I decided it was time to really get after my bucket list. Near death experiences tend to lend some urgency to everyday life. The list is composed mostly in my head, although at various times I have written it down. But, with the passage of time, the list is constantly evolving and changing. I find the older I get, the more conservative I become. For instance, at one time, climbing Mt. Everest was near the top of my bucket list. I mean isn’t that on everyone’s bucket list? Well, I’ve given that a lot of thought and these days I’m perfectly content to trek to Mount Everest Base Camp. There are actually two, South Base Camp in Nepal and North Base Camp in China. South Base Camp is the more popular and sits at 17,598 feet above sea level, taking 8 to 10 days of hiking to reach. North Base Camp sits at 17,130 feet and is accessible by a paved road, although the Chinese government has not been granting permits to this Base Camp since 2019. Hmmm, just about the time they released COVID on the world. Just sayin’. So, as you can see, I’ve actually done some research on this. I think seventeen and one half thousand feet is plenty high. I don’t need to go another 9000 feet in elevation to join the other corpses already on the mountain.
The problem with most bucket lists is that they are simply that, a list of dreams, mostly unfulfilled. New dreams are constantly being added but very few are checked off the list as completed. And if something is removed, it’s usually because it was altered rather than because HEY, I DID THAT! My plan to climb Mount Everest is a good case in point. It seems that people are averse to change. They may say “Oh wow, that sounds like a really cool thing to do”. But, in my experience, they very rarely follow through. And, at the end of the day, they look back on their mundane lives, regretfully ruing all the things they dreamt of but never got around to doing. My father was like that. He always talked about the grand adventures he was going to take us boys on; fishing on the Snake River, going to Alaska, visiting friends in India. Regrettably, we never got around to doing any of it. I decided, at an early age, I didn’t want to end up like my father with a bucket of unfulfilled dreams. The thing I did, which really broke the mold, was when I rode a bicycle across Canada. For me, that was transformative and life changing. You don’t have to trek to Everest to have an adventure or even ride a bicycle across America. Packing up the car and going camping in the local mountains could be an adventure if you choose to make it so. Most people miss out on some of life’s great adventures simply because they can’t, or won’t, take the first step. Fear of the unknown. Fear of change. Whatever the case. I am going fishing in La Paz for four days in September. Never been there before. It will be a new adventure; one to which I am truly looking forward. Several people said they wanted to go but, in the end, they all had reasons for not going. A friend of mine recently said that he really admired me because I always seem to be doing something fun with my life. I don’t know about that, but if I see something I want to do I make it a point to do it. As I have said many times, I’m a research junkie and for any new adventure the first step is always the planning. Once I start to plan something I’m pretty well committed but, until I start the planning stage, it is all just talk. Life is short. Enjoy it while you can. No one ever lay on their deathbed and said, “The one thing I truly regret is that I didn’t spend more time at the office.” The amazing part of all this is, when most people finally go out and have that one great adventure they say “Wow, I should have done this before”. Life is what you make of it and adventure, big or small, is an addiction. Once you start you never want to stop!
The main item on my bucket list, for the past several years, has been to attend a baseball game at every Major League ballpark. Big surprise there, right? I had kind of thought of doing a road trip, spending an entire summer hitting all the parks. I’d still like to do that, but the reality is, that plan is a bit ambitious, even for me. I have attended games at all five California team stadiums. Six if you include Qualcomm, nee Jack Murphy Stadium, which is where the Padres played before moving to Petco. That’s Oracle and the Coliseum in the Bay area, Dodger Stadium and Angel Stadium, and Petco. I have also attended a game at Fenway Park in Boston on my cross-country bicycle trip. Fenway is the oldest park in the Major Leagues and Dodger Stadium is number three on that list. Number two? Why Wrigley Field in Chicago of course. Chicago is where we went. It was actually a side trip on our way to visit friends in Colorado Springs. I used that opportunity to attend a Rockies game at Coors Field with my buddy Lucas. That is eight down and 22 to go.
Neither my wife nor I have never been to Chicago, much less Wrigley Field, so we really didn’t know what to expect. I knew Wrigley was a small, old-style ballpark, located in the middle of Chicago. It sits in the heart of Wrigleyville, which is the neighborhood that surrounds the stadium, and just oozes history. The second you walk up to the famous red and white marquee you get this sense of all the great players that have passed this way. It feels like the stadium should be sitting in a corn field somewhere in Iowa.
Initial construction for Weegham Park, as it was then called, began in 1911 and was completed in 1914 at a cost of $250,000 and, no, I didn’t forget any zeros. It was home to the Chicago Whales of the Federal Baseball League. The league was short lived, folding after the 1915 season. But team owner Charles Weeghman was an entrepreneurial sort and needed a tenant for his slightly used ballpark. He formed a syndicate with close friend William Wrigley Jr. and bought the Cubs from then owner Charles Taft for $500,000 and no, I didn’t forget some zeros. Weeghman immediately moved the team into the ballpark bearing his name. In 1918 William Wrigley gained a controlling stake in the Cubs and renamed the stadium Cubs Park. In 1927 his ego, like that of his predecessor, Weeghman, got the better of him and he re-christened Cubs Park as Wrigley Field. Interesting story about the Wrigley Company. Originally, they were a soap and cleaning product manufacturer. As a promotion, they began to include packs of chewing gum in their product line. The gum became so popular people would buy the cleaning products just for the gum which, I suppose, was the intended purpose. Eventually, though, the company dropped the cleaning product line to concentrate on the more popular chewing gum product line. And, as they say, the rest is history.
As I said, Wrigley Field is home to a lot of baseball history. It is famous for the ivy-covered brick wall in the outfield, the previously mentioned red marquee, the rooftop bleachers, and the fact that it was the last ballpark to get lighting for night games and that wasn’t until 1988. It also has one of only two manually operated scoreboards left in the Major Leagues, the other being at Fenway Park in Boston. Some of that history is infamous as well. Such as the curse of the billy goat. Apparently, William Sianis brought his pet billy goat to game 4 of the 1945 World Series. It was an emotional support goat. The goat was bothering some of the other patrons and Sianis was asked to take his goat and leave, whereupon Sianis is said to have put a curse on the Cubs. Whether or not you believe in curses, (and if you are a baseball fan then you must believe in them) the Cubs did not even play in another World Series for 71 years. The last time they had won the World Series was 1908 and they wouldn’t win another until 2016. So, proof positive that curses are real. There is also the Steve Bartman incident. Steve Bartman, an avowed Cubs fan, inadvertently prevented Cubs outfielder Moises Alou from making a play on a foul ball in the 8th inning of game 6 in the NLCS, a game the Cubs were leading 3 – 0. The Cubs eventually lost that game and then lost Game 7 and Bartman was receiving death threats. Maybe fans should have been taking their anger out on Sianis, except he was already dead by then. There is a happy ending though. When the Cubs eventually won the 2016 World Series, they presented Bartman with an honorary World Series ring as a way of saying there were no hard feelings. And, of course, there are all the great players that played for the Cubs; Ernie Banks, Ryne Sandberg, Sammy Sosa, Ferguson Jenkins, Greg Maddox, Andre Dawson, Bruce Sutter, Cap Anson, Bill Buckner, Rogers Hornsby, Rick Monday, and the list goes on.
Was I thrilled to be attending a game at Wrigley Field? Does Harry Carey know the words to Take Me Out to the Ball Game? It was an afternoon game, starting about 1:15, because if you are attending a Cubs game, especially for the first time, it has be an afternoon game. We had field level seats about eight rows back and halfway between third base and the left field foul pole. Only a couple of sections away from where Steve Bartman sat on that fateful evening. One thing I’ve never done at a baseball game is catch a foul ball. There were several fouls hit into the stands about two sections to our right. One ball came down just behind me, glancing off both my thumb and the hand of the guy next to me as we both tried to make the catch. Should have brought a mitt.
Catcher Wilson Contreras has been a fan favorite since he came up with the team in 2016 at age 24. Now, at age 30, he is having probably the best year of his career and will be a free agent after the season. At game time the trade deadline was only a week away and this was probably going to be his final home stand as a Chicago Cub as it was rumored he was being shopped around. His every at bat was greeted with a standing ovation. Cubs fans really appreciate their players and are not ashamed to show it. I thought Dodger fans were rabid, but Cubs fans go beyond that. They treat the players as if they were part of their family. The irony is that Contreras stayed put and is still a Cub, much to the delight of all Cubs fans.
The Cubs were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates that afternoon in a game they won 4-2. After the game the electronic scoreboard in right field, a late addition to accompany the original manual scoreboard in left, flashes CUBS WIN while the song “Go Cubs Go” plays over the sound system. Dodgers’ fans are notorious for arriving to games late and leaving early. Not so Cubs fans. Rather than filing out, almost all of the fans stick around singing the song and basking in the afterglow of a rare Cubs victory. After the game, Clarke Street is completely shut down to vehicles as the fans slowly file out, taking their time as all the bars, and there a lot of them, fill up. In the morning, Clarke Street is dead as it is mostly bars and a few restaurants catering to lunch and dinner. We had to Uber downtown to find a place serving breakfast. By the way, if you are in Chicago, I highly recommend Wildberry’s for a great breakfast, although they give you way too much food.
I’ll rate Wrigley on a scale of 1-10, 10 being best:
Location: 10! It doesn’t get much better than this. Standing in the middle of Wrigleyville, a mostly residential neighborhood, it’s a short walk to the stadium from any number of hotels. The only downside was when we went to leave, we had to take an Uber to the airport and since, Clark Street was still closed after the game, we had to walk about two blocks to meet the car.
Accessibility: 9! As I said, Wrigley Field sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood. It was a five-minute walk from our hotel. And the Hotel Zachary is literally across the street from the stadium. But not everyone is as crazy about baseball as I am. Most people don’t go to Chicago to catch a Cubs game at Wrigley Field. And the locals are crazy about the Cubs. Most of the fans attending any given game are from Chicago. If you live anywhere near Wrigleyville, it’s probably easy enough to get to the game. But, if you are driving from another part of town, well I did not see much in the way of parking. And closing Clark Street after the game, while cool, I can see as being a nuisance trying to get out of the area. Then again, it is my understanding Chicago has an excellent transit system so perhaps, if you live in Chicago but too far away to walk, you take the train to the game. Lord knows there are plenty of trains in that area. We were only there for two days and did not get a chance to really explore all the different ways to get around Chicago. Mostly we relied on our feet and Uber.
Fans: 10! Has to be. I mean, they went 71 years without even getting a whiff of the World Series and 108 years between World Series Championships. And yet, they really embrace and support the team and all the players. Our experience with the fans sitting around us was they were very friendly. Of course, I wasn’t wearing any Dodgers gear. It would have been interesting to see the reaction had I worn a Clayton Kershaw jersey. A few days later, when I attended a Rockies game at Coors Field, I was wearing a Cubs hat I bought when I was at Wrigley. I was in the concession line and the guy next to me started pointing at his head and mine. I realized we were both wearing Cubs hats. I told him I was actually a Dodgers fan but had just attended a game at Wrigley earlier in the week. He became very animated, wanting to know what I thought of the experience. They are very proud of that stadium, as they should be. It is listed as a National Historic Site.
Staff: 8! For the most part, the staff was very courteous and helpful. Everybody smiled and told us to have fun and enjoy the game. They probably have special training on how to interact with fans to provide the best game experience. And they get to work at Wrigley Field. How can every day not be a great day!? But, with so many employees, not everyone is going to be having such a great day, or even a good day. Sometimes people just have bad days, something going on in their personal lives, got up on the wrong side of the bed, tripped over the dog, found their wife in bed with the plumber, whatever the case may be. You would think we might have run into at least one gloomy Gus, but we didn’t, which made the experience all the better.
Ambiance: 10!!! It’s the Cubs. It’s Wrigley Field. They won the game. Chicago, which I understand, can be hot and humid in the summer was anything but. The high that day was 82 degrees and partly cloudy. There was talk of thunderstorms but those, thankfully, never materialized. Everyone was in a good mood. Well, maybe not the Pirates. After all, they did lose the game. But hey, they’re getting paid millions of dollars to play a child’s game so, at the end of the day, I’m sure they smile all the way to the bank.
Concessions: 4! This is really the only bad mark I’ll give to Wrigley. I’ve been to a bazillion Dodger games over my lifetime and, before I nearly ate myself to death, the challenge was to eat one Dodger dog every inning. The most I ever slammed was 6 in one game. But, back then, Dodger dogs were the bomb. They recently stopped using Farmer John as their supplier and the new Dodger dogs just aren’t as good. So, I will give Wrigley points for having very good hot dogs and an excellent bratwurst. A downside to attending a Cubs game, though, is the cost. Wrigley Field is ranked as the second most expensive stadium to attend for a family of four. The cost of going to a Cubs game, four tickets, parking, four hotdogs, two beers, and two sodas is $312.85. The only team more expensive is the Boston Red Sox at $324.37. You know, it seems the price of going to a baseball game, just like players’ salaries, goes up every year. I wonder if there is any connection between the fact that the two most expensive stadiums in Major League Baseball are also the two oldest stadiums. I mean, both have been around for over 100 years. That’s a lot of price increases. Just one more reason I never had kids. For the sake of comparison, attending an Arizona Diamondback game for the same family of four is the least expensive at $126.34. Odd, one of the newest teams and one of the least expensive ballparks to attend. Any correlation? Something for all you conspiracy theorists to ponder. The overall experience of attending a game at Wrigley was everything I expected and then some. So much so, I’m looking forward to attending more games. I also want to spend more time in Chicago itself as it was a very fascinating city. I’ll rate Coors Field in Denver in my next blog. The Cubs were swinging for the fences. On a good day, when the wind is blowing out, it’s a home run all the way.
