O’Donnell: Tight-roping Cubs need to split the cheese and sweep the ivy

A VERY WISE BASEBALL MAN ONCE SAID that a hot pennant race can bring a metropolis together like the shared experience of a major snowstorm.

There aren't even flurries in the forecast for the Interstate-94 corridor this week. But the Cubs-Brewers NLDS is stirring diamond furies from the dreaded lanes to the north on down to rabid enclaves tucked all around Chicago.

Ben Johnson and the Bears even had the decency to take the weekend off.

AT POINT OF ENTRY — Saturday's Game 1 at American Family Field — a winning formula for Craig Counsell and his tight-roping Wigglies was a straightforward one:

Split the cheese and sweep the ivy.

Meaning, get out of Milwaukee no worse than 1-1 and then let the cozy percentages kick in Wednesday and Thursday at Wrigley Field to close out the best-of-five.

GAME 2 MONDAY, with Alex Faust and Ron Darling on the network TV call (8:08 p.m., TBS, truTV, HBO Max), will be further evidence about whether that hopeful Chicago blueprint can be fulfilled.

(Darling, for man-cave dwellers and bar-toppers in need of between-pitches chitchat, belongs to an MLB subset of one — a Hawaiian-born Yale alumnus who flourished in “The Show.”)

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL CAUGHT a break with four of the nation's five largest TV markets still alive in its 2025 Round of Eight. That scroll includes the Yankees (and No. 1 New York), the Dodgers (No. 2 Los Angeles), the Cubs (No. 3 Chicago) and the Phillies (No. 5 Philadelphia).

No. 4 Dallas-Fort Worth is the lone-star non-starter, and even Bruce Bochy, Dak Prescott and Cooper Flagg can't change that.

BESIDES ITS GEOGRAPHIC FUROR, the Cubs-Brewers also presents as a classic big city-small market match. That normally would shade non-partisan watchers toward Pat Murphy and Milwaukee. But there are few sports franchises on the planet with the global fan base of the Wrigley-ites.

Bottom line, it's a postseason pairing that many contemporary baseball purists — a dying breed, for sure — have been hoping for.

Now, they have it.

Even if it's all but certain that there will be no snow plows on I-94 this week.

* * *

AS EXPECTED, ESPN'S COVERAGE of the Cubs-Padres NLWCS graded out right around pedestrian.

The production values and direction were a mere step from A.I.

They were worthy of a Little League World Series quarterfinal from Williamsport. It's nice to have cutting-edge technology — but it's far better for viewers if the people pushing the buttons have a speck of imagination about how to integrate them.

(Backstage at The Sports Network Fresh Quality Consistently Sidesteps, those realities could draw high-fives for consistency. Maybe Stephen A. Smith will use them in his possible 2028 run for President of the United States, with Bad Bunny now a potential running mate.)

THE ANNOUNCING TRIO of Kevin Brown, Jessica Mendoza and Ben McDonald was too wordy and gushing in the Babbitt sort of way that an I.T. firm's mid-level leaders do during a team-building afternoon.

(McDonald also got his four-seamer in a nonsensical social-media ringer for an innocuous throwaway comment during Game 2. He said he wasn't going to watch the NHL's opening night Tuesday on ESPN. That's an honest statement meaning the native Louisianan will be joining roughly 98% of his fellow Americans also bypassing the icy October fare.)

THE LONE EXCEPTION TO THE SYNTHETIC DRIVEL was field reporter Jesse Rogers.

He sparkled during Game 1, stayed aloft in the middle leg (despite not being used enough) and then was finally eased, through no fault of his own, during the ESPN frenzy of the decisive Game 3.

The home-field expertise of the Chicago-based Rogers made the threesome upstairs look like the tedious tourists they were.

HIS DEFTNESS ALSO UNDERSCORED the fact that he's stuck as a quality baseball reporter at the near redemption-less ESPN-AM (1000). His precision and energy are being wasted at that audio doormat.

Take away Rogers and Tom Waddle and AM-1000 is chasing the daily standards of a start-up junior-college station.

As they say at thoroughbred race tracks, he's in rough. But Rogers had a fine three-game run in the most important showcase of his broadcast year.

Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.