The Chicago-est Day

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 07/14/2020 at 14:26 • Filed to: None

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We’re using the down time to do some deep cleaning of closets, and I found this ticket stub from the one and only Cubs game I’ve ever attended at Wrigley Field.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

I lived on the edge of Chicago as a kid, right along the North Avenue border of the city. It was the mid-1970s, back before they installed the lights at Wrigley Field, and every game was a day game. Occasionally, a classmate was absent from school....

“Where’s Billy?”

“His dad took him to a Cubs game.”

It was magical, mystical, amazing. But I never got to go.

The last year I lived there, I was a latchkey kid and would come home after school and watch the Cubs on WGN. Back in the days of Ron Santo and Dave Kingman and steamy afternoons, and a pickup game behind the apartment block. I threw left but batted right, since that’s how the other kids taught me to hit. I figured I’d make a mean switch hitter one day.

Twenty years later I’m swinging a trumpet instead of a baseball bat, and I went back to Chicago to audition for the 4th trumpet chair with the Chicago Symphony. I stayed with friends who lived in a brownstone in Evanston. We rode the El down to the city early in the morning, and Rod went off to the Harvard Club while Cathy went to her job at First Chicago bank. I made my way to the hall. I knew there was no way in the world that I’d win the job, but the only way to guarantee you won’t win is not to take the audition. It ended up being the best audition I had ever played, perhaps because I knew I had absolutely nothing to lose, and hell, I was playing onstage at Orchestra Hall in Chicago. The history there is every bit as deep as the Cubs’ history.

After the audition, I sat around with the other players from that early morning round who were waiting to be told, “Sorry, maybe next time,” and I struck up a conversation with Mike, who hailed from Oklahoma City.

“What’re you gonna do the rest of the day?” Mike asked.

I said I planned to take in the Art Institute across the street. I had never been.

Mike grinned and said “The Rockies are in town. Wanna go?”

My plans changed.

We met Cathy for lunch at Berghoff’s, and she gave us El tokens and directions for the Red Line to Wrigley. It was late April, and the day had dawned dark and Hawk-Wind cold. But, soon after Mike and I took our seats on the right field bleachers, the wind came around, brushed away the clouds, and it became the most beautiful, bright, and crisp spring day you could ever hope for. You could almost smell the sunshine, and the grass glowed, green as St. Patrick’s Day . Sammy Sosa trotted out to right field with sunglasses perched on the bill of his cap and gave the Bleacher Bums his trademark chest bump salute, and Mike and I settled in with a couple bags of dusty unshelled peanuts we had bought from a hawker outside the park, and cracked open the first of many Heilemann’s Old Style beers (no way in hell was I drinking Heineken in the friendly confines ).

And the Cubs lost.

Having been a lifelong Cubs fan there was really no other way for the game to end. They had to lose. If they had won, it would not have been a complete experience. I’m still trying to process that whole World Series thing.

After the game, we  met Rod and Cathy for dinner at Greek Islands (I have no recollection of how Mike and I made our way there from Wrigley). Fantastic food, good old friends, good new friends, and the retsina flowed like liquid sunshine.

shop-teacher > ttyymmnn 07/14/2020 at 14:35

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Yeah, you nailed it there.

I would have been at the tail end of my Freshman year in high school in the north suburbs.

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > ttyymmnn 07/14/2020 at 14:45

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I enjoyed reading this. Can’t say I’ve attended many baseball games at all. Watching sports ball never appealed to me too much unless I’m there watching in person.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 07/14/2020 at 14:46

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So, basically, you really ARE Ferris Bueller? That answers a lot of questions for me...

(seen above, ttyymmnn in Chicago German Heritage Parade)

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/NimbleBestHoopoe-mobile.mp4

(link above, ttyymmnn takes wife to lunch)

(link above, ttyymmnn cheers Cubs on to ignominious loss)

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 07/14/2020 at 14:54

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Except without Mia Sara. You have found me out. 

ttyymmnn > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available 07/14/2020 at 14:55

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I have no interest in going to a football game, yet I also don’t like watching baseball on TV. There is something about the pace of a baseball game that makes it perfect to watch in person. You can watch, or not watch, you can sip a cold beer and talk to your friends, you can make new friends. It’s all so relaxed. It’s the perfect watching sport, IMO.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ttyymmnn 07/14/2020 at 14:56

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I’ve never understood how Ferris packed so much into a single day... but I guess he always worked “smarter not harder”...

RIP JohnHughes

ttyymmnn > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 07/14/2020 at 14:58

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Plus, it was in the script. I keep telling my boys, “It’s not a documentary... ”

ttyymmnn > shop-teacher 07/14/2020 at 15:05

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I was already 12 years out, and 6 years into being married. The audition circuit can be a real drag. But I felt like I was at  home on this one.

Just Jeepin' > ttyymmnn 07/14/2020 at 15:06

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Chilling in the lawn at an  Indianapolis baseball games is a great way to spend a summer afternoon.

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > ttyymmnn 07/14/2020 at 15:07

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I saw the cubs at Wrigle y Field in July of 1992. They played the Mets, I think they won.

What sticks out in my mind was the oppressive humidity, the seats were sticky with spilled liquids (unidentifiable) and the horse trough of a urinal in the men’ s restroom. Probably one of the first times I experienced stage fright trying to pee before a long train ride back to Indiana.

InFierority Complex > ttyymmnn 07/14/2020 at 15:09

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Lost to the Rockies? Damn.

ttyymmnn > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 07/14/2020 at 15:09

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Horse troughs are the worst. You either gotta be blind drunk, or just put on the blinders and go for it.

DipodomysDeserti > ttyymmnn 07/14/2020 at 15:26

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Some of my best memories are of attending ballgames with my dad and brother. We were supposed to see a spring training game the day everything shut down.

I’m quarantining with my dad right now and we just keep a rerun of a game on TV all day. Doesn’t matter if we know who wins. It’s meditation.

When I was younger we’d always catch a summer game at Yankee Stadium. Nothing quite like taking a packed train into the South Bronx. You walk past all the vendors underneath the tracks and then bam, there’s Yankee Stadium (RIP) . Last game we went to was the last weekend it was open. Caught a gypsy cab (the original Ubers for you younger millennials ) after the game back to Penn Station.

We visited my wife’s grandma in Michigan last year. This was a few months before she died of Parkinson’s disease. At this point she couldn’t see, and really didn’t know who people were. We were at a family BBQ, and a wife of a former coworker came over to say hello. She introduced herself, and the two began talking Tigers baseball. She couldn’t even remember who she was, but baseball was still in there. It was an absolutely tortuous disease, but at least she still had those memories.

I then had to try and explain to my wife, why I was tearing up, while trying not to completely lose it.

DipodomysDeserti > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 07/14/2020 at 15:29

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I was  raised pissing in the troughs of Sun Devil stadium. What sort of psychopath even thought of those things. My uncle’s beep fell off his pants and into it one game. For a brief second I thought he was going to grab it.

ttyymmnn > DipodomysDeserti 07/14/2020 at 16:14

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My dad has been diagnosed with onset Parkinson’s. He still seems to be doing pretty well. He stays active, walks a lot, climbs the stairs in their three-story townhouse. He has trouble sometimes with small details, and doesn’t drive any more. But when you talk to him about music, it’s still all there. Even the details of music history.

With his diagnosis, I worry about bit about my own future. However, I told my doctor about my dad and he said that he wouldn’t worry too much about having Parkinson’s in twenty years, since the drugs will be much better by then. 

jminer > ttyymmnn 07/14/2020 at 16:38

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I’m with you here either in-person or on radio is how I enjoy consuming baseball.  So many fond memories of childhood listening to Jack Buck announce the Cardinals over radio while at a camp site or in the back seat of a car.

DipodomysDeserti > ttyymmnn 07/14/2020 at 16:49

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Best wishes for your dad. My wife has gotten real proactive about keeping herself healthy. Lotta antioxidants which pretty much help with everything.

When I was at U of A ten tears ago one of my instructors was doing research with caffeine and Parkinson’s. It was cool to see that being used as a treatment now.

Only Vespas... > ttyymmnn 07/14/2020 at 23:26

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Ah, the Cubbies. I went to school at the Art Institute and lived at Waveland and Lakewood a few blocks from Wrig le y in ‘ 78-79. $4.00 for a bleacher seat. We would go after class and sit with a group of traders from the Board of Trade. They bet on every pitch. Ball, Strike, Foul, Hit. The same fiver would change hands thirty times in an inning. Still in their biz attire, shirts off, suspenders hanging below their white sleeveless t-shirts all gettin g hammered on Heilemann’s. The best part about that neighborhood was walking past frozen Wrigle y in January. You knew it had to get better. [warmer] Horse trough? No worries, used it it from Oiler Park in Tulsa. They even had a little one above which was painted: For Pee-Wees

ttyymmnn > Only Vespas... 07/14/2020 at 23:36

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Though I only lived there (Oak Park, actually) for a few years, the city had an outsized influence on my life. I’ve been a Cubs and Blackhawks fan since I can remember sports, and the field trips to places like the MOSI, Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, etc. were out of this world for a young kid. My family traveled back there on a summer trip a couple of years ago, and it felt comfortable, like an old pair of shoes. As you might have gleaned, my parents (mom and step dad), divorced later on, and I ended up staying with my mom while my older brother went to live with out dad. Leaving the step father meant that, while we stayed in Oak Park, we moved down a few levels in rent. It was tough for me to leave, but it was the best thing I could have done. My mom stayed for a few yeas, and we’d go visit, fist to an apartment somewhere, when a studio  up North Lake Shore Drive. O’Hare is where I fell in love with flying and airports in general. Anyway, I still have a soft spot for the city, as you might have noticed.

i86hotdogs > ttyymmnn 07/15/2020 at 07:52

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I am a Sox fan, but it was always a joy to grab a handful of dollar menu burgers and mcchickens from the mcdonalds across the street and bring those in to the games. I believe Wrigley is the last stadium that allows outside food.

Wrigleyville now is practically a tourist trap. Bars selling overpriced drinks, they got rid of all the good fast food joints and replacing them with...more overpriced bars. Plus, becoming a Cub fan is turning more into a personality trait than actually supporting the team. You can walk into those overpriced bars post game and you wouldn’t even tell the Cubs lost that day. Nobody cares. Walk in to a bar on the south side after a loss, and you’ll see people drowning their sorrows in beer.

That being said, I was so happy the Cubs won in ‘16. Mostly for my gramps who was a die hard his entire life. Passed away a few months after, but he got to see his Cubbies win.

ttyymmnn > i86hotdogs 07/15/2020 at 09:25

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Never have been much of a Sox fan. I remember a cartoon once about two people who couldn’t get married because of religious differences. One was a Cubs fan, the other a Sox fan. I remember a lot of the Bill Veeck craziness, though. The throwback uniforms, the shorts .