Cardinals vs. Cubs. This is, WITHOUT QUESTION, one of the best rivalries in baseball today. If you take away the always contentious Yankees/Red Sox bouts throughout the years, the ‘Route 66 Rivalry’ has always been an instant classic, and a match-up that pastes the eyeballs on the TVs.

But yesterday, during one of the most AMERICAN holidays of the year…..a good majority of us couldn’t partake in this storied rivalry. We couldn’t watch two of the oldest teams in the National League face off against each other, as we downed our copious amounts of hot dogs in our American Flag attire.

Why is that, you may ask? Well…..it’s because Major League Baseball decided to put this game on APPLE TV!!

Putting an afternoon July 4 Cubs-Cards game on Apple TV is terrible for Cubs-Cardinals fans. Just dumb and tone deaf.

— jon greenberg (@jon_greenberg) July 4, 2025

Apple TV streams should be illegal. Get these games off of there. #Cubs

— Kellen “KellDawg” Sherman (@KShermanSports) July 4, 2025

Apple TV, for those of you who are unaware, is a rather bland and “just there” streaming platform that Major League Baseball partnered up with recently. The technology giant signed an $85 million per year agreement with the league back in 2022, so that they could have the rights to a select amount of games every single year.

It is another example of how these streaming services are making sports even more difficult to follow, and this classic match-up between two NL Central rivals fell right in the middle of it. The league forced this matinee game behind a paywall, and kept baseball fans from enjoying America’s Past-Time on America’s birthday.

I, personally, feel like this should be considered a war crime. I feel like the person who had this bright idea should be sentenced to life in prison without parole, and should not be allowed to watch baseball for the rest of their life. The fact that a majority of the country was basically barred from taking in this spectacle is inexcusable, ESPECIALLY after seeing that the Cubs launched EIGHT HOME RUNS at the ‘Friendly Confines.’

All EIGHT of the Cubs home runs today pic.twitter.com/sBhxeFGy9W

— The Wrigley Wire (@TheWrigleyWire) July 4, 2025

This…..this just makes me SICK! The Chicago Cubs set a FRANCHISE RECORD for home runs against the St. Louis Cardinals……but non-Apple TV Subscribers couldn’t watch it. Michael Busch became the third Cub in franchise history to hit three home runs against the St. Louis Cardinals on the Fourth of July……but the greediness of the league kept most of us from seeing it.

Now, I get it; it’s not like the league could’ve predicted this. It’s not like the league had a magic crystal ball, and saw that the Cubs’ bats were going to go berserk yesterday. But the fact of the matter is…..it’s their fault that we, the fans, missed out on this spectacle altogether. If they really want to grow the game, and get more eyeballs on the product, then they need to STOP with this “exclusive streaming rights” garbage.

Take baseball off of Apple TV. Take football off of Peacock. Read the room, and don’t let great moments like this go to waste again. But as always, what do I know? I’m just a guy from the Midwest, with a beer and a laptop, trying to make sense of this world.