The Summer of George

The Cubs Game - 12 Rows Behind Home Plate

I've been hyping up this game for the past few weeks, ever since my pal Rick told me that we got hooked up with FREE Cub tickets just nine rows behind home plate. Unbelievable!

I'll start from the beginning.

I took the Addison bus all the way to Rick's place from the corner of Kimball and Addison, and after the driver dropped off the rest of the Cub revellers, he looked up at me in his mirror, raised his finger and said, "Hey! You going to the game, right?"

"Eventually," I replied. "For now, though, I'm going to Lake Shore." It was easily the most embarrasing moment I've ever had on public transportation.


This is where Rick lives, along Lake Shore Drive near Wrigleyville. His pad is on the 45th floor.



I took these pictures from his personal balcony. It's really unbelievable up there. You can see Wrigley Field, and even probably get somewhat of a hint as to what's going on if you paid close enough attention. I tried to get a shot of Matt Fast's building from up there, but it was just too far away.



The party started at Rick's place at around 11am. Rick's in the top picture. He looks intense, I know. I cannot believe he was able to hook us up with such amazing seats at a Cubs game. Vive le Rick! Bill's with me in the second picture. His wife bought him that outfit from WalMart for Father's Day. In real life he's a White Sox fan, but he put all that aside for the day and rooted for the Cubs. "I'm a Chicago fan," he claims. Nice guy, that Bill.



This shot was taken from our seats. I was sitting down. I didn't have to move a little closer. I didn't have to hold the camera up high. This was it. It is amazing how close we were. We could see all of the movement on Zambrano's pitches. I could tell, right off, that Pierre was going to steal three bases every time he took a little step off of first base.


We all thought the seats and the game totally ruled!


I kid you not, Bill had a money clip at the end of the long afternoon holding one single, solitary five dollar bill. That's the kind of day we had. It ruled. We had pizza at a bar afterwards. I called Annie and (amazingly) convinced her to come pick me up at Rick's place. Totally awesome.

I apologize for any incoherentness evident in this post. Like I said, it was an great day.

posted by The Nightmare @ 11:42 PM