Archive for the ‘Announcements’ Category

UPDATE 2/20: Nominations are now closed. Tune in to our Monday episode (and check out the website) as we’re excited to reveal this year’s winners!

As mentioned in today’s episode, awards season is upon us and we at Cubscast would like to honor those that have operated the best Cubs-related websites in 2008. The aptly named “Best Cubs Website Awards” (or “The Strodes” for short) will be broadcast in a special episode on Monday February 23.

We need to know what you consider to be the best Cubs websites — and we’re taking nominations in each of the following categories:

Best Cubs Blog – Individual Author

Cubs Personality Lifetime Achievement Award

The sort-of-fine print:

Our goal in doing this is to draw attention to the best Cubs websites currently available. Cubscast is not eligible for any awards, please do not nominate this site. All other nominations will be considered by the Cubscast hosts, unless at our discretion a nominated website is deemed inappropriate, ineligible (does not fit into the category it was nominated for), or deemed to contain or promote illegal or pornographic content. Anyone is eligible to nominate a site. All decisions regarding nominations and awards are final.

To participate, simply nominate your favorite Cubs website(s) today in the comments on this post. Comments will be closed at the end of the day on Friday February 20.

Award winners will be decided upon by the three Cubscast hosts and winners will be announced on Monday February 23, 2008. Good luck!

Just so you know, Cubscast isn’t falling off the map or going anywhere this off-season, despite what happened a couple weeks ago in the NLDS. We’re simply taking a short break for a few weeks and preparing for a brand new off-season schedule. Also, do you really want to hear what we think about Shane Victorino vs. Manny Ramirez? We didn’t think so.

Look for a brand new episode of Cubscast as well as a photo caption contest the week of November 3rd. We might have to do a photo caption contest every week of the offseason to get rid of all these Obama/Fukudome shirts.

Also, a big congrats to Sheps who is tying the knot this weekend! He seems willing to go the furthest lengths to make his fiancee prove her love for Derrek Lee is less than her love for him. Congrats to you both…may your marriage be blessed and may your gifts fit into your car.

We’ll be back soon — in the meantime feel free to check out the message board.

As announced on today’s episode of Cubscast, hosts Lou, Sheps and Sneetch are about to launch a bunch of initiatives this Fall, and they need the help of some of the best listeners in the World! Whether you’re in Chicago and can help in person during the MLB playoffs, or in Antarctica and on the Internet once a week (one listener is, we swear), we invite you to join the Cubscast Street Team today!

It’s free to join and along with the satisfaction of helping out 3 fellow Cubs fans, here are a few of the key benefits:

* Free Cubscast clothing and schwag (as supplies last)

* Cubscast postcards and other materials sent to you throughout the season

* An invitation to join hosts and others at Wrigley to hand out materials before and after select games

* Instant notification of new episodes

* Special Access to Street Team Section of the Cubscast website — and the ability to communicate in-real-time with hosts and other street teamers

At this point you are probably wondering…what the heck is Cubscast planning for September/October that they’d need a street team for? The answer is a lot of stuff, but most of it can be summed up as “current Cubscast X100.” We are committing to cover this team better than we ever have, to give away a ton of prizes with some exciting new contests, and we’re going to involve as many people as we can in the fun! Sound cool? It does to us here at Cubscast, and we definitely can’t accomplish any of these things alone.

It’s not often that a company has a chance to plan for it’s hugest weeks and month(s), but we have a chance to do exactly that!

Join the Cubscast Street Team today >>

Today we’re proud to offer listeners of Cubscast our first “premium episode,” which is available as a digital download in the Cubscast Store as well as on the right side of this post. Just so there is absolutely no confusion…Cubscast’s regular episodes each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday will always be available for free. This is an extra bonus episode, the first one we’ve ever produced of its kind, and it’s something we think listeners will thoroughly enjoy.

What makes an episode of Cubscast worth 99 cents? We aren’t entirely sure*, but we took this seriously and saw an opportunity to raise the level of production involved by including a variety of clips from the past 3 years, as well as many exclusive outtakes. To hear an audio sample, click here.

This bonus episode could be the first in a series of premium episodes — to be honest we have absolutely no idea how many listeners are going to download this episode, but either way we can’t wait to keep bringing you 3 brand new episodes every week for the rest of the season (and offseason) as the best Cubs team we’ve seen in our lifetimes continues to roll along.

In March 2005 (or even March of this year) we wouldn’t have thought trying something like this would be possible, but thanks to so many of you that have e-mailed us in the last month asking how you can support the show, we figured we’d give it a try. A major portion of any proceeds from this and any future bonus episodes will help us cover our production costs.

Thanks very much for your continued support of Cubscast, and Go Cubs!

– Lou, Sheps, and Sneetch

*For the record, Sheps thinks his Vin Scully impersonation at the end of the episode is definitely worth 99 cents

Last Wednesday we started a brand new weekly segment on Cubscast called “Down on the Farm” which includes reports from the Cubs A, AA, and AAA minor league affiliates. It’s a way for those of us following the major league club to hear a quick update on the latest news and notes from the minors. Many thanks to Deene and Randy from the Iowa Cubs, Mick and Darren from the Tennessee Smokies, and Nathan Baliva from the Peoria Chiefs for helping us out.

If you haven’t had a chance to listen to last Wednesday’s episode (#405) or today’s episode (#408), feel free to check out those episodes, or you can listen to several “Down on the Farm” segment mp3 clips below.

We’ve received some good feedback so far and plan to continue this every Wednesday throughout the rest of the season. Feel free to let us know what you think!

As mentioned in today’s 400th episode of Cubscast, we can’t thank our listeners enough for supporting the show, e-mailing in, and being awesome in general these last 3-plus years since Cubscast launched. I know it’s been said before, but when we started I’m not sure we ever imagined anyone more than our mothers and a few friends tuning in. That myth was busted the minute that Joe Mantegna responded to a letter we sent him in less than a day. And things continued to take off from there…

We got a very nice e-mail from Dan, a Cubscast listener, yesterday. Here’s an excerpt:

I did hear the call for favorite Cubscast memories, I think I would probably not be alone in recounting the first time I heard “G-E-O-V-A-N-Y” uttered by Sneetch.

But I would offer simply a comment: I recently shopped around for other casts related to the Cubs to see what else was out there, and I found the itunes store littered with casts that had come and gone, and in sampling them, it’s fairly easy to see why they did not stand the test of time. None of them offer what you guys do with amazing consistency; that is, all the news and updates I need to know about, a great combination of Cubs knowledge, worthwhile opinions, advice for Cubs fans, good nature, and humor. You’ve blended it all together so well and make it seem effortless, even though I’m sure the show is a lot of work. All I can say is thanks and keep up the great work and go Cubs!

- Dan

Thanks Dan…are you on the payroll? That email simultaneously astounds and encourages us. Thank you. If anyone else has a favorite Cubscast moment or some thoughts, please send those in to hosts@cubscast.com or you can call them in to our voicemail line at 312-239-0179. We’ll be compiling those and including many of them in a special bonus 400th episode celebration show that will feature more clips from the past as well as some never before heard outtakes.

new series of special episodes

The upcoming celebration episode will be the first in a series of bonus episodes that are available for purchase for 99 cents. It’s a great way to support Cubscast. A long time ago we made a promise to our listeners that Cubscast would always be free to download, and that isn’t about to change. Cubscast will remain free 3 times a week during the regular season. We’re just looking for a way to do a little something extra for listeners and also make a few bucks to cover our costs.

After this initial 400th celebration episode we plan to put out a new episode as part of this series periodically — probably every 2-3 weeks. Stay tuned for more information on this, and thanks again for helping make any and all of this possible.

Go Cubs!

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone that we met at HoHoKam Park over the weekend! We had a blast and hope you did, too.

As mentioned on today’s episode, Cubscast hosts Sneetch, Lou and Sheps will be tailgating with their wives and a few friends in the parking lot (D) adjacent to HoHoKam Park for a few hours before Friday’s game.

We’re between the 2nd and 3rd row in parking lot D. If you’d like to catch us before the game just send us an email with your contact info and we’ll help guide you to wherever we’ve set up.

If you’re going to the game we’d love to hang out for awhile, so feel free to stop by. Sneetch, Lou, and Sheps look like this, by the way.