnacion. Going into this afternoon's ST game against Toronto he had five homers and 12 RBI. Nobody else even had two, except now Dewayne Wise hit one off Francisco Rosario in today's game. So they're tied now.

Last year, the Reds parked Felipe Lopez on the bench and gave Rich Aurilia the starting job at SS. Once Aurilia got hurt, all Lopez did was have ann all-star year and one of the best offensive seasons by a shortstop in Reds history. Who knows what he might have accomplished if he hadn't started the year playing behind Aurilia.

Thankfully, it doesn't look like they'll get the chance to make the same mistake with EE. He's not only hitting, he's played errorless ball over there at the hot corner. Something tells me EE isn't going to be hitting in the eight hole this year. You don't hit a guy like EE in front of the pitcher where he's pretty much guaranteed to see diddly squat to swing at, you stick him in the middle of the lineup somewhere and let him drive in runs in bunches.

I only saw EE once in the minors, a game here in Buffalo between the Bisons and the Bats last May. EE went 0-for-4 with a K, but Andy Abad (now with the Reds) climbed the left field wall to rob him of a dinger. EE also made a great defensive play that day by going deep in the hole to snag a grounder and start a 6-4-3 DP. He's the real deal. I'm going to be really upset with Jerry Narron if this kid starts the season playing behind Aurilia or anybody else.

“The Dominican Babe Ruth” indeed. Ruth played for the Yankees. I'm for calling him “The Dominican Tony Perez.”

HMZ

P.S.: The final is in from Sarasota: Cincinnati 7, Toronto 6, 11 innings. :-)))