Park #5

August 8, 2005: Chicago, Illinois
Park #5: Did you know that “Wrigley” is German for “Pantheon of wonderment and magicalness”? Really, it is! Oh hell, fine, don’t believe me, but it should be. You know, television is usually pretty good to me, it plays a lot of funny stuff (with the exception of reality TV of course), and TV provides me good entertainment, especially Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but television has deceived me for many a years. Wrigley is much awesomer than TV has shown me (yes, yes, awesomer is a word). TV doesn’t do Wrigley justice at all. It is truly a gloriful place with many feats and wonders, Inignot and Ir would have loved it if they were still with us.
Let’s start with the outside of the park. First, there is a statue of Harry Caray, the king of all Cubs fans. It was great, and as you may know, Laz loves him some giant baseball statues. Second, I got to the game over an hour and a half early to check out batting practice, and the outside of the stadium was crawling with Cubs fans. They were chilling outside the park, they were waiting on Waverly Avenue to catch a home run from batting practice, they were everywhere. Very impressive. And for a two block radius all around the stadium, you see nothing but Cubs paraphernalia: on the people, on the streets, on the buildings, I even saw a pigeon wearing a Cubs hat and holding a pennant.
As you get into the stadium, a soothing calm rushed over me because I truly felt like I was in of the few baseball Meccas in the world. I walked into the stands and was just blown away by the glory and beauty of this field. The ivy and the brick come together like a steak hoagie and a 40 Ounce King Cobra, mmmmmmm. You look around the park and you can just smell the decades and decades of losing seasons, which kind of smells like home. Seriously though, you really feel like you are a part of baseball history.
Now, my seat was up in the 500s, the second row from the top, but was still a great seat. I could tell that there were not many bad seats in the place at all. There was a column that obstructed a little bit of my view of the field, but nothing major. However, I did have one complaint about my seat: the people around me. You would not believe the assholes in front of me. It was this family of four, and the daughter must have been about 10 or 11, and she was a little chubby, but I wouldn’t say she was fat. Her mom and dad were the worst parents in the universe, I wanted to stab them in the eye with a shrimp fork (and I hate shrimp). These parents were so evil; the daughter offered her dad some peanuts and the dad (who I’ve named Johnny von Bastardface) said “no I don’t, and you shouldn’t be eating them either”. The girl later got a hot dog and the dad goes “Jesus Christ, don’t you think you’ve had enough, I mean you can’t even look halfway decent”. Then the girl got a coke and the mom yells out “OH MY GOD, that better be diet coke.” I felt so bad for this girl, it was like that SNL episode where the family is eating dinner and they keep fighting. I was convinced that this dad was gonna say “I drive a Dodge Stratus”. This guy was so mean, I wanted to kill him. You could just tell that this guy beats his wife, which is still a domestic violence, no thanks to me (woohoo).
Anyway, back to the game, and its progeny. My friends in Chicago forewarned me about the deliciousness of a “Chicago style Hot Dog”, they went on and on how great they were. And they were right, I took one bite and it was like my tastebuds were possessed by Littlejohn, and they all went “YEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS”, it was great. And of course it came with peppers and onions for the extra-no-one-is-ever-gonna-want-to-kiss-me flavor. Plus, the bun had poppyseeds on it, now that was an added bonus that I did not expect, much appreciated. Well, I gotta admit, the hot dog I had right as the game started was so good, that I had to get a polish sausage at the seventh inning stretch, which was also great. As for the beer, they sell the typical Anheuser-Busch products, but they also sell something called “Old Style” which seemed to look like the Spam of beers. And it was: no flavor whatsoever.
One of the great amenities of Wrigley is the bathrooms. Now, I haven’t discussed bathrooms of any other park yet because I thought a bathroom was a bathroom, you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all, right? WRONG, Wrigley in all its glory is one step above the rest. They still have the giant metal troughs that everyone pisses in. A crowd favorite. This was the first stadium I’ve been to on the tour that still had these, and with the possible exception of Fenway, I’m gonna say it’s the only one. These metal throughs are a thing of beauty, because unless it’s a crazy game, there is hardly ever gonna be a line to take a piss. And that’s all that really matters.
Okay, as for the Cubs themselves, they suck. They couldn’t hit their way out of a…….well, they can’t hit well. In the first 8 innings, they managed a total of three hits, with no runs. Going into the ninth, the score was 9-0, after Jeremi Williams gave up 3 home runs, and managed to prove to the world that the Reds are not bad hitters (I was shocked by this too). Now, the Cubs managed to score 4 runs in the ninth, which was not enough, and was not at all impressive considering they had only 3 hits in the previous eight innings. Too little too late. I did get to see Kerry Wood pitch, which I had not ever seen, so that was good. All in all, it was not an exciting game to watch.
So, in summary, the ballpark is fantastic, it is a shrine to what a baseball park should be. However, the unimpressiveness of the Cubs will cause Wrigley to lose a few points. Now, I know what you are thinking, that I’m rating the stadiums and just cause the team sucks shouldn’t hurt the stadium, well, you’re wrong. The rating describes the whole experience, and the exciting nature of the game can have a slight impact on the score, just as PNC park got points because the Pirates had a ninth inning win. It’s like when you were in grade school and you got points for good handwriting, or lost points for bad writing (which I am all too familiar with). So, therefore, I’m going to give Wrigley an A-, and say that it is an absolutely beautiful ballpark.
Five down, fifteen to go, next stop Milwaukee.
Laz