3 Baseball Games in 2 Days

I recently was able to attend 3 Chicago baseball games in 2 days.  The 2 Mets/Cubs games (bleacher) and then yesterday's White Sox/Yankees game (upper deck).  Here is the story of how I lost faith in all of humanity, I hope you enjoy...

Monday April 21st:

I work from home at my apartment in Albany Park (northwest neighborhood) on Monday's.  This allowed me to arrive at the stadium at a decent time for the 6pm ESPN game start time.  At 4:30 I hopped on my bike and arrived at the stadium and entered the bleachers around 5pm.  I decided to sit in "Fukudome Country" in right field, since I am a big fan and he is on my fantasy team.  I took in the Mets BP while drinking a cold beer and taking in some sunshine and impressing some high school kids with my upcoming baseball odyssey while waiting for my friend to arrive.

I don't think I need to impress upon anyone how electric the game was on Monday.  Lots of good baseball, and the fans in the right field bleachers were cheering for Fukudome every step of the way.  The only annoyance came from the amature high school kids behind me.  They asked me to buy them beer multiple times, but it seems that they had no troubles finding it elsewhere.  After the game I biked home and awaited my marathon baseball experience for Tuesday.

Tuesday April 22nd:

Beautiful day!  My roommate and I both rolled out of bed around 8am, got our lives in order and were out the door by 8:30am.  We biked to the ballpark again, grabbed some McDonalds breakfast, and stationed ourselves in line for the bleachers by 9:30am.  We were about 3 groups back from the front of the line.  After a few hours of mundaneness, the gates opened, and we entered the stadium.  A mad dash for front row seats ensued.  We positioned ourselves in right/center, pretty much right in between Fukudome and Pie.  A celebratory beer was in order, but unfortunately things went downhill from there.

I don't know what it was, but apparently it was a-hole day out in the bleachers yesterday.  The same electric energy from the night before was missing and replaced with large amounts of unnecessary drinking.  Right field was no longer "Fukudome Country", and turned into "I hate the Mets Country".

There was a singular Mets fan sitting right behind us.  He was a really nice guy.  Lived in DC, grew up a Mets fan in the Bronx.  Very polite, ignored the Mets hating banter, and simply cheered for his team.  Unfortunately the other people sitting around us didn't feel the same way.  When the Cubs went up 3-0 early in the game, he made the mistake of thinking that the score was only 2-0, and said "it's OK, it's only 2".  After that, the phrase "it's only 2" was repeated about 1,000 times in the next 2 hours.  About 987 of those came from A Woman that Shall Not Be Named, who apparently grew up in NY and wanted everyone to know it as well.  Things basically started getting uglier and uglier.

Fast forward to the Ronny Cedeno grand slam. Pandemonium ensued, and AWTSNBN was taunting the Mets fan behind me and putting her sweaty disgusting limbs on my roommate, as if he was going to be taken down to her level of child-ness.  I turn around amongst the celebration, and I get smacked in the chest by a full beer,  obviously meant for the non-deserving Mets fan.  Obviously, I was furious.  Not only did I (a die hard, well mannered Cubs fan) deserve such treatment, but neither did this Mets fan.  In fact, I don't believe that any individual under and circumstances deserves to have beer thrown on them, but then again, that's my personal opinion.  I turned in my rage to the security guard sitting 2 feet from me all game and said "are you going to do something about this?", while pointing to my beer-doused torso.  "I didn't see who threw it" he said.  That was enough.  My roommate and I left almost immediately.  Luckily it was 'free tshirt day' at the ballpark, so I had a replacement for my bike ride home.

After I biked home, showered, re-dressed, and walked my dog, I was on the train and headed to The Cell for the White Sox Game.

I met up with another one of my friends and tailgated with some of his co-workers outside of the stadium.  Free encased meats are always welcome in my world.  We entered the monstrosity of a ballpark with the idea that we would have a nice relaxing evening at the ballpark.

Because Wang was pitching for the Yankees, there were a large amount of Taiwanese fans enjoying the game and flying their native flag.  It was a great atmosphere and a relaxing spring night until The Couple that Shall Not Be Named showed up.  By this, I mean a ridiculously drunken young Sox fan couple that positioned themselves in the row between myself and my friends and a group of 9 or 10 Asian American Yankee fans.

For the next 20 minutes the female portion of TCTSNBN proceeded to yell the most ignorant and obscene things right into the ears of the Yankee fans sitting right in front of them.  "F**K the Yankees", "GO SOX", "F**K Wang", "I'm trashed!", "WOOOOOOOOHOOO!", "Do you think they can hear me?", etc, etc, etc.  Next thing you know, TCTSNBN began fighting because of the obvious embarrassment of the male portion of the dynamic duo. I swear that I saw him almost take a swing at her, it was that bad.  Luckily, the Sox park isn't the bleachers at Wrigley, so security intervened.  The pair from hell were banished to the outskirts of The Cell, where no one else was sitting.

Life was good again, we watched the rest of the game, and went home peacefully.

Overall, I can't really complain about the amazing day, the amazing baseball, and the chance to be with my friends.  But on the other hand, I seriously think I lost a little bit of respect for the rest of humanity in the meantime.