Yep, ESPN also drinking the Kool-Aid on Chicago’s North Side.

Despite posting a 73-89 record in ’14 and failing to post a winning season since 2010, the Cubs will be showcased in baseball’s 2015 season opener that will air on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball.

It’ll be the first game featuring some of the new renovations at Wrigley Field, including the new jumbo video board. And there’s also the possibility Jon Lester will be on the mound for the Cubs.

Here are the details via ESPN:

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ESPN will open its 26th Major League Baseball regular-season with an exclusive, national presentation of 2015 Opening Night – the St. Louis Cardinals at the Chicago Cubs from historic Wrigley Field – on Sunday, April 5, at 8 p.m. ET. MLB Opening Night will air on ESPN2.

The voice of Sunday Night Baseball, Dan Shulman is scheduled to provide commentary for MLB Opening Night, with analysts Curt Schilling and John Kruk and reporter Buster Olney. Additionally, Baseball Tonight will take its show on the road for an on-site pregame telecast at 7 p.m., leading into the game.

MLB Opening Night – what to watch

– Joe Maddon – the two-time American League Manager of the Year will lead the Chicago Cubs as they look to open strong against perennial World Series contenders, the St. Louis Cardinals.

–  Star power – All-Star first baseman Anthony Rizzo leads a young array of Cubs stars against Matt Carpenter, Matt Holliday, Yadier Molina and the Cardinals.

–  Classic rivalry – Cardinals versus Cubs, one of Major League Baseball’s classic and most passionate rivalries will reignite to open the 2015 regular-season.

My Chicago Tribune colleague, Robert Channick, has a story this morning on how it appears that the Cubs are headed for a new TV deal with WGN.

You also can access the story via my Twitter feed at @Sherman_Report.

This hardly comes as a surprise. At the end of the day, the Cubs’ options with the WGN portion of their TV package are limited because of their other deal with Comcast Sports Net Chicago.

From Channick’s story.

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While the team’s long-term play is to create a regional sports network, sources say the Cubs are working on a return to WGN-Ch. 9 next season, perhaps with a reduced broadcast schedule and the potential for revenue sharing. Such a deal could require moving more games to Comcast SportsNet, the team’s cable partner.

In September, the Cubs said an announcement about the team’s broadcast plans for next season was imminent. Cubs spokesman Julian Green declined to comment Thursday. A spokesman for Tribune Media, which owns WGN-Ch. 9, also declined to comment Thursday.

But sources say the Cubs and Tribune Media appear ready to play ball after a trial separation failed to produce viable short-term alternatives, though they caution the long-awaited announcement may still take some time.

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A number of plans are being discussed, including the possibility of moving some portion of the TV schedule over to CSN, in which the Cubs have an equity stake. Such a move would require approval from the other teams partnered in the regional sports network, including White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, but discussions are taking place, according to sources.

A Comcast spokesman declined to comment Thursday.

For TV games on WGN, a revenue-sharing deal may be in the works, according to sources, giving the team revenue upside while limiting Tribune Media’s risk. Any deal would extend only so far as 2019. Such a deal also would likely include an out clause should the Cubs be able to strike a long-term deal sooner.

A personal story and why I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for Larry Csonka.

My parents joined me in New Orleans for Super Bowl XX between Chicago and New England. The day before the Bears’ big win, we were walking in a mall when my father, Jerry, spotted Csonka.

“I’m going to go up and say hello,” he said. “He looks like he wants to talk.”

“No,” I said. “These guys don’t want to be bothered.”

My dad pressed me, but I said we should respect his privacy. “OK,” he said.

A few minutes later, Csonka walked past us, and my dad simply said, “Hello, Larry.”

Well, Csonka stopped on a dime and spent the next 15 minutes talking to us. Needless to say, it made my dad’s day, especially when he got in the last word.

“I told you he wanted to talk,” My dad said.

So that’s one of the reasons why I will be looking forward to the latest edition of “A Football Life.”

From NFL Network:

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Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick and Mercury Morris are still remembered for achieving something that no other NFL team ever has: Perfection. These three running backs were a part of what is still seen in history as the best football team of all time: the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

NFL Network’s series A Football Life continues Friday, November 14 at 9:00 PM ET with a profile of the 1972 Miami Dolphins backfield. In the one-hour, NFL Films-produced documentary, Kiick and Morris travel to Alaska where they are reunited with Csonka. The three teammates reminisce about their past while fishing the scenic Unalakleet river, highlighting the incredible bond that was forged between them that is still strong to this day. In addition to individual interviews with Csonka, Kiick and Morris, The Perfect Backfield: A Football Life includes game highlights and interviews with head coach Don Shula from the 1972 season.

Among the topics discussed in the show are:

Csonka, Kiick and Morris’ upbringings and how each began playing football

The strong friendships between the Dolphins teammates

The change in dynamic when Morris joined the Dolphins

Csonka’s relationship with head coach Don Shula

The journey from almost winning a championship in 1971 to completing a perfect season in 1972

The defeat of the near-perfect 1985 Chicago Bears

The eventual retirement of all three running backs and their legacy

Emmy-nominated actor Josh Charles narrates.

Provided below are some select quotes from The Perfect Backfield: A Football Life:

– “I started out in a kid’s backyard playing touch football and I never abandoned the principle when I got to the pros: if they can’t touch you, they can’t tackle you.” – Mercury Morris

– “We just had a personality that sort of meshed. We played football because we had fun playing it.” – Jim Kiick on his friendship with Larry Csonka

– “He would tolerate a little more from the humor side from me because he knew I would be serious in my preparation.” – Larry Csonka on relationship with Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula

– “As much as it hurt me to not play as much as I had been, I knew we were probably better off as a team. So whatever I could do to contribute to us winning football games that was fine.” – Jim Kiick on adjusting to a 3-back offense

– “Everybody talks about ‘Did you guys set out to be perfect?’ Yeah, we set out to be perfect. Did we believe we were going to be perfect? No. What we wanted to do was have a championship season where we won it all.” – Larry Csonka on their expectations for the 1972 season

– “We did one thing: we hit perfection. When you become a definition, not just a number, then you are in a special place.” – Larry Csonka on the 1972 Dolphins’ legacy

– “I had had enough and I quit, and there is a distinction…You retire when the game has had enough of you. You quit when you have had enough of the game.” – Mercury Morris on how his career ended

– “To this day, I see it differently than I saw it back then. Back then I saw it as what I did and now I see it as what we did, as what Jim and Larry and I did. We have this relationship and this bond over this one specific thing that we did in professional sport like nobody else ever did.” –Mercury Morris on his bond with teammates Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick

ESPN will air its 398th NASCAR race with the  Ford Ecoboost 400 in Miami Sunday.

It won’t be accurate to say this is ESPN’s final race, because who knows what will happen down the line? But it is the last race of its current contract with NASCAR. Next year, NBC and Fox will air the circuit.

For the record, ESPN covered 262 races in the first era between 1981-2000 and the rest have been during the current eight-year contract that started in 2007. Here is a photo of ESPN’s early announce crew that featured Bob Jenkins (left) and Larry Nuber.

Needless to say, ESPN and NASCAR have worked well for both sides. Allen Bestwick summed up the relationship:

Bestwick: If you look back on the history of both ESPN and NASCAR separately, you come back to ESPN and NASCAR together inevitably.  NASCAR was this budding sport that had all this product, this great racing and these great characters, and it needed exposure, and this thing called cable TV came along, and this group that had an idea for a 24‑hour all‑sports television network, and they needed sports, and they got together.

For a kid like me that grew up in the Northeast as a fan of local modified racing, all of a sudden I was able to see Rockingham and Martinsville and North Wilkesboro and Bristol and all these great places, and they made me want to go to those racetracks, those early telecasts, and at the same time, it drew me to this thing called ESPN, to watch, and it became a part of my daily lifestyle habit.

I don’t think that NASCAR would be the sport and the entity it is today, and ESPN would not be the worldwide leader in sports today if they didn’t have each other.  You can’t separate the history of ESPN from NASCAR and the history of NASCAR from ESPN.  They’re just interlocked together in what’s made them what they are today.

Andrea Kremer has an interview with Jim Kelly on NFL Network’s “Total Access Kickoff” tonight at 6 p.m. ET.

The Hall of Fame quarterback and his family talk openly about his battle with cancer. You could feel Kelly’s pain.

Excerpts from the interview.

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On how he deals with not being able to know what his future holds:

Jim Kelly: “I just smile.”

On his health:

Jim: “I went through neck surgery, double-hernia surgery, back surgery. Very shortly after that I had six root canals done because of the jaw issue and then the second diagnosis with cancer. Now MRSA. I’m done with all of this pain. I want to be able to wake up one day and say, ‘You know what, I feel good today.”

Jill Kelly: “I think the pain is I guess the hardest thing because there hasn’t been a resolution. There hasn’t been this quick fix. I’ve never ever seen Jim in this much pain. Ever.”

On being the primary caretaker for Jim:

Jill: “As of lately. He takes IV medication three times a day and so I actually do that. He has a G tube obviously that goes right into his stomach and you hook up a feeding bag.”

On her father:

Erin Kelly: “After we know that he’s cancer-free and he’s still in this much pain, to hear him just say ‘I’m hurting, I’m really hurting and I need you to pray for me.’”

On her husband:

Jill: “You see this man just knowing that he has to persevere, knowing that he has two daughters who absolutely adore him and look up to him and want to see him be strong.”

On how her relationship with her father has changed with his cancer diagnosis:

Erin: “Now I find myself just snuggling with him and being with him. He’s lost so much weight that me holding him, I kind of have to hold him up because he is so weak still.”

On what he learned about himself through all of this:

Jim: “I’m not as tough as I thought I was [laughing]. People don’t understand when they talk about Kelly Tough, yeah the physical toughness I was brought up [with], I was born with that. But for me, the mental toughness was one that I needed.”

On what her husband is going through:

Jill: “You’re bombarded in your mind about death and to overcome that with life is a process. I’ve watched him walk through that. I’ve seen him at his darkest during this.”

On what the darkest moment was:

Jill: “Sharing that is really hard. It was in New York City. It was definitely in New York City when he was ready. He was like, ‘I can’t do this and I think this is it but you’re strong Jill.’ And he just kept talking. I remember my hands coming up and being like, ‘No, you don’t know that, this cannot happen.’ This man who has always fought, who has always said never give up – he cannot give up. We can do this at home. We have to come home. I think that was the turning point. Absolutely. There is no doubt in my mind that coming back to Buffalo was the turning point for Jim…We went literally from one hospital to a hospital over here; one hospital in New York to a hospital in Buffalo. He came to life.”

On the people of Buffalo:

Jim: “At times, there were people here that needed my support but I needed their support too. There is not a family around here any bigger than the Buffalo Bill family. Everywhere I turn, there are people praying for me, there are people that give me well wishes and to be honest with you, I don’t know if I would have been able to make it anywhere else.”

On his outlook:

Jim: “I live every day. I know it’s a cliché [to live] every day to its fullest but I do. I’m not going to change. Even though I have cancer, even though I’ve been through some tough times, it doesn’t matter because I’m going to live life to its fullest today because tomorrow I have no idea what is going to happen.”

John Daly only made the cut in 5 of 15 tournaments last year, earning a mere $76,000. Yet the big guy still is more recognizable than the majority of players making the big money on the PGA Tour.

Daly, now 48, likely could use a little extra cash. Hence, his new gig.

From SiriusXM

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SiriusXM announced today that two-time major championship winner John Daly has signed on to host a new show on SiriusXM PGA TOUR Radio (XM channel 93, Sirius channel 208).

Hit It Hard with John Daly will debut this December and run as a six-part series on the channel.  Daly will take calls from listeners around the country, talk about his experiences in and out of the sport, offer his thoughts on today’s game and players, share his love of music, and more.

“One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about my career is the fans and their support.  I still feed off of their energy and encouragement in every tournament I play in,” said Daly.  “SiriusXM is a great new way for me to interact with those fans and talk about not only golf, but music and life in general, and I’m looking forward to sharing my experiences both on the golf course and beyond it.”

“John has had a significant impact on the world of golf, where his play and personality have appealed to established fans and drawn new ones to the sport,” said Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM’s President and Chief Content Officer.  “He’s lived and continues to live a very unique life on and off the course and his perspective is a terrific addition to SiriusXM PGA TOUR Radio.”

Daly joined the PGA TOUR in 1991 and became an immediate star by winning his first major – the PGA Championship – in his rookie season. Remarkably, he was the ninth alternate invited to play in the tournament after Nick Price dropped out of the field.  Despite arriving late in the week and not having time to play a practice round, the 25-year-old Daly shot scores of 69-67-69-71 to win by three strokes.  His powerful swing and individuality have made him a huge fan favorite and his popularity stretches beyond golf to reach fans that had never before followed the sport.  Daly went on to win four more times on the PGA TOUR, including his second major victory at the British Open in 1995.  He continues to compete today in PGA TOUR events and internationally, and he remains instantly recognizable for his long drives and colorful outfits.

Away from his golf bag, Daly has ventured into the worlds of music and golf course design.  As a singer/songwriter he has recorded two country music albums and released a new single in 2014 entitled “Hit It Hard.”  His company, JD Designs, has designed golf courses across the U.S., in Canada and Ireland.  Daly is also involved with several charities.

It certainly seems to be reasonable speculation after NBC announced Doug Flutie and Mike Mayock will be trading places for Saturday’s Notre Dame-Northwestern game.

Flutie will work in the booth as a game analyst with Dan Hicks. Mayock, meanwhile, will serve as a sideline analyst.

From the NBC release:

As readers of this blog know, I have been on a campaign for baseball to do something about the maddening slow pace of its games.

However, Stopwatch Patrol isn’t just limited to baseball. Golf also is squarely on my radar.

Slow play is a major epidemic in golf, making tournaments unbearable to watch on TV. The latest incident occurred in last week’s tournament in China. Saturday’s round took a mind-boggling 5 1/2 hours to complete.

Daniel Hicks of AFP reports (via Geoff Shackelford.com):

McDowell has led for all three days of the $8.5 million Shanghai event known as “Asia’s Major”, but he and playing partner Ian Poulter were angered by having to spend more than five and a half hours on the course in cold and damp conditions.

“Ridiculous,” McDowell told AFP after finishing in near-darkness, having teed off at 10.50am (0250 GMT). Play ended in the gloom at 4.30pm, just a few minutes before sunset.

“We got to the fourth tee, the par three, and there was already a group on it,” McDowell lamented.

“We’ve got threeballs, a lot of people out there and a couple of driveable par fours and a couple of two-shot par fives. Just a slow golf course. A long day,” said McDowell, the 2010 US Open champion.

Ryder Cup star Poulter was less diplomatic in his assessment of the day after a level-par 72 left him four behind McDowell.

“There’s no excuses. We need to be pressing and making sure people are keeping up to pace,” Poulter told AFP.

“Five and a half hours is too long to play golf. End of story.”

Shackelford wrote:

There were complicating factors: high, wet rough, split tee threesomes and reachable fours and fives for everyone because the ball goes too far. Still, just 76 players. 76! And they aren’t looking for lost balls.

Indeed, my threesome would be kicked off the course if we took 5 1/2 hours. And none of us break 80.

For years, critics like myself have been screaming at the PGA Tour and United States Golf Association to penalize players for slow play. For some reason, it hasn’t happened.  The likely reason is that they don’t want to offend the delicate players who like to take their time.

Instead, golf fans get a 5 1/2-round in an event. Ridiculous.

Al Michaels hits the big 7-0 today.

Michaels now is a member of the 70s-club in sports TV. As I wrote earlier this year in USA Today, he has something in common with the rest of the esteemed fraternity that includes Brent Musburger, Dick Vitale, Verne Lundquist, Marv Albert and many others:

No desire to retire anytime soon.

Richard Deitsch of SI.com did a long two-part interview with Michaels this week on the eve of the publication of his autobiography. It included this passage.

Q: I imagine most NFL viewers would say you are still at the top of your craft, but nobody outlasts Father Time. How much have you thought about when you want to stop broadcasting?

Michaels: Thank God, knock on wood, I feel good. I’m healthy, everything is fine. I take Advil once every other day for golf and that’s it. That part is out of my hands and as long as that is good, I do love what I do. I still get a big thrill of being on the air, doing games, working with my crew, loving the drama, loving the feel in the stadium. It is a great job. It doesn’t require a lot of physical exertion There is a travel component I’m not happy about because I’m always on the road so that is a downer but nothing is perfect.

I have not thought about a timeline. When I cannot do a telecast the way I want to do it and the way I think I have done it, and not be at a level I must do it at, I will never risk having people say “What’s wrong with him?” or “What happened to him?” or “I don’t want to listen to him anymore.” That won’t happen because I’m going to see that before anyone else and before it happens, I’ll pull the plug. Look, I am lucky. I have the best producer who ever lived in Fred Gaudelli and the best director ever in Drew Esocoff. I have Cris Collinsworth who followed John Madden so I have had 13 years of the best analysts. I have Michelle Tafoya on the sidelines. I mean, I know everyone loves their own people but this is my crew and I love them. I love working with them. It is such a pleasure. Everyone has everybody’s back. So as we sit here in November, I feel good, I love doing it and I can still do it the way I want to do it so I’d like to put the future on hold. I know it will come but as long as I am this side of the deep divot and feel good, I’ll keep going.