While we were just getting used to the football, hockey and basketball offseason, baseball umpires have piqued or interest with a statement that HDTV has changed the game. Now that viewers at home (& in the stands) have high res screens and feeds, not to mention DVRs to go frame by frame as many times it pleases them and constant replays on SportsCenter it's changed the way they call close plays on the base paths. Of course, we don't think that calling the game more accurately within the rules is a bad thing, but as this week's dustup involving Derek Jeter showed, not everyone has gotten the message, we're thinking a HD replay booth may be in order. Any longtime baseball fans noticed games getting called tighter over the last decade or so?

As if things weren't bad enough at the new Yankee Stadium, the latest high priced acquisition to experience issues seems to be the new HD scoreboard -- check out those odd equalizer-looking white bars New Stadium Insider spotted all over the screen during a game Thursday. We're not going to get into the Daktronics vs. Diamond Vision debate, but hopefully it's nothing a few triple A rehab starts can't fix.

This week Verizon announced it was including the YES Network in its package nationally (sans-Yankees games) in addition to all the VOD from last week. Expect those expansion announcements to start picking back up now that the Allentown, PA city council's approved FiOS TV for the area, however with an eight year window to become available, who knows when that could hit, and finally, a few reminders of how to stay Green on Earth Day.

Read - Allentown, Pa., Residents Major Step Closer to Verizon FiOS TV -- a Better Choice for Cable TV Service
Read - 10 Simple Tips on How Technology Can Help Everyone Be Green on Earth Day - and Every Day
Read - Verizon to Distribute the YES Network Nationally in High Definition to FiOS 'Extreme HD' Subscribers, Under Multiyear Agreement

This week Verizon's taken some time off from its expansionist FiOS TV policies, instead highlighting the upcoming UEFA Champions League playoffs subscribers can catch on ESPN 360, and a new multiyear deal making it the first distributor to offer Yankees games on-demand from the YES Network. Otherwise, we've got the obligatory response to the FCC's national broadband plans, we'll be back next week to see if there's any new rollouts to speak of.

Read - Verizon and ESPN360.com Bring High-Powered European Soccer League Playoffs to American Online Audience
Read - Verizon Statement on FCC Broadband Plan
Read - YES Network and Verizon Reach Multiyear Video-on-Demand Agreement

Say hello to the Yankee's biggest and, in our opinion, best new acquisition. We've been all up and down the specs of the Mitsubishi built 101- by 59-foot LED display for the last year so we'll just sit back and let it wash over you, while we contemplate whether those luxury seats below block some of the bleacher seats, or the ant-sized players trotting around on the field below.

The New York Yankees annual team workout is April 2, and that's when the organization officially takes the wraps off its 101- by 59-foot HD Diamond Vision scoreboard. Mitsubishi's screen can show 5,925 sq ft of HD and give either one large 1080 image or up to four simultaneously. An 8mm dot pitch means we wouldn't put our noses against it, but from anywhere else in the ballpark the view should be perfect. Congratulations New York, instead of just Mets vs. Yankees beef, this year you'll be tied up in the Mitsubishi vs. Daktronics debate.

The new Yankee Stadium is going to be all tech-ed up by Cisco, according to an announcement made by Hal Steinbrenner on an impressive telepresence conference call this morning. The partnership has already yielded about $15 million of wiring and infrastructure for the stadium, with more promised. So what does this mean for you, the rabid Yankees fan, at the game? Well, they're calling it a new "fan experience," but for now, it essentially boils down to 1,100 HD video monitors all over the stadium doing things like playing "interactive" video, giving stats in real time, and offering the ability to do truly wild stuff like order concessions from your seat and see how long the line at the nearest bathroom is. If it sounds too good to be true well, it's not -- kind of. Most of these features will supposedly be available when the stadium opens, though only in the luxury boxes... but Steinbrenner claims that infrastructure is already in place which will allow the stadium to provide these extras for everyone in the house eventually. We also hear there's going to be WiFi throughout the stadium, and that one 16 ounce Budweiser will run you $24.50. As long as we can count on them to use those thousand monitors to get people to do the wave while listening to "Cotton-Eyed Joe," we're there.

[Via The LoHud Yankees Blog; Thanks Joe P.]

Look out, world -- Albany just landed a very fine trio from Time Warner Cable. While most of the nation is sitting around and waiting anxiously for the arrival of ESPNews HD to their lineup, the fine folks in New York's capital are grinning from ear to ear as they enjoy it on slot 1872. Furthermore, Travel HD was added on 1843, and potentially best of all, the local MyNetworkTV (MyTV4) affiliate WNYA was also just added on 1804. Why so important, you ask? The latter channel has inked a deal to broadcast 21 Yankees games in HD that aren't already claimed by YES, and sure enough, the club has its first MyTV4-based showing tonight when it heads to Baltimore to take on the Orioles. Here's to you, Albany. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

[Thanks, Mark]

When the New York Yankees kick off their 2009 MLB season next April in the new Yankee Stadium (hopefully without being rained out Opening Day), they'll do it under a Mitsubishi Diamond Vision high definition video scoreboard. In what it's calling the first HD display in MLB to use its high-density AVL-ODQ8 LED display technology, Mitsubishi is upgrading the Diamond Vision board at the current Yankee Stadium, to a 5,925 square-foot 1080x1920 display measuring 100.79 feet wide and 58.79 feet tall. Sure the Royals might have a few more feet of HD, and the Mets have plenty of HD too, but we think Yankees fans won't have a problem with the team's latest high priced signing.