I am thrilled to announce my 200th Scorum Sports Cast! You can find me @thesportsguru and I will be giving you the best 5-10 minute sports rants here on Scorum every day. On today’s episode I will talk about a few of my favorite sports moments of my life.

I have been blessed throughout my life to witness some phenomenal games and sporting events. Growing up in the Chicagoland in the 80’s and 90’s allowed me to live through the Jordan years, the Cubs struggles, and the ’85 Bears.

My three sports heroes were Michael Jordan, Andre Dawson, and Walter Payton. My dad and I are huge Bulls, Cubs, and Bears fans and we have been to our fair share of games. But some of the most memorable games we went to were on Christmas Day.

My aunt and uncle lived in a high rise on Navy Pier in downtown Chicago. My uncle Ken worked at the Chicago Board of Trade as a stock broker and always had great access to tickets. So during the early to mid 90’s, he would take me, my dad, and my sister to the Chicago Bulls Christmas Day games. My mom and aunt would stay home with my young nephews. We saw some incredible games with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen leading the way. And the Bulls always won. It was pure joy for me as a teenager. I was so lucky to have been able to do that with my family.

But the best day ever as a Chicago sports fan was on Friday, July 20th 2007. The Chicago Cubs were hosting the Arizona Diamondbacks at Wrigley Field.

I was a GM at a restaurant called Old Chicago and we were famous for having 30 beers on tap and over 110 bottles. This was well before the craft beer explosion. But one of our best sellers was Old Style. Not because it tasted great or was less filling, as it wasn’t. But we sold a ton of Old Style because I had the 16oz Chicago Cubs logo’d cans. We would fly through case after case and it got to the point that we were the number one bar in the state for Old Style sales.

My Old Style sales rep, Laurie, came in one day and as a thank you from the company, they were letting me and my best friend and coworker go on the actual field at Wrigley before the Cubs game and tour the dugout etc. We got up plenty early that morning and got the day started with some bloody marys before heading to the ball park. Laurie met us there and as we were walking around the outfield, by the iconic green ivy, she told me that she had one more surprise for me. I was going to throw out the first pitch of the game, along with one other person.

I got a feeling of excitement and nervousness all at once. I had not even thrown a baseball for 10 years and didn’t want to make an a$$ of myself in front of 38,000 people….to find out what happened, give this one a listen…

I would love to tell you all about it in my new Scorum Sports Cast. To check out my 200th show just click the play button below. I look forward to hearing your input and comments. Cheers!