by Gary Thorne

(January 5, 2009) Twitter and an MLB game broadcast in black and white. That's the way to start 2009.

The MLB Network went on the air Thursday, featuring a replay of the perfect game pitched by Don Larsen for the Yankees in the 1956 World Series. The game was carried as it was originally broadcast.

The commercials were the ones aired originally. There were no replays.

The telecast featured that beautiful slow pace, that rocking chair feel — a pace found too infrequently today.

For a broadcaster who loves the game, it was magic to hear the silence between pitches.

The commentary offered was to assist the listener in enjoying the game rather than trying to fill every waking moment with something, anything, because today's television executives, and maybe fans, don't believe the game is enough.

Over the past decade MLB has tried to deal with the length of games, attempting to cut back the minutes by forcing hitters to stay in the box or timing a pitcher's pitch interval.

Anyone watching the perfect game replay should have no trouble understanding why the length of a game that was meant to be played in about 2:15 now constantly wanders into the three hour plus zone.

Commercials are the answer.

Watching the players take the field while the camera was still on them, watching the quick warmups, and seeing commercials that lasted for 30 seconds is all you need to know about the length of today's games.

Then, television came to broadcast the game, not dictate the game as it does today.

That, of course, will never be discussed or altered by anyone. Those days are left to black and white replays; another time, another place. Why? Money — but you already knew that.

There were many kudos for the new network's presentation. Nostalgia finds a coveted place in tough times.

On the other hand, a New York Times sports story on Monday could not have been further from the replayed perfect game.

It was all about twittering.

This latest in communications technology is referred to as "micro-blogging," "social messaging in real time" (how this differs from a phone call other than actually having to have a dialog is unclear) and, as the Times story stated, "…spontaneous, often spectacularly mundane updates."

It's just shorthand e-mail (secretaries and court stenographers must be smiling), but, hey, if you can market short-hand emails-go for it.

Shaquille O'Neil is a Twitter user according to the Times story. He had to because someone else was twittering using his name. The Times story says, "Twitter (the company) doesn't require proof to take a user name."

Lawyers are laughing all the way to the bank on the lawsuits that will come from this.

O'Neal gathered with his people, talked about a suit, but decided to twitter instead.

His manager said those who would read the twitters, " …will accept a certain degree of commercialism down the line."

Ah ha. Once again, all together, say money.

Hello to a new year, an old game, a new technology and an old goal.

If we put them all together, just think of all the twittering that would have gone on at Yankee Stadium in 1956 as the perfect game drew closer to the ninth inning, and all the while fans would have had to twitter waiting for the commercials to end.

Instead, the fans actually talked baseball with one another. That's a concept worth twittering.