This is the email I got from Major League Baseball about the MLB Insider’s Club Magazine:

I clicked through, confident from the “free” trial, blanket offer, and refusal to mention a price that the offer would provide me the opportunity to get in a pot shot or two about Major League Baseball’s shilling. But actually, it sounds like a decent deal. $24 a year gets you membership into the club, including the subscription to the magazine. They say they might send you books and videos, but that you can send them back at their expense if you don’t want to buy, and they imply that you can opt out of that part as well.

As long as the magazine itself doesn’t turn out to be two stapled together, photocopied pages of hand-drawn player portraits done in crayon, (I get enough of those from my kid’s school) I think I might be interested. Plus the blanket’s a heckuva stocking stuffer.