So last year I bought a membership in the Red Sox Nation fan club.

Besides a cute little membership card, they also give you a subscription to mlb.com's Game Day Audio, where you can listen to the real radio broadcast from Boston live.

That was handy ... when I was awake to listen to the games at 4 am. And then of course last year the Sox didn't go to the playoffs. So this year I skipped renewing.

... until today. I was up early and caught the last few innings of the Padres / Rockies game on the Yahoo Sports GameChannel - you know, where they have a little baseball diamond graphic and every few seconds they update it to show you where the players are? Yeah, it's about as exciting as a 1980s video game, but with fewer cool sound effects.

If in the playoffs the Red Sox have some crazy game that goes 13 innings I'd be so livid to only get pixels moving around on some website. So I re-upped into the Nation, and have the Game Day Audio again.

What's the worst that can happen? They lose in three games and the season is over?

Hey, at least I get a cute little membership card.