COLUMN: I miss my Cubs

OFF THE MARK COLUMN
By: 
Mark Spensley
Express Co-Publisher

      So now that professional baseball is in full force, but not without its own set of difficulties, I’ve got to register a complaint. Short of switching to a different television provider, this may be the first time since I was 5 years old that I haven’t watched a full, complete Cubs game.

     At home we are Dish Network customers and they refuse to carry regional sports networks now. The Ricketts family, owners of the Cubs, decided to create their own Cubs network, called the Marquee Sports Network. It isn’t available on the Dish.

     At work we have Mediacom, although as of Monday, the feed still hasn’t come back on. Mediacom does carry the Marquee channel but I doubt I’ll spend a whole game at work watching it.

     Back in the day we grew up with WGN and it seemed like they carried every game. And on occasion, the Cubs would be on the game of the week on a Saturday, I think we watched that on ABC, listening to Joe Garagiola and Curt Gowdy.

     I’m considering writing a letter to the Ricketts family voicing my concerns and let them know how they ended a 50-plus-year watching streak of my beloved Chicago Cubs. Think they’ll care? I doubt it.

     Last week’s news. This past week I had written about the looming decision on Big Ten football and not surprisingly, I was correct. All signs, at the time, pointed in that general direction.

     Now I’m mad, disappointed and left to wonder if the Big Ten made the right decision. The Pac-12 followed suit but the ACC, Big 12 and SEC have indicated they are going to wait awhile, give it a go and see how their decision plays out.

     I really wish the Big Ten would have delayed their decision, followed through with a couple weeks of practice and testing before pulling the plug. I am hearing some Big Ten teams are still considering a way to play, with Iowa amongst those teams. Both parents and players seemed to be organizing a way to make this happen. I think it’s an uphill battle.

     This weeks COVID-19 cancellations. Like millions of people in the world, I’ve had a few things I was looking forward to get cancelled, one of those being the Great Jones County Fair. But this week my most anticipated summer event I had tickets to would have happened Tuesday night of this week: the Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett tour.

     In all fairness, there are so many other parts to the virus that missing out on a show hardly compares to the devastation going on in the world right now.

 

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