Showtime is about to give new meaning to the term "inside baseball."

Tonight at 9:30 p.m., the network will present a special 30-minute sneak peek at their new reality baseball series 'The Franchise: A Season with the San Francisco Giants.'

'The Franchise' is a behind-the-scenes documentary series following the World Champion San Francisco Giants, giving viewers a front row seat into the personal and professional lives of the players, coaches, and team personnel as they begin the task of defending their 2010 World Series title. Cameras follow players as they train, socialize, and spend time with their families. Some of the players even have cameras embedded in their cars.

'The Franchise' is being shot over the course of eight months and will have a camera crew with the team during the first half of the regular season.

The regular series premieres with a one-hour episode on July 13th. 

Click below to watch a short video preview of the series.

Bill Maher's take on what makes the Super Bowl great (and the World Series not-so-great) is sure to tick off a lot of people. Warning: there's cursing here. "Real Time with Bill Maher" airs on Friday nights at 10pm on HBO.

Tonight's 81st Major League Baseball All-Star game will be broadcast on Fox 50 starting at 8pm, live from Anaheim. Everything you need to know about the lineups, injuries, and last minute changes, you can find over on our sports page.

This update to yesterday's post features a rebuttal comment from a MASN spokesperson.

A reader emailed us to ask why he can't watch the Washington Nationals phenom pitcher Stephen Strasburg actually pitch in games broadcast here on ESPN and TBS. Unfortunately, that reader is a Time Warner Cable customer, so he'll likely have to get in his car and drive to D.C. to see that happen.

Because of an ongoing contract dispute between the cable company and MASN, the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network that carries Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles baseball games, the games are not available here. (Note: MASN is available on DirecTV and Dish Network).

Congress: "No healthcare? Take a hike, you dirty, rotten so-and-so! No baseball on TV?! Oh my goodness, we have to do something!"

It seems members of Congress are joining in a bipartisan effort to end a dispute that hits us where we live and breathe: keeping MLB games on cable TV. Get the details from our friends at Under the Dome.

Major League Baseball All-Star Game (8pm, Fox) - The All-Star game is back in St. Louis for the first time since 1966. Derek Jeter (left) was the top vote-getter in AL balloting.

Better Off Ted (9pm, ABC) - Linda is the scapegoat when Veridian is sued over a perfume that causes hornets to attack women.

Primetime: Family Secrets (10pm, ABC) - Tonight's focus is Michael Jackson's family. Primetime reports on how they are coping, and interviews Joe Jackson and Michael's siblings.

Saving Grace (10pm, TNT) - Grace's spiritual beliefs are tested when the team investigates the death of a Hasidic Jew found near a herd of deceased cows. 

The Cleaner (10pm, A&E) - William is asked to help a drug addicted star, but discovers the star's parents also need help. Shirley Jones guest stars (wouldn't it be cool if the troubled younger star was played by Danny Bonaduce or David Cassidy?).

See a photo gallery of the Dodgers' Manny Ramierez who has been suspended for 50 games by MLB.

A new baseball season is here. Your team is still in it. But Time Warner Cable's long and so far losing fight against MASN threatens to keep much of North Carolina in the dark again this season.

In their recent meetings, Major League Baseball owners again stepped out of the batter's box rather than take on the sticky issue of television territories — a matter of particular relevance in this part of North Carolina, where Time Warner Cable fans have no way of viewing the designated home teams, the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals.

The Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, co-owned by those two teams, has the rights to their games but hasn't been able to reach a carriage agreement with TWC. Despite losing in three separate rulings — two by independent arbitrators, one by an FCC media bureau chief — Time Warner is appealing to the full, five-member FCC.

Meanwhile, there has been discussion that MLB would start giving teams a certain amount of time to reach agreements to get their games on TV in so-called outlying areas, like the Triangle, or risk losing those territories. But any sort of deadline would complicate the existing television contracts with the various franchises, and MASN insists that any action by the owners would not be relevant in North Carolina because of MLB's "separate and inviolable" agreements with the O's and the Nationals.

So, the owners, who also had more pressing issues — like the need for a salary cap — to discuss, will take up the matter of outlying TV territories again before the start of the season, according to MLB. Unless they decide to table it again.

Major League Baseball owners had plenty on their plates — the economy, the sale of the Chicago Cubs, the launch of MLB Network, to name three — without having to confront perhaps the toughest issue to solve: what to do about local TV territories.

They decided to put that one off again, at least until January.

To understand the problem facing MLB, one need look no farther than our own market, where the designated home teams for television purposes are the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals. But because the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which carries the Orioles and Nationals (those teams, in fact, co-own MASN), and Time Warner Cable have been unable to reach an agreement, the vast majority of cable customers in North Carolina — even those who pay more to get MLB's Extra Innings package — can't see those games. The satellite providers, Dish Network and DirecTV, both offer MASN.

Two arbitrators and a high-ranking FCC official have ruled that Time Warner Cable discriminated against MASN, and TWC is now appealing to the full Federal Communications Commission of five members. About the only cloud on MASN's horizon has been the possibility that MLB itself would get involved by going so far as to take a TV market or territory away from a club that did not broadcast within it, although MASN claims that it would not be subject to any such rule because of the agreement between the Orioles and Major League Baseball that allowed the Expos to move to Washington (and become the Nationals).

Nonetheless, Commissioner Bud Selig and MLB understandably don't like the idea that fans in outlying areas like the Triangle want to see baseball and can't get it — another way that MLB is bleeding younger fans.

The longer the owners keep tabling the issue of the television territories, however, the harder it is to imagine MLB providing a solution to fans in Raleigh-Durham.

We'll see what they have to say in January.