Once upon a rainy childhood, nestled somewhere along the pine tree-lined streets of Slidell, LA, a four-year-old kid discovered the magical wonders of WGN.
That four-year-old kid just so happened to be me.
If you were privileged enough to have cable television growing up, or if you were smart enough to figure out how to steal cable while living on the South Forty (I am by no means condoning stealing from a school that can only raise 1.4 billion dollars in capital over just a handful of years), then you know that WGN carries pretty much all the Chicago Cubs’ baseball games.
Like many other unemployed four-year-olds, I found myself at home in front of the television set for the better part of most of my afternoons. Those rainy, humid days were when I became infatuated with, was romanced by and ultimately espoused to Wrigley Field.
If you’ve never seen the place, you really should. If you’ve never been there, I highly recommend it. It’s the second-oldest ballpark still in existence in the United States (or Canada) today. Built in 1914, Wrigley has always been rich in tradition.
Ivy on the unforgiving brick outfield walls, old-school, no rules bleachers, the largest manual scoreboard in existence, and a real-life organist – these are characteristics often imitated but rarely duplicated in today’s ballparks.
One of Wrigley’s finest charms is its quaint neighborhood setting and the integral role that it plays in the local community, earning it the moniker, “The Friendly Confines.” The stadium is so entwined with the surrounding homes, in fact, that there was nary a night game played at Wrigley until 1988. Apparently, the great fear was that the bright stadium lights would shine into people’s homes and apartments and they would not be able to get their beauty sleep.
This was perfect for me as a kid of course – thanks to my completely unfair, parentally-imposed 8:00 p.m. bedtime, I would have missed all of the night games anyway! It seemed like this team and this beautiful stadium were made just for me. We were like two symbiotic organisms, learning and gaining from each other at all times. There was just one small problem.
This team stinks.
Often referred to as the ‘Lovable Losers,’ the Cubbies have set a major league record for futility. They have not been to the World Series since 1945, and they have not won the darn thing since 1908. We didn’t even know about “World Wars” in 1908! The worst part is that their only competition for this dubious recognition comes from the Boston Red Sox; they have suffered under the curse of the Bambino and failed to win the Series every year since 1918.
It was during these formative years of my childhood, listening to the familiar nasal tones of Steve Stone and the seemingly drunken ramblings of Haray Caray that I learned a valuable lesson, and that knowledge has stuck with me to this day.
When you’re used to being let down in life, you don’t expect so much from the world. When things do go right, though, they seem even sweeter.
One of the days in my life that definitely went right was April 30, 2000. Thanks in part to an Amtrak promotion called 1-2-Free, I was able to attain a train ticket to Chicago for free as the third person traveling in a group of three friends. While in Chicago, I went to a Cubs game, and Wrigley Field was everything I expected.
We thought that paying an extra buck or two for first-tier seats by the field would be well worth the added expense, but take it from me, you don’t want to be in Chicago and in the shade on a windy day – I don’t care if it is the middle of spring.
While the rowdies out in the bleachers and the sun bathers in the upper deck enjoyed the game, we shivered out a nine-inning disaster in the very back of the lower-level, well under the shade-inducing overhang that seemed to create a wind tunnel effect for most of the game.
The game was supposed to be Kerry Wood’s triumphant return and a pitching match up with The Big Unit, Randy Johnson, but it ended up being neither. In the meantime, I did take a full roll of film and spent about 30 bucks on memorabilia crap – normal touristy stuff.
After the game, as I was leaving that historic stadium, slowly being pushed along through narrow walkways packed to the brim with Cubs fans (a human connection seldom felt in the sterile, extra-wide concourses of today’s luxury-laden downtown playpens), I dodged out of the mob for a quick trip into the restroom.
The restrooms at Wrigley were clearly designed before the days of the auto-flush, auto-hand dry, auto-faucet, automated-bathroom-experience, and in fact, the restrooms were nothing more than a series of identical, semi-circular, galvanized metal troughs with no separations between them.
Just before relieving myself from the five-dollar souvenir soda I drank, I looked over in time to see the man next to me washing his hands in the trough. So I guess the Cubbies taught me another life lesson that day.
Look before you leak.