The extacy, and agony, of trying to watch a Manny granny

AP Photo/Chris Carlson
Dodger Stadium fans, on Manny Ramirez bobblehead night, cheer as Ramirez pops out of the dugout to pinch hit during Wednesday's game against Cincinnati. For some L.A. TV viewers, that's all they saw on Prime TIcket ... until he was celebrating a grand slam moments later.

There was some confusion in parts of L.A. on Wednedsay night -- did Many Ramirez really hit a pinch-hit grand slam, or did my TV set just seize up?

For some, it was both.

After sorting out emails over who had which service, and what part of town they lived in, then finding more evidence on blogs across the city, it seems as if Time Warner Cable through parts of the San Fernando Valley and the Westside froze up as Ramirez was in the ondeck circle preparing to face a new Cincinnati Reds pitcher.

After a commercial, when the audience came back to the game, Manny was in the dugout getting mobbed, the fans were going nuts, and Vin Scully was commenting about the noise being the loudest he's heard in 20 years.

Those who have the cable service's HD channel saw it happen; those who didn't missed it on their Prime Ticket channel. DirecTV, Charter cable and others were all fine.

A customer living in Culver City apparently had a problem and sent this email to LAObserved.com:

I phoned Time Warner twice last night to inquire/complain and was placed on hold forever both times; finally gave-up. I phoned Time Warner again this morning and the customer service rep was trying to blame the problem on Prime Ticket. Once again, I was placed on hold for a significant period while the rep did more "research," so I hung-up and called back demanding that a supervisor source the problem and call me back with an explanation; stop wasting my time....I will certainly be demanding a reduction in my cable bill for this month since it was clearly a Time Warner issue.

Later, a Time Warner subscriber wrote to say he finally got a reply about the problem and was told he'd get a $10 refund on his bill because of the error. For his "inconvenience."

A mention of the snaffu was also mentioned on LAist.com (linked here, with some nasty commentary).