Category: Baseball

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Len & Bob’s Weekly Podcast

I am a Cubs fan. Pure, plain, and simple. Ever since I was wee, I’ve been a fan of the biggest losers in baseball. Say what you will, but I am what I am. There is very little you can do to change that.

What has me more excited is Len & Bob’s Weekly Podcast.

Every week, WGN Sports broadcasters Len Kasper and Bob Brenly will discuss the latest happenings about the Chicago Cubs.

Freaking sweet! We get WGN on digital cable here in Vancouver, but no Comcast SportsNet unless we upgrade to a dish. I always thought that WGN should have more games than Comcast, but that reigns more true now than before.

I did get a subscription to MLB.com’s gameday audio last season, the main reason being that my office at the radio station was horrible for getting any reception. Yes, I listened to another radio station to catch Cubs games, but you do what you have to do. Plus for the price, it’s pretty hard to beat.

MLB.com is a pretty great service, and there is large part of me that is really missing the sound of Ron Santo and Pat Hughes doing the games on radio. It’s always better to watch the games on TV and listen to Ron rip on the Cubs when the games get pretty awful.

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Priceless

Barry Bonds get a syringe thrown at him during opening dayI couldn’t help myself. This is just too precious of a picture to let slip by. Opening day of the 2006 baseball season, Barry Bonds has his “adoring fans” show him how much he’s appreciated.

Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but look at the guy over the years. He got huge really fast. Something happened at some point to have that happen.

He’s got a long road ahead of him to show us he’s innocent.

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Today It Is Summer

Reuters Photo: President Bush with the Chicago Cubs on opening day of the seasonFor some reason, even I had a little bit of opening day jitters going on. I was nervous for the sake of being excited. It’s here. Baseball is on. To me, this means that summer has officially begun.

Actually, the opening day really kicked off last yesterday. The White Sox, fitting enough, had those duties at home. They’ve bulked up their team during the off season, so we’ll see if they can hold their title. I still don’t like watching their games on TV if it’s Hawk making the calls. It’s just painful to me.

The Cubs start out in Cincinatti today, home opening at Wrigley coming up this Friday against the Cards. I’ll be heading into the interior with my wife. Will have to catch up with the scores later, or you can always check out the Cubscast. It’s not timely, but they’ll let you know who is doing what and where.

It might seem strange for me to be a hockey fan and a baseball fan. They are completely different sports, and you will never hear me trying to compare the two. Baseball is meant to be enjoyed slowly. These are the lazy days of summer. Lazy being the key word.

Edit:  Cubs win!  16-7!  Good game to start the season, but it was a strange one.

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Congratulations, Japan

I don’t think anyone could have imagined that the World Baseball Classic would have been as successful as it was.  There was that small part of me that wanted Cuba to win it all, but I found myself cheering for Japan a lot more.

If it weren’t for the Yokohama Bay Stars game that I went to while in Japan, I probably would have never rediscovered a passion for baseball.  And the classic was some really good stuff.  Now I’m ready for opening day.

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Fun Before the Season Starts

I haven’t caught as much of the World Baseball Classic as I’d like, but the bits I have seen were not the most entertaining, but I attribute that to the announcers for ESPN2 that were calling the game between Canada and another country I forget now.  It’s really impressive to see the amount of countries putting their best foot forward though.  I’m more of a die hard Cubs fan rather than an all out baseball fan myself, but it’s good to see the sport succeeding around the world.

I did catch some of the game between Cuba and Dominican Republic this afternoon.  What a good game.  Cuba kind of got stomped on.  They also played their hearts out all the way to the end.  That’s due to the push to keep your numbers up in the event of a tie in the final standings.  I would have loved to be apart of the constant party going on in the stands.  It was like a soccer game in terms of the atmosphere, but with baseball.

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Is It Any Surprise?

Barry Bonds is a juicer. Does this really surprise anyone? The word is coming out with very hard evidence making it very difficult for Bonds to escape this one. Just listen to the guy. He wants to break that home run record. He wants to be the guy on top. He’s greedy enough to push the idea of being too old to play baseball aside to achive that one goal. To have his name in the record books. Hardly does he ever site sticking around this long with the purpose of putting the Giants into the playoffs. For him, that’s just an added bonus.

I’ve never been a fan of Bonds. His days with the Pirates put him up against the Cubs too many times that I developed a healthy disliking of anytime he set foot near the plate. I’m not saying he wasn’t a good player. I respected Bonds during those days for what he could do on the field. I just never liked him.

So what’s next? He has money and fame. Being the way things work in America, the formula is set for a long dispute over the final outcome. History tells us that the odds are in his favor. I’m more concerned over the implications this has for baseball in the future. More so, I hope Barry goes down.

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“That Wouldn’t Be a Home Run in a Phone Booth”

I grew up watching Harry Caray. It is nearly safe to say that he was the one who made me excited about baseball while I was growing up. He slurred, didn’t always get the calls right, and had some of the strangest references about some story from out of nowhere. It was brillant. He made you want to like the Cubs. We are fans of a different breed. It’s not about next year. It’s about having a good time. And baseball, too.

The guy who lost out on the job Harry held for a number of years still holds a grudge. Milo Hamilton feels the need to tell everyone that Caray was a miserable human being, a control freak, and hard to work with. The last part I can understand because the guy was nuts. Just watching him you had to wonder how this guy could do this job every single game of the season, switching between TV and radio the whole time.

All these years and this guy is still ticked off over the fact that Harry got the job that he didn’t. Maybe the issue is deeper, but he waits eight years after Caray’s passing to whine to the world. An attack on his character? What a load of crap. It almost shames me more that Milo is originally from Iowa. Harry’s gone. Get over it and get on with you life, Mr. Hamilton.