Playlist: Swinging and missing at an AM iPod add-on:
Iโ€™d like to know if the ability to listen to baseball games on the AM dial via my iPod is just around the corner or some pie-in-the-sky fantasy I should resign myself to abandoning. Weโ€™re a month away from the All-Star Breakโ€”thereโ€™s still a lot of season left to get this one.

What? Is this guy kidding us? Now that he commutes, he's upset because he can't listen to baseball on his iPod? He's willing to pay $15 to MLB.com, but the games he wants to hear are apparently blacked out. No problem, he's game to spend $70 just to hear the games at work through the audio of his computer. Unfortunately this apparently doesn't solve the commute problem.

Look folk, I'm all about finding the perfect all-in-one gadget (ask me how many portables I own *sigh*), and I'm one of the three people under 80 who own a $65 AM antenna so I over-value AM for sports just like this guy, but at what point doesn't it make more sense to quit with the iPod fetish, shell out the $10 that a pocket AM radio sets you back, and call it done? Seriously, there are many cheap (and I mean cheap) AM radios that do just fine with an internal ferrite antenna that should provide this guy with all the local Oakland A's coverage he can stand.

New does not always mean better. There are still some niches the old techs fill perfectly. This may very well be one.