A Win at Wrigley
It’s been a fantastic summer. Fun trips, boating, and time spent with friends. There is still a lot more fun to come even though school starts in a few short days, but one of my favorite outings was just this past week as we took a family trip to Wrigley Field to watch our favorite team the Chicago Cubs.
Last February we decided we would make a trip to Chicago since Gabe would be home for his friend Zach’s wedding. We bought seven tickets in the hopes that the whole family could come. As it turned out just Rick and I, Abbi, Gabe and girlfriend Courtney were available, so we called Abbi’s friends Becca and Gina that live in Chicago to meet us there.
We left on Tuesday afternoon for our Wednesday game and planned a stop in LeClaire, Iowa before spending the night in Clinton at the Wild Rose Casino. In LeClaire we treated ourselves to a wine tasting at Wide River Winery and then met our sweet Kristen at the Blue Iguana for tropical margaritas! Yum!!
We then traveled the half hour to Clinton to have dinner at the Candlelight Inn Restaurant which sits right on the Mississippi. We had an outdoor table and it was a perfect evening!
Wednesday morning we took our time getting our Cubs gear and game faces on, but arrived in Wrigleyville about 1:30 and found a family favorite — Giordano’s Pizza for our lunch. Although parking is always a challenge we found a spot in a nearby parking garage and then found our way to Vines on Clark right across from the stadium. To make the game a little more interesting we all chose a player we thought would hit the first Cubs home run and agreed to put a dollar in a pool!
Of course we wanted to be in the stadium as early as possible so two hours before game time we started lining up for our bleacher seats. As we were getting in line, we could hear the cracks of the bat from the Cubs BP. A homerun ball came flying out onto Waveland and Becca, Abbi and some other poor sucker dove for it. As Becca tackled him, Abbi ended up with the ball! (She is confident it was off the bat of her favorite player Anthony Rizzo!)
We were able to watch the Angles as they had BP and since we were in the second row of right/center field there were quite a few balls hit our way. Abbi almost caught a second ball, but instead managed to take out the lady in front of her and knock the beer out of the lady’s hand. (But seriously, if you are sitting where she was, you should not be on your phone holding a beer and surprised if you get knocked over!)
The Cubs won the game — their 10th in a row, but we waited and waited for the first home run. Finally in their last at bat, my chosen player, Addison Russell, stepped to the plate and jacked one to deep left giving the Cubs their insurance run…..and…. I’m still waiting for my pool payout from everyone in my group.
