I spent a few days in Chicago last week. Even though I'm from Missouri, it was only my second time being in Chicago. It's about a seven hour drive from where I'm from in Missouri.
My first visit was at Christmas a few years ago, when my family went to see Les Mis. The main thing I remembered from that visit was that Chicago parking is really expensive.
I was with my friend Jeff, and he pointed out that you can't go to Chicago without going to Wrigley, so we got tickets for the Cubs game on Friday afternoon, versus the Mets. I like the Cubs, and hate the Mets, so it was a good game to watch, even though both teams have struggled this season.
We took the subway to Wrigley, and meandered around outside for a while. I bought a $5 hat from a street vendor. Of course we took obligatory pictures by the iconic red sign, and by the Harry Carey statue.
We asked some parking attendants where a good place to eat was, and they sent us to Wrigleyville Dogs. The food was OK. A good adjective for the service would be "disgruntled". They did more barking than speaking. I asked for a cup of water. The cash register dude claimed that they only had bottled water, and they couldn't provide a cup of water because they didn't have a sink! Right... Jeff tried the Wrigleyville dog. He thought it was good but the actual frank was too small. I haven't eaten a hot dog in 15 years or so. I wasn't about to start wolfing down sodium nitrates at this point, so I got a Gyro plate. It was OK.
We went and got our seats about 15 minutes before game time. It was cool to see the other Wrigley icons -- the ivy, the rooftop bleachers, etc.
We had good seats, on the 1st base side about 30 rows up. Jeff went to the gift shop, and I sat down and studied the ticket "guards" who were checking the tickets of people with seats down closer to the field. The guard closest to us didn't seem to be checking tickets very frequently, so we decided to make a break for it, like in that Seinfeld routine ("There must be some mistake -- oh, I see, our seats are BAD, these seats are GOOD, that's the mistake.") .
We strolled right by the guard and sat in a completely empty row about 15 rows up from 1st base. The row slowly filled up over the next half hour, but we didn't get bumped until about the 7th inning, and then we only had to move over about 6 seats. So our crazy lawless gamble paid off.
I've always assumed that Cubs fans would be easy going, accepting of their team's perpetual incompetence, but I was in for a surprise. The fans were really into the game, even though their team is out of contention. They were most energetic in yelling at their own players. They were continuously berating Milton Bradley and Alfonso Soriano for their lazy/lousy fielding. When MB finally caught a routine fly ball, they all gave him a big jeer/cheer, and he bowed to the crowd.
It was a great game to watch. There was some action early, then it was tied 1-1 for a lot of the game. Then the Mets went up 2-1, I believe in the top of the 8th. In the bottom of the 8th, Soriano got up to bat. The fans were riding him big time for his poor fielding. I read later that he's playing injured, but I think the reason they were so mad at him had more to do with his contract and the whole season, rather than this one game. But he got up with 2 men on, and atoned for his poor fielding by cranking a 3 run homer to put the Cubs up 5-2, and they held on for the win. Holy Cow!
Speaking of Cubs fans, I'm putting out an ABP for Tyler Mollick -- where is that guy? Doesn't appear to be on Facebook... let me know if you've got the scoop.
