My first REAL MLB experience

A few weeks ago Ryan took me to Chicago for a baseball game. This was no ordinary baseball game. This game had meaning and was vital to the survival to either half of the city of Chicago (North or South). The White Sox were playing the Cubs at U.S. Cellular Field (the White Sox's home field).

Being from the South, baseball is not a huge ordeal to me. Football is king. More specifically, college football is king. So I had no real expectations of the day because quite frankly, I didn't give a crap about who was playing whom!! Baseball to me represents my dad watching a game on t.v. and falling asleep by the third inning. Usually then I would have to pull a mission impossible in trying to pry the remote control from his sleeping grip without waking him so I could watch what I wanted. This would only work about 30% of the time. Usually he would wake up mid-mission. "What are you doing?" he would ask me hovering over him. "Uhhhhhh..." was usually my response.


Believe it or not I have been to a major league baseball game. A few actually. When I was 11, my family was up in New England visiting my grandad and my dad's brothers and sister. One day we went to Fenway and watched a game. I remember watching it but only in small increments between bathroom visits, a couple trips to the souvenir stand, nachos, hot dogs, a coke or two, and the inevitable ice cream in a helmet!!! Priorities are priorities. Recently I have been to a Braves game, Angels game, and a Cubs game (Ryan didnt talk to me for a while after that). But that's it. Four games in my whole life. I think those games collectively I watched a full 4 innings of play (for the aforementioned reasons). Baseball doesnt really hold my attention.


So I planned on more of the same for this game. "Maybe I'll get a cool t-shirt," I thought to myself. Ryan in the meantime was bursting with excitement. I mean he had the countdown and everything! In the two weeks leading up to the game he would break any silences we had with "Cubs-White Sox, honey!!! Cubs-White Sox!!!" GREEAAAATT. "I hope they have ice cream in those miniture helmets!" I would retort. Again...priorities.


The day of the game we drove up from Indianapolis and made our way through Chicago's Dan-Ryan labyrinth of traffic with little to no major delays. As we off the exit I realized this was something a little bigger than what I expected. Cops were at every intersection directing traffic. Scores of people were walking with families and friends in the same direction! But what really set it off for me was seeing the token painted up guy with "Go Sox" on his chest.

"But...but...this is baseball?!" I thought.


We pulled into a parking lot next to the stadium and it was practically full. We got one of the last four parking spots in that lot and we still had 2 hours before the game started!!!! People were tailgating with giant grills, lots of coolers, beer, dogs, brauts, and all kinds of sides! This was serious tailgating!! Corn hole games were set up all over and every few feet you could hear trash talking between a couple drunk fans!!!! Tears began to well up in my eyes and I broke out into a huge grin!!! Floods of memories from my days at Auburn and Georgia came back and I breathed a sigh of relief. I felt like I had finally come home!!!


Ryan and I started running around like school kids. I started looking for t-shirts at the stands set up outside of the stadium and we stopped to listen and dance like idiots infront of the stages set up outside with live music playing. Ryan took me to the spot where Comiskey field stood until 1990 when it was torn down. It's located in on of the parking lots adjacent to the new field. Thousands of cars where piled in this area except for one spot. Home plate. There is a marker there with batter's box and the two foul lines spreading out to mark where this historic field stood for so long.






In reference to my hometown of Birmingham, AL. When this field was torn down, Rickwood Field in Birmingham became the oldest stadium in the country where professional baseball was played.







Here we are on the site of Comiskey Park. It was pretty cool to think we were standing where so much sport history occured.








When we got into the stadium, we trekked up to level 500 (yep, the nosebleeds), but they were actually really good seats. You could look down and see...everything. You could make out Ozzie Guillen in the dugout and see clear into the bull pens at the back of the field. The feeling of the game was so cool that I didnt mind the fact that I needed an oxygen mask and could wave to people in airplanes as they passed by me. The section we were in was a healthy mix of Sox and Cubs fans. When we sat down it was like a referee saying, "Let the trash talk begin!!" It didnt end until we left the ballpark. It was all in good fun.





It was a pretty exciting game for a while. For those of you like me and dont follow baseball, let me fill you in on one fact: both teams suck this year. The White Sox especially. They got swept on their field (a first in their rivalry history) that weekend. The Cubs have a long history of disappointment but actually have come back and are now holding at .500(ish) which is pretty good (I mean bad...for the White Sox). At one point in the game the Sox were down by 2 runs and the Cubs were at bat when one of the batters hit the ball to left field while two runners were on 1st and 2nd base. Well, not to draw it out there was a pickle on both players (Both players at one point got caught between two Sox players as they tossed the ball back and forth to each other to get the runner out)!!! Believe it or not. But the umpire called obstruction on the Sox short stop and allowed a run in to score because of it. Well, Ozzie Guillen comes out of the dugout and is talking to the umps and I guess he said something he shouldnt of cuz after about 5 minutes he got tossed out of the game. So, he walks calmly off the field and the Sox fans are good and angry at this point.

By the end of the seventh inning I had a count of 6 Sox fans getting escorted from the ball park because they were really getting pissed off and the Cubs fans were talking some serious trash. I was really enjoying myself!! However, I also realized that on top of that I had been watching the whole game!! I wasnt just watching it...I was in to it. What?! I'm from the South! What's baseball?! There is no other rivalry that can matcht the awesome power of Auburn and Alabama!!!!!! All of this is running through my head and that is when I lost control and shouted (yes...shouted) "WAR EAGLE!" Everyone atleast 6 six rows in front and behind me stopped and stared at me. Ryan stopped eating his hot dog in mid bite. I think my face hit a new shade of red that day.


Besides that little episode of pure humiliation I had a blast. Its nice to know there is something in the Midwest that can capture so much energy like that rivalry game. I think I'm gonna like it here after all!