Major League Baseball’s opening day is today, but the Chicago Cubs don’t have their first home game until Friday. Let’s get into that Wrigley Field bleacher bums spirit with a blast from the past, written by Nemo’s brother Ken, following a memorable Cubs adventure. Did his prediction come true? You’ll have to read to the end to find out. Now, play ball, and Go, Cubbies!
* * * * *
Ken’s Trip to Wrigley Field on October 3, 2003
First ‘¦ The Short Version
I left Ann Arbor at 3:05 (CDT) ‘¦ drove to Wrigleyville ‘¦ took a half-hour to find a parking place ‘¦ bought a ticket on the street at face value ‘¦ arrived in the third inning ‘¦ stayed and stood for the entire game ‘¦ the Cubs won 3-1 ‘¦ and it was well worth the time and effort. Now ‘¦ here is the rest of the story.
Driving (Rain) Through Michigan
I left the office on schedule at 2:30 (I’ll stick with CDT) and, as I left the parking lot, I realized I had left something rather important at home ‘¦ my suitcase! That cost me 35 minutes, which turned out to be a mixed blessing a few hours later. Traffic on I-94 was slow leaving Ann Arbor and, as always, there was a minor delay from mile 80 to mile 76 in Kalamazoo. It was raining hard the entire time, stopping only when I approached the Michigan-Indiana line.
By the time I reached the Indiana Toll Road, I had heard four or five traffic reports on WGN. Expecting the worst at the Skyway toll booth, I figured there was no chance to reach Wrigley Field until late in the game, so I started to think of sports bars or hotel lobbies where I could stop for dinner and watch the game. I literally changed my mind between seeing the game in person versus going to a sports bar seven times on the drive. Then Pat Hughes came on and said a big thundershower had just passed over Wrigley, delaying the start of the game by 30 minutes. At this point, I figured the rain was just what I needed to put me in the ballpark for most of the game.
No Parking in Wrigleyville or Andersonville
My son David had warned me in spades about parking problems in general near the ballpark ‘¦ compounded exponentially by being Friday (party night) and having the Cubs at home. I had no idea of the extent of the fallout of fans into the sports bars in the surrounding neighborhoods. Nearly 40,000 fans were in the stadium, and many more thousands were inside – or waiting to get inside – Cubby Bear, Slugger’s, Hi Tops, Yakzie’s, and others. After a good 25-30 minutes looking for a parking place, I found one in front of a grammar school on Montrose at Dover. This is one block east of Clark, eight blocks north of Addison (where the ballpark is), and most importantly, very close to David’s first apartment in Chicago. I was thankful that David had moved around the near north side so much, as I knew my way around streets that weren’t even on the map!
Got a Ticket ‘¦ Need a Ticket?
Walking south on Clark, I approached a young man (whom I’ll call ‘Snake’) about two blocks from the park. He had a ticket for sale, and I started my routine.
Me: Where is the seat?
Snake: Club Box.
Me: What are you asking?
Snake: I’ll let it go for two bills.
Me: For a game that started a half hour ago?
Snake: No, it started five or ten minutes ago.
Me: What’s face value?
Snake: Forty bucks.
Me: I’ll give you twenty.
Snake: Make it a hundred.
Me: I’ll do you a favor and give you forty. Who else are you going to sell it to, anyway?
Snake: Man, you drive a hard bargain!
So, I gave him two twenties, he gave me the ticket, and we went our separate ways.
Main Entrance (or Not) at Clark and Addison
As I approached the turnstile, the ticket taker immediately turned to the supervisor (whom I’ll call ‘Joey’) and motioned him over to talk to me. This man has a very difficult job, yet he performs it with diplomacy and class. Basically, Joey’s job consists of dealing with exceptions ‘¦ those resulting from people who want to enter Wrigley Field without tickets or proper credentials. In other words, Joey spends a few hours before and during each game telling die-hard Cub fans the one thing they don’t want to hear: ‘You can’t come in.’
As the ticket taker noticed, mine was a bogus ticket. Everything from Joey was ‘Yes Sir and No Sir,’ but the bottom line was that I did not have a valid ticket for Friday night’s game and would have to leave the premises. He also showed me a few other tickets like mine, presumably to emphasize that I was not the only one who was duped that night. I went into a major funk, feeling just awful about myself (and violating one of my top rules of ticket scalping ‘¦ not buying from the first seller). I said to Joey, ‘Let me cool down for a few minutes,’ at which point I stepped out of the way and pondered my options.
Angel of Death ‘¦ or Angel of Mercy?
Just then, a fiftyish fan (whom I’ll call ‘Mike’) appeared from the seating area, and he was visibly agitated with some kind of personal issue. After approaching a couple of uniformed attendants, he wound up talking to Joey. Actually, Mike was not talking. If impatience and tension could be measured on a scale of 1 to 100, Mike started around 95 and headed north from there. In the current vernacular, Mike was ‘in Joey’s face ‘¦ big time!’
I dutifully stayed in the shadows while Mike asked to see Joey’s boss, blamed him for most of the world’s problems, and said he just had to go to the car and retrieve his forgotten medication. Joey said he couldn’t make an exception to the no reentry policy, as he had already told ‘about fifteen hundred people tonight that they could not do’ the very thing Mike wanted to do. Mike was up to 99 on the proverbial scale when he told Joey, ‘If I don’t have my medicine, I could have a reaction ‘¦ and, if I do, it’s going to be your fault.’
Joey had looked over at me a couple of times during this encounter, and it was crystal clear that my little counterfeit ticket problem paled in comparison to the hassle he was getting from one-foot-in-the-grave Mike. Thus, I found myself faced with a real moral dilemma. I certainly wasn’t going to buy another ticket on the street, which meant that, if I left, I would walk the eight blocks back to my car and driving to who-knows-where to watch the rest of the game. Having driven more than 250 miles ‘¦ and having spent forty bucks to watch the game, I had a strong desire to proceed into the seating area without a ticket.
Well, I can’t say for sure that the third look Joey gave me was one of, ‘Hey, I have bigger problems than you, so just do what you want,’ but there definitely was not a fourth look. A few minutes later, I realized that I had raised the stakes substantially by going into the seating area. I could have been tossed, ticketed, or even handcuffed and taken to jail for doing what I did. Nonetheless, I went in and watched the rest of the game.
Bird’s Eye View, but No Perch!
I’ve been to Wrigley Field more than 200 times, and I have never seen it as crowded as it was for the big matchup between Greg Maddux and Mark Prior. The aisles were packed, the lines were long, and virtually all reasonable standing room spots were either occupied or saved for fans about to return. I watched a few innings from the top of the lower deck right field grandstand. I was still simmering, but I had no trouble getting into the game. Glad to be there, I was able to see most of the field as the Cubs were protecting the 2-0 lead they had earned in the first inning. Then an usher approached and told me I could not stay where I was, and he asked me to move.
Second Point of View
My next stop was acceptable, in that I was not blocking anyone. Near the top of the ramp above third base, I could bend down and see all of the infield and part of the outfield. When not bent over, I was only a few steps from the VIP entrance to the mezzanine and press level. I saw a few familiar faces from WGN (including Rich King), the Cubs’ big boss (Andy McPhail), and a true celebrity (Ryne Sandberg). Given all I had been through, it was a decent place to be for this special occasion. In fact, the occasion was so special that I found myself being interviewed on television.
A roving reporter and cameraman came up the ramp in the sixth inning. We started chatting, and, after he found out I had driven nearly 300 miles to be there, the reporter said he wanted to interview me. Overcoming my long-time aversion to publicity – especially being on TV – I told him that would be fine. We did a nice interview, he asked me my name, and then he turned to the young lady next to me. In her arms, she had her seven-month-old daughter, which made for a much more interesting piece than the one minute the reporter had spent with me. (If it were any indication of the interview quality, the reporter asked me for my first name only, but he asked the young mother for her first and last names.)
Complete Game and Evening
By now, you must know that our beloved Cubbies held on for a 3-1 win, and that Mark Prior had a complete-game, two-hit victory. As Damian Miller (Cubs Catcher) said in a post-game interview, Prior is ‘a freak’ to be so good, so composed, and so much in control in his first playoff start. This guy is really special. In my opinion, other than Michael Jordan, Prior is the best draft pick in the history of Chicago sports. The rain delay probably helped me get into the game, and the Braves’ four errors certainly helped the Cubs. Just remember what I said last winter when Dusty Baker was hired as the new manager: the Cubs will be in the World Series within three years.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.