Braves and Cubs On TV Less and Less
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by user Niteowl049
For the last few years it seems like there are fewer and fewer Braves games on TBS and Cubs games on WGN. You can't find a Braves game on a weekday until Friday and the Cubs are showing less and less games and you hardly ever see a Cubs game at night either at home or on the road. The only thing I can figure is that pay channels are making money from telecasting the games we don't see.
Have many memories of the early days when WTCG the predecessor of TBS telecast the Braves games almost daily to the whole country. Skip Caray, Pete Van Wieren and Ernie Johnson did a great job back in the days when Braves were close to losing 100 games every year back in late 70's. They had such standouts back then like Biff Pocaroba, Rod Gilbreath, Pat Rockett, Brian Asselstine, Craig Skok, Rowland Office, Preston Hanna, an aging Jim Bouton and more respectable players like Dale Murphy, Bob Horner, Glenn Hubbard, Gary Matthews, Jeff Burroughs, Phil Niekro and Gene Garber.
Will never forget Harry Caray and whether you liked him or not you had to love his enthusiasm for the game. His calls weren't always accurate like the time he called a ball a home run and it hit at the base of the fence and he always found time to mention Aunt Clara in Dubuque having her 100th birthday fan and how she had been a Cubs fan all her life.
I remember the game that went into so many extra innings that the Dodgers had to use Fernando Valenzuela in right field when they ran out of players.
So apparently the pursuit of more money has taken a lot of free games from the fans and that trend will probably continue in coming years. All I can say is "Holy cow I wish we could bring back the good old days".
Overall, Matthews is improving as the season is going on. Wheeler is still his annoying self. And Kalas, he is sadly becoming more senile as the days go by.Matthews did the best thing possible. He stayed out of it!