ASNN

Chicago (White Sox and Cubs)

The first leg of my baseball trip is done. I have a few pictures (all of Wrigley and downtown Chicago), but will need to upload some other night I'm not about to pass out from exhaustion. As for the details, continue on oh faithful reader.

The first game was the Twins versus the White Sox at US Cellular Field. The game was fairly good, though the visiting Twins won 4-1. (There was some discussion about which of the following predictions was less accurate: "The Twins will score 3 runs." or "The Sox will win 4-1." Feel free to vote (not with someone else's name, you know who you are) in the comments.) As for the stadium, it was largely uninteresting. The scoreboard operators NEVER showed replays of important plays, the crowd seemed only marginally into the game (despite the fact that it was an important game between the teams vying for the AL Central), and the surrounding area was pretty boring. The brats and kraut were excellent, and the draft beer selections were adequate (McSorley's Ale was the choice of the evening).

The game from today was between the Cubs and the Toledo Mudhens, er, Cincinnati Reds. The day began with lots of sporadic rain, wacky schedules, and getting (only a little) lost downtown. We parked in Scott Stegenga's Lincoln Square neighborhood and took "the L" above-ground train to the stadium (the red line to the brown line to Addison), which was a wonderful experience. I had only ever ridden below-ground trains (i.e., "subways") before, and the L had a grittier feel. Fun note on the L: it's apparently a good place to find the remains of half-eaten food, as we found a corn cob on the way there and an apple core on the way back.

But enough about getting there. When we exited from the L station, it was still raining pretty hard. We entered Wrigley through gate 4 on the right-field side, ascending to the upper deck, all the while walking past wafting smells of food. The brats were prepackaged and didn't offer kraut, and the beer choices were abysmal, with only Bud, Bud Light, and something called Old Style on tap. (More on Old Style later.) We found our seats... and glory was revealed. Even with the large blue Cubs tarp covering the infield during the rain, the view was magnificent.

Right on cue (that is, about 15 minutes before the game was to start), God calmed the storm and rebuked the waves (well, rain). The quickly-growing crowd (it was nearly a full house, even though they were playing the lowly Reds) cheered loudly when the crew came onto the field to pull off the tarp, and shortly, the game was on. The game itself was my favorite kind of game: a pitcher's dual. The 9th inning began with zero total runs and about nine total hits with both starting pitchers pitching quite well. The Cubs' Sambrano gave up a run on a walk, sacrifice bunt, wild pitch, and bloop single. The Cubs went quietly in the bottom of the 9th and lost, 1-0.

We took a different route back to Lincoln Square (the purple line on the L), so we got to walk around the area ("Wrigleyland" to those of up in the know) to get to a different station. Lots of really interesting restaurants, bars, boutiques, and other shops in the area, and I think I'd love to spend more time down there after a Cubs game next year. :-)

To wrap up, I want to do something to succinctly grade each experience on a number of important (to me) levels. So I will be writing a "pcg's scorecard" section for each game. These ratings (from 1 (worst) to 10 (best)) will be largely dependent on my whims and beer quality/consumption, so don't expect some objective scale. Also, the numbers are not intended to add up for a "total experience". For instance, the Sox and Cubs games might each add up to total close to each other, since Sox food and beer were quite a bit better and Wrigley was far superior to US Cellular. Even so, the Wrigley experience overall was just spiritual, while I don't feel like I ever need to revisit US Cellular to watch the White Sox.

So anyway, here are the scorecards for the first two games:

game: twins at white sox (9/10/03)
park: us cellular field, chicago
game quality: 7
park mystique: 1
park beauty: 5
crowd ambience: 4
neighborhood: 3
food: 8
beer: 8

game: reds at cubs (9/14/03)
park: wrigley field, chicago
game quality: 9
park mystique: 10
park beauty: 7
crowd ambience: 8
neighborhood: 9
food: 6
beer: 4

Let me know if you think I should add any categories to the scorecards!

Posted by pcg at September 14, 2003 9:18 PM