Listing Through Life

My sister called me on Wednesday evening and said friends of hers had given her a couple free tickets to the Cubs-Brewers game on Thursday afternoon and did I want to go? I had to rearrange my schedule a little. (Fortunately, I have a mother who understands when her son cancels a lunch date to go see the Cubs.)

I took the Metra train downtown, then walked to State Street and caught the Red Line subway/el to Addison Street, a block from the park. It took two hours and 45 minutes to get from my house to Wrigley. I waited by the Harry Carey statue outside the bleacher gate and ate one of the Blue Bunny ice cream bars that a pleasant young lady was handing out for free.

When my sister and her friends arrived, we headed to our seats.  We were one section over — maybe 40 feet — from where I sat for the first game of this home stand. It was a hot day — the temperature/humidity index sat at 90º — and there wasn’t much breeze where we were, but I was very glad we were out of the sun.

I purchased a hot dog, fries and a Diet Pepsi. I expect to pay more at the park, but this was ridiculous.

The Air and Water Show was taking place on the lake front a couple miles away. A Navy team parachuted into the park during the National Anthem.

The Cubs, who had won the first three games in the series, got off to a good start in this one, with two runs in the first. Kris Bryant singled and scored.

In the third, Bryant hit a long home run to left, driving in Matt Szczur. Here he is approaching third.

A walk and a couple hits resulted in another run. Cubs were up 5-0 and it looked like a cake walk.

The couple in the seats next to me sat down in the third inning and left about six minutes later, never to return.

Jake Arrieta had a no-hitter two outs into the fourth, but he walked two batters and then gave up a home run to Kirk Nieuwenhuis and suddenly it was a game again.

Not to worry. The Cubs came back with two in the bottom of the inning on back-to-back-to-back doubles by Szczur, Bryant and Rizzo. Here’s Bryant’s.

Arrieta walked two in the fifth but escaped without giving up any runs thanks to a pick off at first by catcher Willson Contreras. Arrieta then gave up a lead off homer to Hernan Perez to begin the sixth, walked two more Brewers and was out of the game after 5²/³ innings. (He walked seven in the game.)

Spencer Patton entered and walked two more to score a run. It was now 7-5 and the Cubs lead didn’t seem very secure. Never fear. Bryant came up again and hit a homer to dead center. Here he is nearing home.

Both teams scored a single run in the eighth. Bryant drove in Baez with a single. It was his fifth hit in five at-bats, including two home-runs. This was historic. He had a three homer, two double game against the Reds earlier in the year. He is the first National Leaguer and only the second player ever to have two five-hit, two-homer games in a season. Only 17 players have two in their career. Here’s his final hit.

Aroldis Chapman came in for the save in the ninth. Here’s Nieuwenhuis grounding out to Rizzo on a 101 mph fastball to end the game followed by the post-game celebration and the raising of the “W” flag.

The game ended at 4:40, three hours and 21 minutes after it began. I headed off into the crush of people jamming onto the el. I detrained north of the river and walked along the new Riverwalk back to the station where I just had time to buy a bottle of pop and catch the express. I walked in the door of my house at 7:30, about as sweaty and sticky as a man can be.

All season long, I’ve seen posts from friends who were at Wrigley Field watching the Cubs and, frankly, I’ve been jealous. Why them and not me? And then I found $30 left over from a birthday present and I hatched a plan. I visited StubHub and found tickets for $30 in the upper deck by the infield for  a game on the very next Tuesday night. (It had to be a sign, right?) It didn’t take me long to convince a friend to go along.

Tickets in hand, the next question was how to get there. On weekday night games, parking isn’t allowed within 412 miles of the field unless you pay with a major body organ. We opted for the Wrigley Express from Woodfield.

This being Illinois, the system they have in place there is odd. The website says the buses leave at 4:30. I got there at 3:30 and there was already a line. At 3:45, buses began loading and taking off. By 4:00, four of the six were gone. My friend arrived about then and we took the final two seats on bus five, far in the back with no leg room to speak of.

And then we sat until 4:30 so they could load all the late-comers onto our bus and bus #6 where they packed into the aisle. Two young men were standing close to the back door. For the next hour and a half, as we sat in traffic on the Kennedy Expressway, we heard a constant plea from the intercom — “Please move away from the doors.” Every time the message repeated, one of the young men would look up at the top of the door and then … stay right where he was.

We finally arrived at 6:15, about 45 minutes before game time. Our seats were high up in the upper deck right next to the press box. It was a hot, muggy day, and we felt very little breeze, but the view was great. We could see a slice of Lake Michigan way off to our right.

I left to find a bathroom (not easy to do at Wrigley) and buy $15.25 worth of supper.

I didn’t leave my seat again. Because I only had my cellphone, all the rest of my photos will look remarkably similar.

Willson Contreras on his way home after his game-tying blast in the third.

Chris Bryant rounding third after his monster shot onto Waveland in the fifth.

Mike Trout about to strike out against Strop to end the game in the ninth. I posted this because Trout will probably be in the Hall of Fame someday, and I wanted to prove I saw him play (although you’ll have to take the video board’s word for it).

It was a great game, with two homers, great pitching by John Lackey, some amazing fielding by the Cubs and some humorous fielding by the Angels. We stuck around afterwards for the singing of the silly song and the raising of the “W” flag, which are mandatory parts of the “Cubs are the best team in baseball” experience. Near the end of the video, you can see a blurry replay of Bryant’s home run on the video board.

There were still a lot of fans around as we pushed our way out through the metal detectors and struggled to find a place where we could breathe. It was probably as close as I’ll ever come to knowing what it feels like to be born.

I’d been texting back and forth with my daughter all game long. She was downtown and volunteered to give us a ride home. We took her up on it. About 35 minutes after the final pitch, we met her on a side street two blocks from the park. After dealing with some extraordinarily rude traffic police, we were on our way in air-conditioned comfort and arrived back at the bus depot where we’d left our cars just a few minutes after the buses arrived, but without the knee pain and numb butts.

Here’s the box score. It put the Cubs at 29 games over .500 with a 70-41 record, by far the best in baseball. It was also their eighth win in a row.

As a life-long Cub fan, it feels very strange to write that.