Cubs off day retro game thread

On the Cubs’ official 2020 schedule, today is an off day. They were originally scheduled to open a series against the Orioles in Baltimore Tuesday, and of course we’ll have that as one of our MLB The Show 20 game simulations.

The suggestion was made in one of the simulation threads that I post a game thread from a real Cubs game from history that you could all comment on as if it were live. I thought that was a great idea, and so here is the first of what I hope will be quite a few retro game threads in 2020.

The link to the game I chose is at the bottom of this post, but please read this full explanation first.

The next question: What game(s) to game thread? It would be far too easy to choose Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, another postseason Cubs game or a famous regular-season game such as (for example) the Sandberg Game or Carlos Zambrano’s no-hitter. We all remember those games and you can find them online just about anywhere and many famous games are being replayed on MLB Network and other national channels.

Instead, I have decided to choose from among some regular-season games over the last few years that were exciting or interesting or notable in some way, but that you might have forgotten about. Every game I choose will be a Cubs victory because of course they should be!

Here’s how this is going to work. In each of these posts I will post a YouTube link to the game in question. In order for everyone to be able to comment in “real time” about the game, you will have to press “play” on the YouTube page at exactly the same time. I’m posting these 30 minutes before that time, which will be exactly 2:00:00 p.m. Central time. You should be able to sync this with the clock on your phone or computer. If you wind up off by a few seconds just hit “pause” on the YT page while you catch up, or fast forward a few seconds. For this to work properly you’ll have to sit while the “commercial break in progress” screen passes by, so this can operate in more or less “real time.” You will have to let any ad that appears before the game starts roll by before you press “play.” Also, the “stay tuned, the game will begin shortly” screen lasts 50 seconds before video actually begins. Everyone should start from 0:00 to make sure you’re all synced.

Hope that makes sense. (You might have to fast-forward past the ad on the page before 2:00 to make this work.)

Now, once you see the date of the game on YouTube you can obviously look up what happens, but it’s more fun if you don’t and just let the game unfold as if it were live. Your clue to this game is in the photo at the top of this post. (NOTE! The date on the YouTube page matches the date it was uploaded, not the date of the game.)

If this works well, I will do this for every off day in 2020 on the Cubs’ original schedule. Those dates are (after today):

April 20
May 7
May 18
May 25
June 11
June 12
June 15
June 22
July 6
July 9
July 22
August 10
August 13
August 24
September 3
September 21
September 24

You’ll note that I left the All-Star break dates (July 13-16) off of that list. I’ll figure out what to do with those later. Also, if actual baseball resumes at any point this year, obviously I’ll switch back to covering that instead of simulations, etc.

I’m going to try to pick games that last three hours or less, just because that would seem to fill people’s afternoons from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. CT pretty well and work in other time zones as well.

Here is the YouTube link for today’s game. It’s also embedded below. Enjoy, and discuss amongst yourselves.