August 5, 2019: Home is Where the Wins are

There’s no place like home… there’s no place like home.  Good God are the Cubs a different team at Wrigley Field.  I ask myself why.  I tell myself I don’t understand it.  I reference the fact that this Cubs team has always been good on the road.  Then I go back to Wrigley… I was there Friday; I was there Monday night.  Then I remember why.  I remember why Wrigley is such a home-field advantage for the Cubs.  It’s because of us, the fans.  Yeah, I’ll toot our horns for a minute.  You talk about an electric atmosphere… the day game against the Brewers was awesome, just awesome… but Wrigley at night… in the summer… in a pennant race… chills man, just chills.

I was back in the house with my boy on Monday night.  We went with another kid from his baseball team, and his dad, another coach for our team.  Just as any game at Wrigley, it was special; they’re all a little different, but they’re all pretty damn good.  We didn’t get there super early this time around.  We got there about 630.  We sat outside on the field, waiting to meet them.  They showed up about 10 minutes before game time, and of course, they had to play catch for a while before we went in; it’s all good.  That is, of course, what it’s all about.  Seeing these kids play… seeing my kid play… seeing their love of the game.  It’s one of the things that trumps this whole fan thing that we’re pretty damn good at.  That’s one of the reasons I picked THIS game to come to.  The Cubs were playing the Oakland A’s.  If you’ve been reading at all over the past couple months, you’ll know that the As are OUR team name this year.  The fact that Oakland visited Wrigley THIS year, the year we started being the As, was definitely fortunate.  THAT is the reason I told my son he could wear his As hat… along with his Cubs jersey of choice, which was Rizzo for this one.  Wearing the hat of YOUR team is always OK… just as long as that team isn’t the Cardinals.  One guy asked him why he was wearing it, and he told him; he gave him the pound, completely understanding.  Something funnier happened while we were waiting.

Clark was out there taking pictures; he’s the mascot of the Cubs, in case you haven’t been paying attention the last few years.  So we lined up to take a picture with him.  As Clark put his arm around my son, he put his big old Bear claw over his head… hiding the As logo.  I showed my son the picture afterwards, he was laughing.  That was good.  The game was better.

We were in and out later in the game too, playing more catch.  Playing catch at night was a first for them, I’m pretty sure; they were loving it, before they got in a wrestling match, both trying to catch the ball before the other one.  It’s all good.  As we walked back in Wrigley in the 8th inning, I thought it would be easy to find other seats, closer to the action.  We did, but there weren’t many.  And you know how we’ll start up cheers and chants here and there?  Well, at the end of this game, it was almost constant.  I’m telling you… the electricity in that place was off the charts.  The Cubs know how it feels; I’m sure the visiting teams feel it.  Yeah, THIS is the reason the Cubs are good at home… well, that and this roster is fricking loaded.  But yeah, on this Monday night… wow… just wow.  I have a feeling that it’s only going to get better from here.  I need to figure out the next game we’re going to… Go Cubs!