MLB Network set to launch on New Year's Day

MLB Network will initially be available in about 50 million of the country's approximately 114.5 million homes with televisions, through deals with DirecTV and major cable companies. That's the most households in which a new cable channel has ever made its debut.

The network will launch at 6 p.m. ET on New Year's Day with an edition of Hot Stove, its offseason studio show. The original broadcast of Don Larsen's perfect game from the 1956 World Series will follow.

MLB Network is spending more than $50 million to hire staff, build sets and renovate its facility. It's housed in the former MSNBC studios, a 140,000-square-foot building in a quiet office park a few miles west of Manhattan. The network scrapped plans to move its headquarters to a new office in Harlem.

One of the two main studios -- named No. 42 for Jackie Robinson -- is designed as a replica ballpark, with a half-scale infield and details down to a fake bullpen phone and "No Pepper" painted on the brick wall. The mound can be moved to regulation distance should analysts want to demonstrate techniques.

Petitti expects to eventually have about 250 employees. The number was nearly 165 in mid-December; it was 60 at the start of November and fewer than 10 at the end of July.

"It was like Jack Nicholson from The Shining, basically," Petitti said of walking around the studios back then.

Baseball joins the NFL, NBA and NHL in launching its own channel. As the network looks to fill hour after hour, it enjoys the advantage of a sport in which teams play nearly every day, creating new highlights and developments to constantly air and discuss.

"If you look at sports and who should have a 24-7 network," Petitti said, "baseball is pretty much the obvious one that would work."