Take Me Out to the Ballgame

I was speaking with a friend of mine today when something he said made me realize there was only one thing I could write about tonight. We were discussing upcoming plans for a trip I am making back to Chicago where I was based for eight years while working for the “firm.” Being based there did not mean much as all but one of my clients was out of town, and the one that was in town was my first client. What this means is that I was traveling somewhere every week for seven and a half years. The travel is actually the part of the job I enjoyed the most, one hundred plus flights a year, not remembering where you were at times, especially when you wake up in a hotel room that looks a lot like the hotel room of where you were in the city you just left, yes that is the part I liked.

Being based in Chicago meant being able to be there on weekends when you wanted to be there, and going to Cubs games with friends, co-workers, strangers, just to be in Wrigley. My first trip to Chicago was for the on-site “interview,” where you basically had to steal money from the person interviewing you to not get hired. The hiring process was so regimented that by the time the firm flew you somewhere to be interviewed it was more an opportunity for you to interview the firm about the job, the place, the people, and to find an apartment, see the city, decide if this is where you wanted to be - I wanted to be in Chicago.

I am a Cubs’ fan, and I have been a Cubs fan for a much longer period of time than I can remember. Having moved to Chicago from Northern New England, I am also a Red Sox fan, and have been for the past twenty four years, and so moving to Chicago and living four blocks from Wrigley field was amazing. Actually, when I was in town, all of my running routes had me passing Wrigley at some point in the run because it is such a beautiful and historic place, not historic necessarily like Gettysburg, or Philadelphia, or even Boston, but historic exactly like Fenway. The other part of being a Cubs and Red Sox fan is that at the time I was in Chicago both clubs still had their respective curses. The Cubbies, of course, still do.

So my friend and I were talking this morning, morning my time afternoon his, and we are discussing plans for the trip out there, a trip I moved up a few days so I could be there for the weekend of his son’s birthday, two days before mine, and his birthday party is on the Saturday I fly in. I called today to find out the details of Saturday, and also in the back of my mind I was hoping that maybe there would be a baseball game scheduled in there somewhere. So we are on the phone catching up, and I am telling him my travel plans, and he is talking about his son, and he says “too bad you won’t be here for Saturday because we are going to the game.” Of course when I hear this my ears perk up and I say “I will be there for Saturday because I changed my flight when you told me to be there for the weekend,” and his response was “no I mean this Saturday.” I was crushed.

Part of this is because we are a somewhat like Abbott and Costello. He has a bit of a problem hearing everything I say sometimes, or anyone for that matter, when he is focusing on something else, and he was calling from his office. I can see his wife reading this tomorrow and beaming because she agrees with me on this point. Much of our conversation today was a bit of “who’s on first? I don’t know. Third base.”

Anyway, so eventually we got to where I had pulled up the Cubs schedule on my computer to see if they were playing when I am there, and they are, so we decided to try and see a game the day after the birthday party, Sunday, and take his kids. This is where the decision to write this piece tonight comes in. His son, born in Chicago, raised on the North Side of Chicago, for the most part, living in the suburbs of Chicago now, and having been given a Cubs hat, by me, upon birth, is not a Cubs fan!! Not a Cubs fan?? Yes, I said not a Cubs fan!@!?*?

The amazing thing about this is that not only is he not a Cubs fan, but he is a White Sox fan!!??

That definitely deserved its own line. So, if you live in Chicago you are either a Cubs fan, or a White Sox fan, but never both. You are a Bulls fan, maybe now, definitely then, thank you Michael, you are a Blackhawks fan, still, and you are a Bears fan because they are, Da Bears, but you have to pick a baseball team. This is where it gets tricky (read dripping sarcasm), if you grew up north of Wacker Drive you are a Cubs fan, if you grew up south of Wacker Drive you are a White Sox fan. There is also a blue collar, white collar thing so it gets a little bit fuzzy, but for the most part north is Cubs, south is White Sox, and to make it even simpler, the “New” Comisky is roughly the same distance south of Wacker as Wrigley is north of Wacker. I did not make the rules here, but it is about as simple as simple can be, and yet the kid is a White Sox fan. That is almost as bad as growing up in New England, especially Northern New England and being a Yankees fan!!


Thank you again for getting this far with me.