Friday, June 15, 2007
A Day in Paradise
¶ 6:22 AM 
I was reading an article from Page 2 on ESPN.com the other day about a site that basically has the box score from every baseball game ever played. The author of said article urged his audience to visit this site and look up the first major league game you ever went to because at least for him, it invoked feelings of extreme sentimentality. Well my sentimentality only goes so far so instead of making the two clicks to look up my first ballgame, I just thought about it for a fleeting moment. I actually didn’t go to my first real major league game until I was 15 years old. Arizona didn’t get its Diamondbacks until the summer of 1997, although I did frequent Cactus league play when the boys of summer came to town for spring training.
When I was a freshman in high school, my dad informed me that we were going to move to Minnesota because of his job. To make a long story short, he spent the following year in an apartment away from his family because he is a man’s man and I was a snot-nosed brat who
couldn’t bear to spend a year away from his beloved Valley of the Sun. Anyway, in the summer of my sophomore year, I flew out there to spend some time with him and catch some ballgames. So the kid from Arizona watched his first major league baseball game at the Metrodome and saw the Twins get trounced by the Indians and Albert Belle’s two bombs. However, the real reason for this look in to my teenage years is the day after, when we flew to Chicago to see the Cubs play at Wrigley. Like many people who watched WGN when they were growing up, the Cubbies were my favorite team even though I had never stepped foot in Chicago or even the American Midwest for that matter. Hey, it was either them or the Braves over on TBS, but the Cubs win out every time solely because Harry Caray botched Take Me Out To The Ballgame every freakin’ day (Take me out to the awwwl game…).
So my heroes growing up were the likes of Mark Grace, Andre “the Hawk” Dawson, Shawon “Riflearm” Dunston, and my mostest favorite player of all time, Ryne Sandberg. I gotta tell you I was literally a kid in a candy store when we finally arrived at Clark and Addison and finally saw
the big red sign with my own eyes. Pure magnificence. We walked up to the ticket booth, acquired two box seats and walked in. The first order of business for a man the size of my dad is food of course. I had a slice of sausage pizza and he had a Philly cheesesteak. It took less than a bite for us to agree that the Wrigley Field kitchen is directly linked to Heaven. Our seats were down the third base line, about even with the bag and maybe 10 rows back (I wish I had the ticket stub, which I still have, with me so I knew exactly where). Ryno and Gracie were both in the Cubs lineup for the day so I was immediately satisfied, but what made this particular game even more rad was the fact that the Cardinals were in town and it was Ozzie Smith’s last year so he was on his retirement tour. Lucky for me, he was actually in the lineup that day (if you remember, the Wizard didn’t get much playing time that year and it’s still such a point of contention that he still refuses to join the Cardinals coaching staff until La Russa leaves the 
ballclub).
Lately I’ve been going to a lot of games at Fenway Park because I’m getting ready to move away from Boston. Fenway is widely regarded as the best place to watch a ballgame. I disagree. Fenway is the second best place to watch a ballgame, Wrigley being number one. I was amazed at how small the field looked compared to my afternoon WGN viewings. What also makes a Wrigley game a very pleasurable experience is that not only are the fans in to the game the whole way through, but they actually seem to like their players even when they don’t play very well (something you’re not gonna get used to with the Fenway faithful).
The Cubbies didn’t have much to offer that notable day, but Smith was masterful in the field and Turk Wendell hit me in the head with a piece of Dubble Bubble. After the game, Dad and I rode the L back to the airport and flew back to the Mini Apple. But that day is highly regarded in my 26-year history as one of the best days of my life, and I do think about it often because I haven’t had many others like it.
When I was a freshman in high school, my dad informed me that we were going to move to Minnesota because of his job. To make a long story short, he spent the following year in an apartment away from his family because he is a man’s man and I was a snot-nosed brat who
couldn’t bear to spend a year away from his beloved Valley of the Sun. Anyway, in the summer of my sophomore year, I flew out there to spend some time with him and catch some ballgames. So the kid from Arizona watched his first major league baseball game at the Metrodome and saw the Twins get trounced by the Indians and Albert Belle’s two bombs. However, the real reason for this look in to my teenage years is the day after, when we flew to Chicago to see the Cubs play at Wrigley. Like many people who watched WGN when they were growing up, the Cubbies were my favorite team even though I had never stepped foot in Chicago or even the American Midwest for that matter. Hey, it was either them or the Braves over on TBS, but the Cubs win out every time solely because Harry Caray botched Take Me Out To The Ballgame every freakin’ day (Take me out to the awwwl game…).So my heroes growing up were the likes of Mark Grace, Andre “the Hawk” Dawson, Shawon “Riflearm” Dunston, and my mostest favorite player of all time, Ryne Sandberg. I gotta tell you I was literally a kid in a candy store when we finally arrived at Clark and Addison and finally saw
the big red sign with my own eyes. Pure magnificence. We walked up to the ticket booth, acquired two box seats and walked in. The first order of business for a man the size of my dad is food of course. I had a slice of sausage pizza and he had a Philly cheesesteak. It took less than a bite for us to agree that the Wrigley Field kitchen is directly linked to Heaven. Our seats were down the third base line, about even with the bag and maybe 10 rows back (I wish I had the ticket stub, which I still have, with me so I knew exactly where). Ryno and Gracie were both in the Cubs lineup for the day so I was immediately satisfied, but what made this particular game even more rad was the fact that the Cardinals were in town and it was Ozzie Smith’s last year so he was on his retirement tour. Lucky for me, he was actually in the lineup that day (if you remember, the Wizard didn’t get much playing time that year and it’s still such a point of contention that he still refuses to join the Cardinals coaching staff until La Russa leaves the 
ballclub).Lately I’ve been going to a lot of games at Fenway Park because I’m getting ready to move away from Boston. Fenway is widely regarded as the best place to watch a ballgame. I disagree. Fenway is the second best place to watch a ballgame, Wrigley being number one. I was amazed at how small the field looked compared to my afternoon WGN viewings. What also makes a Wrigley game a very pleasurable experience is that not only are the fans in to the game the whole way through, but they actually seem to like their players even when they don’t play very well (something you’re not gonna get used to with the Fenway faithful).
The Cubbies didn’t have much to offer that notable day, but Smith was masterful in the field and Turk Wendell hit me in the head with a piece of Dubble Bubble. After the game, Dad and I rode the L back to the airport and flew back to the Mini Apple. But that day is highly regarded in my 26-year history as one of the best days of my life, and I do think about it often because I haven’t had many others like it.
