Good Tunes: Wang Chung, 'Let's Go'

Iowa is MLB blackout hell.

The entire state is inside the blackout territory for six teams: Twins, Brewers, Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, and Royals. That means that despite the fact I live 250 miles from Chicago, Cubs regular season games broadcast nationally on ESPN, Fox, or MLB Network (except for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball game) are blacked out because Iowa City is in the team’s home television territory and supposedly can get the local broadcast. I get Cubs games on NBC Sports Chicago, but not games on WGN or WLS. If the Cubs game is on ESPN but not NBC Sports Chicago, it is blacked out. The same goes for those living in Davenport, Des Moines, and Sioux City.

I’ve thought about subscribing to MLB.TV, the league’s streaming service. However, that too is subject to local blackout restrictions, so I could not watch games for the six teams mentioned above.

Yeesh, MLB. Way to attract fans and make it easy for people to watch their favorite teams.

(Curious, I checked MLB’s blackout map to see if any other state or region has as many blackout restrictions as Iowa. Nope. Iowa is the only area with six teams blacked out.)

Thankfully, there is a lo-fi way around the TV blackout restrictions, at least locally for the Cubs: radio. KXIC broadcasts Cubs games, so I tune in whenever I can’t watch the Cubs on TV.

One thing I love about the Cubs radio broadcast is the songs played after commercial breaks. Only the very beginning of each song is played. Some of them I know, some of them I don’t, and others are blasts from the past that force me to rack my brain to recall the title and artist. One such song was played last week. It had been forever since I heard it, but I knew what it was. It took me a minute, but I figured it out: Wang Chung’s “Let’s Go.”

It’s a good tune I discovered during my awkward eighties phase. It makes me think of spring for some reason, perhaps because it was spring when I first heard it. Spring always makes me think of eighties music for some reason.