Category: Sports

My family and I moved away from the Chicago area back in the Spring of 2005. Since then, it has been a struggle to keep up with my two favorite teams, the Cubs and the Bears. I get to see a few Cubs games on WGN Superstation, and there are always the Cubs and Bears games on national TV, but it would be great if I could sit down and enjoy any game that I want to see.

Now, I know some of you are thinking, well Tim, just order MLB Extra Innings or NFL Sunday Ticket, and you’ll be all set. That’s all well and good, but why would I order a package with so many games when I only care about the Cubs and the Bears? I don’t sit around and watch sports games just because they’re on. I want to watch my teams, and that’s it. Some of you are also probably thinking that I should just order MLB.TV and watch the games on my computer. While I enjoy computers, and I work with them all day, I don’t really want to sit at my desk to try to enjoy a game. I want to sit my butt down on the couch and watch the games on my TV.

It seems to me that I can’t be alone in my desire to watch my favorite team out of market. Here is what I would like to see happen. The leagues should provide an option on both digital cable and satellite so that a fan can subscribe to all of the games for their favorite teams. Obviously, the packages should be a lot more economical than the packages available today because they will include significantly fewer games. With the combination of a lower price and the ability to watch only the games from your favorite team, I believe many more people will subscribe to these packages making everyone a winner. The leagues and providers make more money from more subscriptions, and the fans will be happy because they get to see their favorite teams.

Come on MLB and NFL, make this happen!

Well, my Cubbies have moved into first place in the NL Central again with a half game lead over the Brewers. The Cardinals have also managed to get back into the race and are only four games back with a little over a month to go in the season. The Cubs are playing really well going into the last month of the season, and they have a great chance to win the division. They just need to keep focusing on one game at a time, and everything will work out. Besides the last two games of the current Cardinal series, the Cubs will have another shot at both the Cards and Brewers in September. If they can play well in those important series and take care of business in a majority of their other games, they should be pretty tough to overtake. It should be fun (and stressful) to watch to see what happens next.

Go Cubs!

It’s been a lot of fun lately watching the Cubs play ball. They’ve been doing all of the right things at the right times, and they have so much more confidence than they did earlier in the season. I guess all it really took was a little tantrum from Sweet Lou to provide the spark the Cubbie’s needed.

The second half of the season started out in the right direction today with another win by Carlos Zambrano. Big Z is really starting to look like the ace everyone expected him to be. He has to be the hottest pitcher in baseball right now. Whenever he’s on the mound, the Cubs have a chance to win, and it looks like the team really believe in him.

It should be an exciting second half of the season.

Now, this hasn’t happened in a long time. Both the Cubs and the Bulls are riding high on 3 game winning streaks at the same time. What’s great is that the Cubs have been beating the pants off of the Cardinals this weekend, and the Bulls have been putting Shaq and the rest of the Miami Heat in their place. It hasn’t been this much fun to watch both teams since 1998. Really, how long has it been since both teams have been going for a sweep of a series on the same day? If I were more into sports history, I would go back and check, but at this point, I’m just excited about the possibility of what could happen today. Can’t wait to watch!

Update: There will be no Cubs sweep tonight. Cardinals pitcher, Josh Hancock, was killed in a car accident early this morning, and the game has been respectfully postponed.

So, today’s game between the Bears and Vikings was the first Bears game I’ve seen this season because I’m out on the west coast, and all they play out here are crappy west coast games. It was good to see an old fashioned central division game with great defense. There’s no need for finess in the black and blue division. Just give me some great defense, a great running game, and an occasional pass, and I’m a happy camper. I’m not sure the Bears had any of those things today besides a lucky pass that caught the Vikings off guard. At the end, though, the Bears managed to steal the thunder from the Vikings and pulled off a win for me (they must have known that I was watching).

A buddy of mine, who will remain nameless, is a huge Oklahoma fan. He started a website called VoidGame.com after Oklahoma was robbed of a win over Oregon. The officials really goofed up at the end of the game, and they’ve admitted it. Now, they’re only human, and I can understand that. We’ve all messed up something in our lives at some point. One of the biggest problems is there is no rule in college football that indicates what to do in this situation. What happens when a call is so blatantly wrong? As far as I’m concerned, the game is over when the whistle blows. Unfortunately, people will be talking about these blown calls for years.