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Like Bryan, I also traveled last weekend to watch the beloved team of my childhood (and adulthood) play baseball. He grew up loving the Red Sox. I grew up loving the Cubs. People always ask how a kid from Texas ended up a rabid Chicago Cubs fan. I always give a three-letter answer: WGN. Ah…summer afternoons. 1:20 pm games. Harry Caray and Andre Dawson and Ryne Sandberg and Ron Cey and Lee Smith and — before Bryan probably despised him — Bill Buckner.
(I even saw a Buckner Cubs jersey this weekend.)
My wife and I watched two games. The first, on Friday, was a surprising pitchers’ duel between not-very-good Jason Marquis for the Cubs and good-a-few-years-from-now Matt Cain for the San Francisco Giants. The wind was blowing in, and we enjoyed a shutout until the bottom of the 8th, when Aramis Ramirez cranked a barely fair line drive into the left field bleachers. Kerry Wood made it a little scary in the 9th but the Cubs ended up winning 3-1. A great game. Fast, too: it ended hardly two-and-a-half hours after the first pitch.
The best and/or worst game was on Saturday, as newly acquired Rich Harden made his debut for the Cubs. The stadium was pretty electric, and Harden was everything we hoped. He made economical work of the Giants, who are just a sorry team all-around (clean-up hitter? Bengie Molina). With the wind blowing out, Harden hit 98 a couple times on the radar gun and struck out 10 in six innings. He allowed five hits and no runs. He left to a standing ovation with a 7-0 lead.
The Cubs bullpen gave up two in the 8th inning. No problem. We had five runs to spare, right? Kerry Wood had pitched the day before and had a blister, so reliever Carlos Marmol (who was crazy good in the first couple months of the season but has been shaky the last month) came in to pitch the 9th. It got ugly, real fast. Marmol gave up hit after hit after hit until five freaking runs had crossed the plate. That’s right: The hardly-a-legit-major-league-team Giants knocked Marmol around like it was me out there pitching, and tied it 7-7 in the top of the 9th. It cost Harden the win. Completely deflated the fans in a s stunning, Wrigley-worthy collapse. We were sitting a section over and 20 rows back of the Bartman seat. I looked for the poor dude, thinking he — or a goat — must be in the vicinity. Couldn’t find either.
The old Cubs would have folded up and lost it in the 10th. But this year is — hopefully — different. The Cubs went on to win it in the bottom of the 11th, with a Reed Johnson single. The place went crazy with…relief. Because that would have been a horrible defeat.
Some pics:
There were two “first” pitches thrown. One was by Chicago legend Dick Butkus. The other was by fast-food legend Ronald McDonald. Really. The clown. If you squint, you can see him below as he walks off the mound. He’s the one with the bright red hair and banana yellow suit. Apparently, he was lovin’ it. For awhile, Cubs fans thought the fire-headed Matt Murton sure was dressed funny, until we remembered he’d been included in the Rich Harden trade.
After 14 years of marriage, my wife, Aimee, has become as passionate a Cub fan as I am. Verily, I am blessed. Here we are, from aisle 209. That’s where our seats were.
Rich Harden’s first pitch as a member of the Cubs. This photo makes it appear as though he was pitching from the top of a guy’s head. Wrigley is a quirky field, but not quite that quirky. The guy just happened to get in the way while I was trying to take a picture of Harden’s pitch. Probably a Giants fan.
Thankfully, Dick Butkus — not Ronald McDonald — led us in the 7th-Inning Stretch. You’d be surprised. Unlike a number of guest conductors, Butkus (in the Cubs jersey beneath the Harry Caray caricature) could carry a tune.
The on-field celebration after Reed Johnson drove in Mark DeRosa with a single. DeRosa was running from 2nd base and slid into home just under the tag.
Unlike Bryan’s, my kids haven’t yet been to a Cubs game yet. They’re fans, and old enough to enjoy the game, but Chicago’s a long way from Texas. Not this year, or next year, but soon.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Must’ve been a big crowd if you couldn’t move up during extra innings. The only game I saw at Wrigley, I was 12 rows off of the 3rd base line by the top of the 12th inning.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Hardly anyone left — maybe 3,000 of the 41K crowd. But they have “crowd management” ushers patrolling the aisles of the close-to-the-field seats, even in extra innings. We watched probably three dozen people try to move up into the section right in front of us…only to be asked within seconds to show their tickets and/or return to their original seats. Same thing on the first day. Those usher ladies were SERIOUS.
July 15th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
I’m going to get up to Wrigley one of these days. I’m a “sorta” Cubs fan from watching them on TV back when I was a kid. Dunston, Grace, Sandberg, Dawson…they were a lot of fun to watch.
July 15th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
I’m not a Cubs fan (go Orioles!) but I can still have the sense to say Wrigley is probably the most fun park to go to (and I only say maybe because I still get excited going to Camden, no matter how much my team stinks). Glad you guys got to go.
And don’t be surprised by Butkus - remember that old Visa commercial with he and Terry Bradshaw singing “I remember it well”? Butkus looked and sounded like a beefier Robert Goulet.
July 15th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
If the stadium stays full, I guess they enforce the tickets. I know that when I went in 2000, they didn’t stop us any of the three times we moved up. I even asked an usher once—but most of the crowd had left. [Day game.]