XM Launches Baseball Channel

“Let’s play ball!”
On XM Satellite Radio, that is.
Baseball comes to XM Satellite Radio on Feb. 15 with a 24-hour channel devoted to the sport.
The Major League Baseball Home Plate channel will feature news, listener call-in shows, interviews, and rebroadcasts of classic games. Several baseball greats have been signed up to host programming on the channel including Cal Ripken Jr., the Baltimore Orioles shortstop and record holder for most consecutive games played. Ripkin will host an exclusive, weekly XM show on MLB Home Plate starting in March.
Cal’s brother and fellow MLB veteran Billy Ripken is also joining the show.
Other on-air hosts on the MLB channel include Rob Dibble, Kevin Kennedy, Larry Bowa, and Buck Martinez. The MLB Home Plate channel (XM Channel 175) is the first channel added to XM as part of its 11-year broadcasting and marketing agreement with Major League Baseball.
XM also will add 15 channels, one in Spanish, to carry live play-by-play coverage of every Major League Baseball team beginning in March. Game programming will begin during spring training and continue through the 2005 World Series.
MLB play-by-play channels will be XM channels 176 through 189. MLB En Espanol will be XM channel 190. XM’s college sports channels will be relocated to channels 191-199.