Root, Root, Root For The Cubbies..

WOW! Today was an unbelievable day. Here is the account of my first trip to Wrigley Field.

Shawn and I arrived early at the stadium, so we could walk around the neighborhood and look at the exterior of the ballpark.

Waveland Ave. prior to the gates opening.

The back of the center field bleachers.

These houses have roof seats for rent/sale that give great views into the outfield.

Many, many bars right outside the stadium, mostly baseball themed. Shawn and I paid a visit to the Cubbie Bear (see below).

These two things go together! Harry Caray used to always sing Take me out to the ballgame, and now, anyone interested can audition!

My first view of the ivy upon entering the park.

Now the fun begins!

The seats we originally were assigned were covered seats, in the back row of the stadium, with a fabulous view of the entire park, similar to this one, only a little higher up and to the right of home plate instead of to the left.

I have to confess that I did not get my camera out first when we got to our seats, I called my Dad who had bought the tickets to say thank you. During that call, a Cubs employee came and asked if Shawn and I would like to be the "Lucky Fans of the Day", and sit 15 rows behind home plate! All we had to do was put on cubs t-shirts (to keep) and be Cubs fans for the day. Fair enough. We agreed and it was off to our new view of Wrigley Field:

Great upgrade eh? We thought so too! I shot a little video with my camera that shows everything I could see from my chair: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-733124032237636978

These seats even came with musical entertainment!

The baseball game was pretty good, although never really in doubt. The Cubs got an early lead and never relinquished it. The Rockies starting pitching was pretty bad, while Carlos Zambrano pitched well. From our seats you could really see pitch movement and placement. Also, one part of Wrigley that no picture could possibly portray is the sound of a real organ playing baseball music. Old style baseball music, played live, not recorded. Being able to look up at the press box during "Take me out to the ball game" and sing with the rest of the rowdy fans at Wrigley was a lot of fun.

One other little highlight of our day was to see a lady in a wheelchair who was in the section to our right who was celebrating her 104th birthday at the ballpark. People were nice to her, went up to her and wished her a happy birthday, our section serenaded her, she blew kisses to the crowd and when she left in the 8th inning people applauded her as she left. Rarely have I seen someone smile that much. In the picture below she's wearing the white hat, waving as they announced her name over the loudspeaker.

While the Rockies lost, and the Cubs won, it was a grand time at the ole ball game. And just as if by magic, the game ended, the fans started to leave and the rain started to come down in buckets. This happened no more than 25 min after the last out.

What a fun day to spend, I have more pictures to share and I'm sure they'll creep into a future post. However that's the main part of our day at the friendly confines!

-Paul