I think it’s great that MLB has hooked up with ESPN for a long-term contract. No other network—cable or otherwise—has done a better job with baseball coverage (live games, highlight shows, etc...) than ESPN.

It leads you to wonder what ESPN has in store for MLB over the next several years…beyond the TV screen, that is. Will ESPN broadcast games to mobile phones? Will ESPN broadcast games to the PC via the ESPN 360 widget? Will ESPN brew some sort of interactive experience where fans can interact via IM during games (hence more oomph behind the open IM platform)…at the same time will it build some sort of baseball “social network” that allows fans to build personal sites and communicate ala Myspace?

All of these are possibilities as is the notion the network will help MLB usher the game into additional foreign markets. I look to ESPN to be innovative and not afraid to try and fail. It’s a great marriage.

In the midst of the plight facing our nation, I found great humor in the Fall Preview issue of everyone’s favorite TV weekly. I hung up the keyboard as a newspaper TV critic more than 15 years ago, but I watch with great amusement as the roster of new shows makes its way to the consumer each Fall. This year is a special one. No, not in programming, but in the rapid countdown to oblivion facing commercial TV, and the end of a business that perpetuates itself with planned obsolescence.

As I leaf through the guide, I note the return of Angie Harmon and Holly Robinson Peete. Both are/were married to pro football players, now well past their prime. The football players, that is. I never was clear why Harmon left “Law and Order,” but she’s back and NBC has her. Peete is on UPN on a show about wingwomen. Seriously. Those are women who take guys out on dates in an effort for them (the guys, that is) to meet other women. Difficult to explain, but I did see wingwomen as a theme on a “CSI Miami” episode. TV can be educational.

Michael Rappaport who was in a bunch of Woody Allen movies and the underrated film, “Beautiful Girls,” as well as “Cop Land,” is in a show called “The War at Home.” Bow wow. There’s also a show called “Kitchen Confidential,” based on the book of the same name. The book was written by Anthony Bourdain (a fav in our house) of Food TV and Travel Channel fame. Sadly, the show is a wobbler, probably only marginally better than Emeril’s ill-fated sitcom.

Neil Patrick Harris, who was a teen star as “Doogie Howser” has a new sitcom called “How I Met Your Mother.” Harris, who was outstanding in “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle”, seemed destined for more outrageous things than a tame comedy. His former Doogie Howser co-star Max Casella was brave enough to step out and take a role on “Sopranos” as a murderous sidekick to Paulie Walnuts. (as well as Tony’s latest driver).

Personally, I am rooting for a new show called “Out of Practice.” It’s on CBS at 9:30 p.m. on Monday (I think that makes it a lead-in to “CSI: Miami”). It stars Henry Winkler who not only is funny, but one of the most level-headed, self-effacing talents in Hollywood. And how can you not love his role as Coach Klein in “Waterboy?” I am hoping he has a hit on his hands.

But what did I know? I panned “Cheers” as the worst TV show on NBC the year it launched. You never can tell.

Wherein Allen and Mike try to understand the effect of Katrina on the NO media. Will papers make a permanent jump to all digital -- or primarily digital -- by necessity?