When we left the country for Abu Dhabi, in 2009, the whole of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ season could be seen on TV by consumers who had even lower-end cable packages.

This month, we came home during ball season … and I was able, for the first time, to experience the ridiculous situation — now in its second year — that leaves the Dodgers unwatchable on most cable TV packages.

I have marveled over this during our stay, and it struck me again tonight — as I was watching the Angels.

Most all of you living in SoCal already know what is going on, but to recap:

Ahead of the 2014 season, the Dodgers signed a $7 billion (!) contract with Time-Warner Cable that would run for something like 25 years. The Dodgers would have programming almost 24/7 — including games, of course — on a new Time-Warner station named SportsNet LA.

Time-Warner, however, had not done its homework, and its blithe assumption that other cable providers would give in to the approximately $5-per-month per customer it would cost them to carry the new network … was in error.

Well, they did mind, and a season-and-a-half into the new system, something like 70 percent of households in the Dodgers’ home market (including the family in Long Beach) still cannot see the Dodgers on television, aside from nationally televised games.

I can only imagine how aggravated Dodgers fans must be.

Here is a statement from DirecTV essentially asking the Dodgers and Time-Warner to come to their senses.

Here is a New York Post business story suggesting Time-Warner already has lost about $1 billion because they are paying the Dodgers but nobody is paying Time Warner. Also, Wall Street seems to think the Dodgers are worth about $3 per month per customer, and not the $5 per month TWC wants. (Even $3 seems high to me.)

How will this end?

Apparently, there is a ghost of a chance things could get better semi-soon.

Charter Communications is trying to buy Time-Warner and — if the deal goes through — it is safe to say the areas served by Charter would begin to get the Dodgers.

That doesn’t solve things for everyone, but it would for homes in Long Beach, for example.

What a disaster this has been. “Out of sight, out of mind” certainly pops into the brain. How many potential new fans have the Dodgers lost in the year-and-a-half they have not been on the air? How annoyed have they made their fan base? How many of them have tuned in the Angels, instead, and decided Mike Trout & Co. are an interesting team?

We already know Time-Warner is hemorraghing cash, in their spectacular failure to come up with a price point the competition would go for.

For the sake of Dodgers fans, and on the chance I might be back here during a baseball season someday, I hope this gets fixed.

It seems like madness, utter madness, that this has gone on as long as it has.