It’s become harder than ever to watch Cubs baseball

It’s a warm, breezy Friday night. A frozen pizza is in the oven, and we are going to enjoy our evening. After the four-day All-Star break, I want to see how our Cubbies are going to come back for the second half. I turn on my TV, and push buttons to go to Channel 202, Marquee Sports Network. Without being an expert on sports broadcasting and business, it was created to show Cubs baseball games. The game is not on.

I bark into my remote control “Cubs game.” Xfinity isn’t showing me the channel. I now have to go to my phone, and spend more time to see where I can view it. I just want to watch a baseball game, technically monitor it, because it’s summer and we have a porch that I can see the game from.

It’s not on Marquee, Fox, ESPN, MLB TV, and I even nostalgically checked WGN. No, the game is being broadcast on Apple TV.

I realize I am no longer the boy who got off the school bus, walked home and put Jack Brickhouse on channel 9. That wasn’t stressful because it seemed like Willie Stargell was going to hit a ball over the fence onto Addison Street. I had the immense responsibility of placing some rectangular glass container, covered in shiny aluminum foil at a given time and temperature in the oven or we don’t eat at 6 PM.

I also realize that media and content, has changed. I’m 61 years old and I just want to watch a baseball game. I pay way too much for Xfinity, but I am consuming media the way I have since we first got able in the 1980’s. If I’m old enough to be your father, or grandfather, you are laughing at me while you Google ‘Willie Stargell, as well as my viewing habits. He was a power-hitting Cubs killer. You stream your TV, and I get it.

Marquee Network was supposed to be a one-stop shop for Cubs baseball

My wife and I don’t want to stream an endless variety of channels. I know that’s coming, but this weekend, I just wanted to watch a baseball game. As if Friday night weren’t bad enough, Sunday morning for the finale in Philadelphia? More of the same. Peacock, this time, instead of Apple TV – but still.

When Marquee was created there was a hullaballoo over the network. I guess I pay around $6 a month for it, which is fine. Yet, the game is not on there. What the fan?

Tom, Craig, Jed, Carter, do you want to keep me, and presumably others, as fans? I like the Cubs enough that I write for this blog as an enthusiast of the team and the game. I want simple pleasures in a complicated world like enjoying a game on a hot summer night.

A former colleague of mine once said I was a curmudgeon, and I took it as a compliment. I don’t mind change, but also as a fan of Bruce Springsteen (don’t even get me started with Ticketmaster), I am getting a little annoyed with greed, excessive greed. I enjoyed the humor of Rodney Dangerfield, and as a fan, I feel that we are getting ‘No Respect.”

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I just want to watch a baseball game.