Archive for the ‘Announcements’ Category

As announced on Monday’s episode, Cubscast is proud to announce the winners of our inaugural Best Cubs Website Awards, or as we affectionately are calling them, “The Strodes.” It was a tight race in several of the categories, and after several rounds of debating amongst the Cubscast hosts, a consensus was reached that we could live with.

If you’re just finding out about these awards for the first time, see our original post to find out how the nominations were accepted and the reasoning behind us doing this. In short, we simply wanted to spotlight some of the best Cubs websites on the internet for the benefit of our listeners and the community in general.

Here are your 2007 Strode Award Winners:

Best Cubs Blog – Individual Author – Bleed Cubbie Blue

Best Cubs Blog – Multiple Author – In a League of Her Own

Best Cubs Site – Overall – Non-Blog – The Heckler

Best Cubs Rumor Site – MLBTradeRumors

Best Cubs Player Site – Jeff Samardzija

Best Cubs Humor Site – Desipio

Best Cubs Merchandise/Memorabilia/Clothing Site – Just One Bad Century

Excellence in Diction – Best Original Cubs-Related Word or Phrase – Cubbery / Chad on TCR

Lifetime Achievement Award – Carrie Muskat of Cubs.com

We want to again thank everyone who nominated a site, and of course to all the people that produce the excellent Cubs websites that were nominated. Next year we’ll be adding a few new categories based on feedback we’ve received. If your site wasn’t nominated and should have been, or if your site didn’t win and should have won, there’s always next year, friend.

Stay tuned for a new episode of Cubscast tomorrow on Valentine’s Day as we’ll feature an interview with Tim Sheridan, the longtime PA announcer at HoHoKam Park in Mesa, Arizona. Tim was gracious enough to share some of the favorite places around HoHoKam and neighboring Fitch Park to see Cubs players up and personal, as well as take in a pressure-free Spring game. He also shared a bit about his time in the booth with Harry Caray.

Cubscast will devote most of Thursday’s episode to discussing Spring Training in Mesa…what to do on game day, places to see and a few to avoid, and much more. If you have any questions you’d like answered ‘on the air’ feel free to let us know in the comments below or by e-mailing us at hosts@cubscast.com.

If this isn’t your first time visiting Cubscast, you’ll notice that our website looks a lot different today than it has for the past several years. We’ve been redesigning the site for some time and are happy to roll out the new version this week — please bear with us as a few kinks are being worked out. Our forum is also being re-done.

In the meantime, check out a few of the new features:

* Latest Episodes — check out the 3 most recent episodes of our show on the right side of the page.

* Get notified of new Cubscast episodes via e-mail

* Become a fan of our brand new Facebook page

* Flickr photos — tag a new photo you upload on flickr “chicagocubs” or “cubscast” and you might see it on our site

There are many additional features on the new site. Feel free to make yourself at home and check them out.

UPDATE 2/18: Nominations are now closed. We’ll announce the winners on Monday Feb 25th’s episode!

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 2007. The aptly named “Best Cubs Website Awards” (or “The Strodes” for short) will be broadcast in a special episode on Monday February 25.

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

Best Cubs Blog – Multiple Author

Best Cubs Site – Overall – Non-Blog

Best Cubs Rumor Site

Best Cubs Player Site

Best Cubs Humor Site

Best Cubs Merchandise/Memorabilia/Clothing Site

Excellence in Diction – Best Original Cubs-Related Word or Phrase

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, non-Cubs related, 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 Monday February 18.

Award winners will be decided upon by the three Cubscast hosts and winners will be announced on Monday February 25, 2008. Good luck!

As we mentioned on today’s show, Cubscast will not have a booth in the exhibit hall at this year’s Cubs Convention in Chicago, but Sheps and I will be attending and covering the convention, attempting to interview a few players, etc. on Friday and Saturday.

We also are looking forward to meeting up with any listeners that would like to join us on Saturday at 3:00 p.m. in the lobby restaurant/bar area near the corner of Michigan Ave and Balbo. Sheps will be autographing photos of his kidney stone, and we’ll be doing a few other fun things.

Here are a few sessions of note for this weekend’s Cubs Convention:

Friday, January 18
5:00-5:30 pm Opening Ceremonies

Saturday, January 19
9:00-10:00 am Meet Baseball Management
11:30 am-12:30 pm Lou and his Crew
1:30-2:30 pm Storytelling with Cubs Legends

Sunday, January 20
10:30-11:30 am Down on the Farm
10:00 am-1230 pm Baseball Hall of Fame Exhibit

For more information, visit the Cubscast message board and check out StevethePirate’s amazing rundown of what to expect at the convention if you’re attending for the first time, as well as the full schedule of sessions posted by Herby.

See you in Chicago this weekend!

As mentioned on today’s episode, we are inviting everyone out there to participate in a brand new Cubscast contest.

For the second year in a row Santa has asked us to help him determine which current or former Cubs players and personnel have been naughty or nice in 2007 and we need your help!

To enter, call the Cubscast voicemail box at 312-239-0179 and let us know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice. Don’t forget to leave your first name and the city/state you’re calling from!

Contest ends Friday December 21st. Two first prize winners, chosen by the Cubscast hosts based on humor and originality, will be announced on our special upcoming holiday episode on Christmas Eve. Santa guarantees these prizes are cool…but hey, it’s hard to trust a guy that claims he sees elves everywhere.

Thanks for participating and good luck!

p.s. feel free to check out last year’s holiday episode — we played several great contest entries towards the end of the episode.

In honor of the Cubs’ first trip to the postseason since we started Cubscast, we wanted to give listeners everywhere a chance to do the talking for a change, and win a prize.

All you have to do to be eligible is give us a call anytime after any Cubs playoff game on the Cubscast Listener Hotline at 312-239-0179, and then tell us the following:

1. Your first name and where you’re calling from
2. If the Cubs won the game, who was the team’s MVP for the game and why?
   or
   If the Cubs lost the game, who was the team’s “goat” for the day and why?

Placing a call to the Cubscast Listener Hotline is just like calling your grandma in Indiana, standard long distance charges may apply if you live outside of Chicago, but there are, of course, no additional fees. Oh, but unlike your grandma, please feel free to call us anytime, day or night.

We plan on giving away a prize to one random caller who leaves us a message after each round of the playoffs. To find out if you won, just listen to the cast following the end of the NLDS, NLCS and dare we say it, World Series, and we’ll announce the winner.

We look forward to hearing from you and even playing some of your messages on the air. Good luck, and Go Cubs!