Chicago, IL
Outside of the Game:
I was going to leave for my flight to Chicago directly from work. Although my flight wasn't until 9 PM, I would be going all public transportation to Newark Liberty Freedom Bald Eagle God Bless America Airport for the first time, so I wanted to give myself some leeway. After double-checking that everything at work was pointed in the right direction, I grabbed my bag and went to the train.
I was going to leave for my flight to Chicago directly from work. Although my flight wasn't until 9 PM, I would be going all public transportation to Newark Liberty Freedom Bald Eagle God Bless America Airport for the first time, so I wanted to give myself some leeway. After double-checking that everything at work was pointed in the right direction, I grabbed my bag and went to the train.
I took the PATH to Journal Square, and then switched over to the Newark train. Getting to Newark Penn Station, I discovered I couldn't get to the Airport station directly, but had to get a train heading that way for one stop and then transfer for the monorail. This was a relatively easy process, and it being rush hour, there were trains leaving along that line every few minutes, so I grabbed the next available iron horse and got to the airport station and switched for the monorail. We were packed like sardines, but a short ride later and I was at Terminal C a little more than an hour after I started.
An excellent first run through, but this left me a good two or so hours to kill at the airport after I got through the fancy-people security line. So I walked around until I found a sit-down restaurant that tickled my fancy and had a proper diner while doing some reading. When it was time, I headed out for my 8:20 boarding time. Thanks to a late-arriving plane, we weren't ready to board until about a quarter to nine. Although we were a little late getting going, we had enough cushion that we could make it up in the air. The flight was of little note outside of some reading and napping, and we landing just about on-time in Chicago.
After getting off the plane, it took a bit of walking around to finally find the banks of cabs that were just waiting for me. I gave the cabbie the address, and about a half hour later, he dropped me at the doorstep and left me $40 poorer.
The Accommodations:
There's kind of a long story behind this. Back in April when I was looking for a place to stay, I found that the hotel prices in Chicago were incredibly high, even for Chicago, for this weekend. (I'd later find out this was because of the big air show in town during that period.) I was using Hipmunk to try and find listings, and one of the things that came up was a place called AirBnb.
There's kind of a long story behind this. Back in April when I was looking for a place to stay, I found that the hotel prices in Chicago were incredibly high, even for Chicago, for this weekend. (I'd later find out this was because of the big air show in town during that period.) I was using Hipmunk to try and find listings, and one of the things that came up was a place called AirBnb.
After a little bit of research, I discovered this was a short-term apartment or room rental service. If you had an extra room, or were going to be out of town for an extended period of time, this site would help you find people who were looking to rent it. (It was in the news recently when a renter absolutely trashed one of the rental properties and the AirBnb company tried to downplay the situation and label it as an exaggeration. They've been doing a full-court press PR campaign to try and save face from their missteps since then.) There was a yuppie couple with a Wrigleyville apartment a few blocks from the park looking to rent a nice room for about $100/night, which was still about at least $100/night cheaper than anything else in a formal hotel, so I booked it. We exchanged some nice emails, and then I didn't think about it for six months.
The Sunday before I left, I emailed them again, looking to finalize the details. I got a puzzled email from them saying they cancelled the reservation and I had responded, so they were wondering what I was talking about. Some manic activity turned up a bunch of information quickly. Apparently, they had indeed cancelled the reservation a month ago while I was in Japan, and I had not gotten any message from AirBnb, probably because it was flagged as spam when I was in Japan and not checking my spam folder too closely. When you get cancelled on by a host, AirBnb “helpfully” posts a message as you in their system saying when the cancellation happened, so my original hosts thought I had received the news about the cancellation and was being a jerk about it. If I didn't email them that weekend, I would have shown up on their doorstep without a place to stay on Thursday.
Now, anyone can screw up, and it all about how you rectify the errors that generally make all the difference. The customer service people at AirBnb were actually helpful. They immediately gave me $50 off everything, and then put out a "last-minute help" message. Within 24 hours, I had several offers from several different locations around the city, and the customer service rep assigned to my case called me every day to see how I was doing. After a day or so of back and forth, I settled on a place a few blocks from Wrigley Field and made the (cheaper) reservation with my customer service rep. So everything worked out, although there are still some kinks to work out of the system (such as having “you” auto-post messages right after cancellations, which is just asking for trouble).
At any rate, the room in the apartment I was renting was in the “back half” of the building, which is apparently a common thing in Chicago. The host had sent me some detailed directions on how to get in, so I had a pretty good idea of what I needed to do. I just had to go to the back of the building and climb up all the decks to get to the top floor. I wasn’t quite expecting how long the building was, as getting to the back took me down a set of stairs and through an extended dungeon-like passage. Eventually I emerged at the other end, wondering if there was even a fire code in Chicago at all, and climbed up to the top of the back. As promised, a key was waiting for me, hidden on the deck, and I let myself in to an empty condo.
The condo itself was very nice and modern, with the aforementioned deck, and a biggish living room/kitchen area, bathrooms, and the bedrooms. I wanted nothing more than to just get to bed, so I went down to the hall the host had identified as mine, and dumped off my bags.
Soon after, I got a call from the host saying he was still out working and he was going to be back in a half an hour or so. I had every intention of staying up to meet him, but for some reason I was asleep as soon as I lay down to read for a little bit.
Wrigley Field
MLB, National League
Chicago, IL
1:20 PM
Outside the Game:
Getting back to Wrigley was the whole purpose of this trip. It was one of the first parks that I had seen on my baseball trips, and coincidentally turned out to be my favorite. (The last park I visited on these trips, Fenway, came in at number 2. It is also worth noting that they are the two oldest parks left in the league.)
Getting back to Wrigley was the whole purpose of this trip. It was one of the first parks that I had seen on my baseball trips, and coincidentally turned out to be my favorite. (The last park I visited on these trips, Fenway, came in at number 2. It is also worth noting that they are the two oldest parks left in the league.)
My host mentioned that the White Sox were also in town, playing a seven o’clock game, and he encouraged me to try for the double-header. Frankly, this was not something for which I needed much arm-twisting. And so the plan was hatched. It was a simple Red Line ride from one stadium to the other, and unless the Cubs game went extremely over, it was a can of corn.
After I left the apartment, I went directly to the ballpark, and did my walk-around and picture-taking. Not yet having breakfast, I went across the street to the McDonalds. Now, I normally wouldn’t do such a thing, except for two reasons. One was that it was a baseball-themed McDonalds built especially for its proximity to Wrigley. The second was that it was absolutely packed with Cubs personnel. Now, if the workers from across the way are here, when presumably there are a bunch of other places to get food, it has to be worth going to, or the other options around aren’t as good (or, in retrospect, if they likely got an employee discount). At any rate, I went to McDonalds for breakfast and didn’t die.
Outside the stadium, they were having a Wrigleyville Block Party right next to the main gate and ticket window. It opened up a half hour before the gates for the game did, and it had a beer garden, so there was a huge press of mostly Cardinals fans to get some beer before they could go inside and get more beer. It was an interesting little fair, with beer and food and a stage with live bands (the first of which was the rather amusingly named “Rendition”). I went to an activity table to make a Christmas card for service personnel and got a very useful little carry-bag I made use of for the rest of the weekend. About twenty minutes later, I got on line and went into the stadium.
After the game, I was looking to make it South Side for the Sox game, and me the mindless scrum to get into the Addison El Station. About twenty sweaty, oxygen-deprived minutes later, I made it through the gates and to a south-bound train.
The Stadium & Fans:
Even with the non-optimum seats I had my first time through, Wrigely was hands-down my favorite park in the majors, beating out Fenway on a few critical areas. They had made several adjustments since the last time I was there, including an unwanted “Captain Morgan” area out in front by the fan walk and a revamped team store right by the main entrance. Nevertheless, the stadium was still in its endless seats, winding ramps, seats-on-houses-across-the-street, and bathroom trough glory.
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| Home plate to center field, Wrigley Field |
Even with the non-optimum seats I had my first time through, Wrigely was hands-down my favorite park in the majors, beating out Fenway on a few critical areas. They had made several adjustments since the last time I was there, including an unwanted “Captain Morgan” area out in front by the fan walk and a revamped team store right by the main entrance. Nevertheless, the stadium was still in its endless seats, winding ramps, seats-on-houses-across-the-street, and bathroom trough glory.
It is hard to encapsulate the absolute rightness that Wrigley gives off, as it is mostly a non-tangible thing. But it was very much real, and one of the only two remaining active parks in America where Babe Ruth ever played. (There’s two more in Japan, for the trivia-minded.)
The slightly claustrophobic interior, the lack of fancy concessions, and the warts-and-all atmosphere are exactly what I look for in a baseball experience. There are no loud and distracting jumbotron distractions between innings, and the only event they have is one worth having: the seventh-inning stretch. With Harray Caray just being able to look down from heaven with beer-blearied eyes, they have celebrities sing it every game. Sitting where I was, I was only a stone’s throw from Larry King belting out “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” When they added a “specialty area” to the park (the “PNC Club”), they just gutted an existing luxury box to make it and didn’t tack on something else to the already crowded stadium.
The fans were same fatalistic but hopeful Cub fans I had known from the last time. When the Cubs went down early, the outcome was not unexpected, but they kept up hope nevertheless, even when a seemingly impossible miscue seemed to kill their last chances at a comeback. And that’s the kind of fans that are worth having.
There was unsurprisingly a large Cardinals contingent for the game, and also unsurprisingly, the Card fans seemed to stay together in large flocks – just in case, one supposes. But all the back-and-forth seemed to be in good spirits for most of the game.
At the Game with Oogie:
I had nearly forgotten about the “early bird special” at Wrigley, which is that up to an hour before game time, there is a big discount on concession items,. I was reminded of that fact when I bought my first brat. This led to a second brat, and then an indeterminate amount of brats afterwords until the special was over. I felt no particular need for food for the rest of the afternoon, for some reason.
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| Pre-game brat |
I had nearly forgotten about the “early bird special” at Wrigley, which is that up to an hour before game time, there is a big discount on concession items,. I was reminded of that fact when I bought my first brat. This led to a second brat, and then an indeterminate amount of brats afterwords until the special was over. I felt no particular need for food for the rest of the afternoon, for some reason.
As I was wandering around and taking my pictures, I bought a block of tickets for the 50/50 raffle (in keeping with my “always participate in charity events at the ballpark”) and headed out to do my pictures. It was then I first encountered the air show. My host had mentioned it, and there is a big air and water show on the lake every year that is a huge deal in these parts. It wasn’t scheduled until the Saturday, but they were doing the “dress rehearsal” today, so we were buzzed rather continuously by planes for all of the afternoon. It was eventually enough of a distraction that the players (particularly Albert Pujols) seemed to be getting peeved about it. After I did my normal picture-taking rigmarole, I headed up to my seat.
I bought the ticket for this game on the day single-game seats went on sale sometime in March, if I remember correctly. I was very excited at the time, but I forgot about it in the intervening months, especially with Japan in the middle there.
But when I got into the park, I remembered why I was in love with this seat. I was in section 420 (duuude), which was in the upper deck right below the broadcast booth, behind home plate, in the first row. When they take the postcard shots for the stadium, they sit in my damn seat. It was so beautiful that I nearly cried. If it was legal in the great state of Illinois for a man to marry Wrigley Field seats, I would have done so at the first opportunity. It was easily the overall best seat I had ever had for a game.
Not surprisingly, I was mostly in a season ticket-holder section. There was an older couple of either side of me, and the man to my left was keeping score, aided by his wife when he had to get up for whatever reason. These were people a man could trust. Right next to me on my left was a father with his kid. We talked on and off throughout the game, and I had to keep an eye on the kid once while the Dad went to get some food. They were all baseball people and Cubs people, and it was nice to be in such company, which is one of the reasons that I loved Wrigley so much.
The Game:
The last and only other time I’d visited Wrigley, the Cubs got blown out big, and it looked to be history repeating itself on this day, with the woeful Cubs playing the Cardinals, who still had a shot in catching the seemingly unstoppable Brewers.
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| First pitch, Cardinals vs. Cubs |
The last and only other time I’d visited Wrigley, the Cubs got blown out big, and it looked to be history repeating itself on this day, with the woeful Cubs playing the Cardinals, who still had a shot in catching the seemingly unstoppable Brewers.
The Cards went in order in the top of the first, and the Cubs had a scattered single and walk erased by an inning-ending double play. The Cardinals started their damage in the second, with a one-out walk followed by a two-out home run. A double and a single to bring the runner home also came closely thereafter before Cubs could end it. They only mustered a single in their half, ending the second inning down, 3-0.
St. Louis went in order in the third, but the Cubs managed to scrape one back. A leadoff single was erased on a fielder’s choice, but another groundout to short advanced the lead runner to second, where a two-out single brought the run around. And there would have been more if not for a sterling catch by the Cardinal center fielder to leave it 3-1 Cards.
The Cardinals got the run right back with a solo home run in the fourth, with the Cubs only managing a walk erased with a double play in their half, making it 4-1 Cardinals after four. The Red Birds scattered two walks to no effect in the top of the fifth, while the Cubs got one back again with a leadoff home run in their half to close it to 4-2.
St. Louis went in order in the sixth, and the Cubs had a leadoff single erased by another double-play. The Cards again went in order in the seventh, but, perhaps inspired by Larry Kings rendition of “Take Me Out To the Ballgame, back-to-back triples (triples?) gave the Cubs another run, making it a tantalizingly close 4-3 at the end of seven. A single led off the eighth, only to be cut down stealing, and another base runner on a walk didn’t go anywhere for the Cardinals. In their half, the Cubs got a one-out walk that came all the way home on a long double to center, but the Cubs could do no more than tie it up 4-4 at the end of eight.
The Birds went in order again in the ninth, and then one of the most inexplicable plays I have ever seen or am likely to ever see happened in such a way as to personify the flailing century-long failure of the Cubs. We start with a leadoff single from a pinch hitter that just gets past the second baseman. Okay, we’re fine so far.
And then the runner tried to steal second. This is also not out of the ordinary, except that the batter lifted one to center, caught easily by the outfielder. The runner had no idea what was going on. Some wild gesticulating by the base coaches eventually got him moving… towards third. By the time he got sorted out and on his way back to first, the center fielder had doubled him up.
The crowd went into hysterics. The fact that the next batter got a single that may have scored the runner to win the game was an afterthought. Everyone was wondering who had screwed up what on the play. Either the batter missed the steal signal and managed to pop one up, or the runner was going on his own… none of it made sense. It definitely was a steal attempt and not a hit-and-run from the way that the runner was acting. It was still a hot topic of conversation as regulation play ended and the game slumped into extra innings with a tangible pall in the air.
It was a fast-paced game, and extra innings started less than three hours after the start of the game. The Cardinals went in order again, bringing the Cubs to the plate again with the score still tied. Finally, some basics went right. A leadoff single was sacrificed to second base with little incident. And then another pinch hitter came to the plate to avenge his teammate, lining a clean single to center to bring home the winning run and send the fans and players into a joyous celebration, the likes of which they might have if they ever get back to the World Series.
The Scorecard:
Although the Cubs do sell their own scorecard, I’ve used it before, so decided to pinch-hit the Eephus League scorecard. I usually either draw a line for where the hit goes (which fails when there is an infield hit) or draw a bubble for where the hit went (which can also fail for the same reason). It can be cramped, but I tried to write in the numerical designation for the field of the hit with the hit information (e.g. “1B 8”). It was a bit of a tight fit, but I think I like how it worked out.
Cardinals vs. Cubs, 08/19/11. Cubs win, 1-0 in 10.
Although the Cubs do sell their own scorecard, I’ve used it before, so decided to pinch-hit the Eephus League scorecard. I usually either draw a line for where the hit goes (which fails when there is an infield hit) or draw a bubble for where the hit went (which can also fail for the same reason). It can be cramped, but I tried to write in the numerical designation for the field of the hit with the hit information (e.g. “1B 8”). It was a bit of a tight fit, but I think I like how it worked out.
Easily the most bizarre thing I’ve ever had to write in the scorebook was “DP F8-3” on the play described further up. I mean, everyone was stunned on that play, including the baserunner.
The Accommodations:
When I woke up on this morning, I finally got to meet my AirBnb host, who was sleeping on the couch. Recently out of college, he was renting his room in the condo as a source of income to pay his rent while he was working on his start-up project that took much of his time, as his long day the previous night had shown. He rents out his room a few weekends a month, sleeps on the couch, and makes rent. It is exactly the sort of plan that would have made a lot of sense to a twenty-something me at one point, except that the Internet didn’t really exist in a commeditizable form back then, and all of my apartments from that period were dumps not really near anything, or arrayed in any way that would have left me any place to sleep once I rented out my bed.
When I woke up on this morning, I finally got to meet my AirBnb host, who was sleeping on the couch. Recently out of college, he was renting his room in the condo as a source of income to pay his rent while he was working on his start-up project that took much of his time, as his long day the previous night had shown. He rents out his room a few weekends a month, sleeps on the couch, and makes rent. It is exactly the sort of plan that would have made a lot of sense to a twenty-something me at one point, except that the Internet didn’t really exist in a commeditizable form back then, and all of my apartments from that period were dumps not really near anything, or arrayed in any way that would have left me any place to sleep once I rented out my bed.
Needless to say, it seemed to work out for him, and I wish him all the best.
But I didn’t get back to the apartment until late that night, because I was about to see two games…
2011 Chicago
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