If you grew up in Chicago anytime from the early 1950s through the late 1990s, one thing you could count on was Cubs baseball televised on WGN-TV. It began with all the Cubs home games being televised, and until 1988 all of those were in the daytime, meaning thousands of school kids could watch the end of games after school let out in mid-afternoon. After 1967, more than 140 games a year were carried by WGN — and in the late 1960s this was far, far more than any other team showed on free TV — further cementing the relationship between the Cubs, their fans, and the television station.
The era of baseball on free over-the-air television is coming to an end
