May 31, 2021: Special Days

I’ll never take for granted the special times that I spend with my son… Every minute is special, and that’s no BS. I understand that there may come a time when he may think it’s not so cool to hang out with his dad… But for now, as long as he’s up for it, I’m up for it… always. On Memorial Day 2021, one of these special days was spent in a special place: Wrigley Field. What, a, fricking, game!

This was our 2nd visit to the cathedral since the return from the pandemic. The first one was a loss to the Brewers in extra innings. Normally, that would suck, and don’t get me wrong, every Cubs loss sucks, but just to be back, in the house, made up for it. This second time around would be different; we were gunning for that W. It was against the Padres, a hated team from my youth. However, nowadays, my son’s favorite non-Cubs player wears that ugly uniform. Yes, Fernando Tatis Jr… can’t blame him; he is pretty damn good. My sister’s family bought him a Tatis t-shirt for Christmas (I would not allow another team’s jersey, but a t-shirt… OK… I guess). He wanted to wear it to the game; I told him as long as he had his Cubs hat on… and because it wasn’t that hot yesterday, his Cubs jersey over it… haha. He wanted to wear his Banks jersey, but it’s still a bit too big for him; I told him he should be wearing one that he may not be able to wear that much longer. He asked if the Lester one was OK; I said of course… he won a World Series with the Cubs… he’s always OK. So we were locked and loaded… my wife dropped us off and we headed towards Wrigley.

We didn’t bring our gloves the first time… wasn’t sure if playing catch outside Wrigley was allowed due to the new rules, but since then, I saw kids playing outside; this time, we were ready. He wanted to go out immediately to play catch, but we know that you can’t go until the game starts. I told him let’s watch the first inning, see Tatis bat, and then go… that’s exactly what we did. Lucky for us, we had the whole field to ourselves; he was loving it. I didn’t mind… of course I’d rather be in our seats watching the game, but to have the big screen right in front of us, right outside Wrigley, still hearing the crowd, seeing my son run around like a gazelle fielding fly balls… I was good. Someone else noticed too, and came up to me, asking how old he was, and where we were playing baseball… more to come on that… maybe. We stood out there until the 5th inning… haha. Yeah, so a lot of the early action we saw on the big screen; we were still cheering. The Baez no doubter, the behind the back catch, Wisdom’s first. We finally headed back into the stadium, but of course, he wanted to go to the store; we saw KB’s blast and Will Myers beer shower on the store TV. Again, all good; my son picked out a cow with a Cubs jersey on that said “Holy Cow”…

OK, back to our seats, but wait… we have to eat now. I thought the mobile ordering worked differently, like, when I placed the order, I could just walk up and pick it up. Well… there was still a line… a long line. This is where we saw the Tatis home run and Wisdom’s 2nd. OK, back to our seats, with our food, with 2 outs in the top of the 7th; perfect timing. Yes, we sang the stretch with everybody else in our seats; my favorite part of the game with my son. Then to top it off, Baez went deep again… we started chanting Javy, Javy, Javy… and he came out to give us a nod. Then came the MVP chants for Patrick Wisdom, looking for his 3rd of the game… haha… he struck out looking.

In the bottom of the 8th, we hoped to continue on a little tradition of ours; head to the bleachers for the end of the game. We waved to the Cubs bullpen on the way, before seeing a sign that clearly said no admittance without bleacher tickets. We played it cool, and walked right past the security guard; we made it! In the bleachers for the last 3 outs… I had to explain to my son what a cup snake was… The bleachers are a different type of animal. I think my son is going to like sitting out there when he gets older. Tommy Nance closed it out, and the W flags were out. We sang the first verse of the song, and we were out. One last thing… as we walked down Waveland past the t-shirt stands, a guy was yelling $10 hats, $10 shirts. My son had seen an El Mago shirt he liked earlier in the game; they had it. I got it. He immediately put it on over his Tatis shirt. Yeah, it was a pretty damn good day if I must say so myself.

There have been many games before, and I hope there will be many more after, but this one will definitely be remembered. My son couldn’t stop talking about the game with Mom after she picked us up. From all the different Cubs jerseys we saw to the idiot kid wearing a Molina jersey, from the overrated chants when Manny Machado came up to bat to the cup snakes in the bleachers. He couldn’t wait to show her his new shirt; he said he wants to wear it every day. Life certainly has its ups and downs, but when people say it’s all worth it… THIS is one of those moments. It doesn’t get much better than this…