Nice. It's about time they entered the 21st century. On second thought it's kind of sad to say goodbye to the last old relic that MLB stubbornly refused to let go of. For those who may not know, these dugout to bullpen phones were the old kind from the 60's where you'd stick your finger in the desired number slot and then crank it around clockwise until it wouldn't move, then you'd take your finger out and wait for it's rotation to cease before being able to move on to the next number. 9's and 0's were always kind of fun because you'd have time to take a big swig out of your soda pop bottle before having to move on to the next number. It's been said that many a manager experienced a change of heart as to replacing his pitcher, in the time it took to complete dialing #9 on his dugout phone. I do know that there was not a universal number at the ballparks for these phones like one would think. For instance the dugout-bullpen number for the Cardinals was always simply "911". At the old Milwaukee County Stadium and then Miller Park you would have to dial the area code and then the complete number, which on those phones took about 90 seconds to complete. The home team dugout phone at Wrigley was especially trying because due to the tremendous usage, all of it's numbers were worn off so you would have to sit there and count the slots before dialing a number.

A local radio guy, who is simply a casual sports fan, commented on this with the usual take about how it's about time baseball got up with the times, and compared it to football and how they use the in-helmet communication system and are so much more in step with the times we live in.

Typical un-informed casual fan stuff though. Anyone who follows baseball reasonably close knows that the game has gone extremely high-tech, just like the rest of modern society. Anything where there is a lot of money at stake will be on the cutting edge of technology.

Baseball uses any number of metrics and computer generated data to analyze just about every area of game management - not too mention the use of video in working with individual players on their skills.

The bullpen phone deal wasn't a sign of being out of touch with the times, but rather more of a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Probably the only reason it is "fixed" now is that they can collect revenue for the "Official bullpen phone provider of Major League Baseball."

That causes me to wonder. Most teams' television broadcasts already had a "This call to the bullpen is sponsored by..." promotion. I wonder if this new deal will supersede them?