3D sports producers are starting to get the hang of it, judging by this weekend’s cable and satellite broadcast of the Yankees vs. Mariners game, brought to you from Seattle.

DirecTV, Cox, Verizon, FiOS, Comcast, Cablevision, Time Warner Cable and some regional services brought the first major league 3D baseball game to HD subscribers in the New York and Seattle areas.

HD Guru Gary Merson gives the broadcast a qualified thumbs up:

The telecast gave a new perspective to the game, highlighting the physical space and interaction of the fielders as well as the pitcher to the batter like no other prior broadcast. You need to see it to appreciate it. My perspective shifted from distant spectator in a 2D HDTV broadcast to an umpire’s eye view and “you are there” immersive feel.

True to form, however, Merson notes some “distracting and annoying technical glitches.”

Among them: the treatment of the electronic scoring graphics.

Merson explains:

Like the World Cup in 3D, the score graphic is placed in front of the screen (called negative Z-axis); while the field view perspective is behind the screen. This creates a brain/eye conflict, and can contribute to fatigue. I plea to the network powers, please get the graphics to be at the screen plane whenever there is a distant field view.

Despite his usual gripes, detailed on the HDGuru.com website, Merson concludes, “Overall, the debut demonstrates how sports will drive 3D adoption.”

Julie Jacobson - Editor-at-large, CE Pro

Julie Jacobson is co-founder of EH Publishing and currently spends most of her time writing for CE Pro, mostly in the areas of home automation, networked A/V and the business of home systems integration. She majored in Economics at the University of Michigan, earned an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin, and has never taken a journalism class in her life. Julie is a washed-up Ultimate Frisbee player with the scars to prove it. Follow her on Twitter @juliejacobson.