The Cubs’ game yesterday wasn’t too good. ("Not too good" – how’s that for understatement. The score was 9 to 1.) The game can be summed up in one sentence. Albert Pujols hit three home runs, all of them on two-strike counts, two of them on 1-2 counts. The way Pujols was zoned in yesterday, I think he could have hit a home run on a three-strike count!
But even if the score is bad (or, like yesterday, really bad), going to the park can be good. I got to the park really early yesterday. I got to my seat at 11:40 am for a 1:20 pm start. Recently, I have been going to games from work, mostly at night. When you do that, there is a tendency to not get to the park until 30-40 minutes before game time. You get there in time to have something to eat, write down the lineups and get ready for the game, but that’s it.
But yesterday I was there over an hour and a half before game time, and I must say I have forgotten how good it is to get there that early. It was fantastic. Of course, the weather was great. It was hot outside, but I was sitting in the shade in the upper deck grandstand, and it was gorgeous. I could sit there, without the crowds, and enjoy. I could watch some of batting practice. I could watch the crowd slowly arrive. But mostly I could get sit there and look at Wrigley Field on a beautiful day. It doesn’t get much better than that.
I think that being in the upper deck grandstand made it even better because from there you can see the whole park. And at Wrigley Field the upper deck isn’t that high, unlike other parks.
The Messmers, Wayne and Kathleen, sang "God Bless America" and the National Anthem. Nobody sings the National Anthem better than Wayne Messmer.
As the crowd came in, I saw a girl in a Cubs jersey, holding hands with a guy in a red Adam Wainwright shirt.* Clearly, I thought to myself, that is a relationship that is not going to last. In fact, given that Wainwright was starting for the Cardinals yesterday, I figured it might not even last ‘til the end of the game.
It’s always nice seeing vendors you recognize from year to year to many years. The old timers are usually beer vendors. But then, they’ve got the seniority.
The Miller Lite billboard was pretty good: "Well, if it isn’t our arch enemy".
A girl on crutches was trying to get up the stairs in the upper deck grandstand to her seat. A person came down to take her crutches. At which point, she turned around, sat down, and lifted herself up the stairs, one step at a time. When she got to the row she was going to, she took her crutches back and moved in to her seat.
Batters used to take a step toward the pitcher when they swung. That was the way Ted Williams taught it in The Science of Hitting. Now, however, they start with a wide stance and they don’t step. They might lift their left foot (or right foot, if they’re left-handed), but they don’t step toward the pitcher. I wonder why.
Finally, at six of the seven games I have been to this year (including yesterday), the Cubs have, just before they announced the lineups, played the first verse of "It’s a Beautiful Day for a Ballgame":
"Let's go! Batter up! We're taking the afternoon off!
It's a beautiful day for a ballgame. For a ballgame today!
The fans are out to get a ticket or two
From Walla Walla, Washington to Kalamazoo!
It's a beautiful day for a home run, but even a triple's OK!
We're going to cheer and boo. Or raise a hullabaloo
At the ballgame today!"
But the best part is, right after the last line of the song, Paul Friedman, the public address announcer, says, "The Chicago Cubs are on the air." Which doesn’t seem to make sense, since he is saying it at Wrigley Field.
But for Cubs fans of a certain age, including me, it makes a lot of sense. Back in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, WGN Radio used the first verse of "It’s Beautiful Day for a Ballgame" as a lead-in to their Cubs broadcasts. And as soon as the song ended, Vince Lloyd would say, "The Chicago Cubs are on the air!" So every time they do that at the park, I think of Vince Lloyd (and Lou Boudreau). And that brings back memories of the best Chicago Cubs broadcast team, ever.
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* Adam Wainwright pitches for the Cardinals.
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