I grew up in a small town outside of Denver in the days before Colorado had major league baseball. The Denver Bears, our AAA-affiliate of the Montreal Expos, gave away free tickets to grade schoolers who got straight As and I remember watching Tim Raines, Tim Wallach and other soon-to-be-major-leaguers play. Even sharper in my memory is a big old Grizzly Adams type who sat across the aisle from us one game day and bellowed in response to a stadium beer ad: "Coors...Rocky Mountain PEE WATER!"
After the rumors when I was ten that the Oakland A's were moving to Denver proved false, it was time to pick a team to be my own. When he was that age, my dad became a New York Yankees fan, listening on the radio from his hometown along the Front Range as the Yankees won the World Series four consecutive seasons. He's since adopted the Rockies as his team but back then I rooted on the Yanks with him as we watched Reggie Jackson, Willie Randolph, Louisiana Lighting and the rest of the Bronx Zoo win it all. But they were in the Empire State, not the Rocky Mountain Empire. Back at home we still had no big league team.
But we did have WGN and so we had the Chicago Cubs. Many of my afternoons in 1984 were launched by Van Halen's "Jump," the music that opened Cubs broadcasts. I recall Mr. Campbell, a high school teacher with Cubs leanings, giving us an in-class assignment on a fall afternoon that year which accommodated our listening to the radio broadcast of the heartbreaker against the Padres in the NLCS. That year Harry Caray said, "Cubs win, Cubs win," and I said, I'm in!
Not long after, I came to the Chicago area for college. I was a Colorado kid and big Denver Bronco fan who arrived town in the wake of the football-playing Bears' 1985 title season. I held tightly to the Broncos like a lifeline to my homeland, gripping a connection to my roots and resisting the Bears and any other pro team from this new land. With one exception.
I spent a summer before college in Boston, soaking up the experience of Oil Can Boyd pitching at Fenway Park. So, the opportunity to hop on the "El" to Wrigley Field would not be missed. A freshman year outing saw me and a new mate step onto the wrong A/B train, one that didn't stop at Addison. We hopped off at Belmont, scrambled across the overhead bridge and leaped on a train headed back north. It took a few minutes and a big left-hand turn to realize we were on the Ravenswood line. We figured its Addison stop must be right by the park. The longer-than-expected walk through St. Andrew Canyon marked my first encounter with the parish and school which thirty years later would be a friendly confines for me and my family.
Many $6 bleacher seats, 49 homers by The Hawk, and one frigid opening day are part of my college era memories. Starkly among them is the scene of an, ahem, large couple who occupied more than their share of the bleachers one afternoon. A buddy of mine and I watched as the wife sent her husband for a resupply of snacks. We were stunned by the architectural marvel of a food pile with which he returned, only to fall off our seats when the matriarch rapidly inventoried his armfuls and blared, "where are my cheese fries, FATHEAD!"
Completing that era, I spent some time the summer after graduating from college waiting tables at a little restaurant which was tucked under the stands on the northwest corner of Addison and Sheffield. We served pre-game meals to patrons then caught a few innings in the bleachers before leaving to do it again after the game ended. It was a fun way to bide time in a tough job market with a few good tips, free baseball and, fortunately, no fatheads.
A number of years later, Mary and I moved to a condo a mile from the Friendly Confines. On the early evening of Tuesday, October 14, 2003, I went up on our roof and took a photo of Wrigley Field, hoping to document what would be a special day. As we all know, with five outs to go that day became not so special.
After buying a house up the street, we welcomed into the family some cubs of our own. Living a 10-minute bike ride from a major league park, it was a necessity that they see the Cubs every summer. I want them to have their own hometown team to root on just as their dad does.
And they do. Each year they have been on earth they have spent at least part of it watching the Cubs at Wrigley Field. That's twelve seasons for our eleven-year-old and six summers for our Kindergartener. We even made it to a road game against the Rockies this summer and watched the best team in the National League and the best sunset in baseball.
Now the World Series. When I was a bit younger than my oldest is now, the Broncos overcame a history of ineptitude to play in their first Super Bowl. I remember only the excitement of something that was a bit hard to believe and that had never before happened. I don't remember it as a game they lost but, rather, a magical experience we had.
So as we embark on the Cubs' Fall Classic, I hope it is precisely that for my kids and for all of us.
And if somehow I end up with a ticket and get seated next to you, please keep your beer comments to yourself.
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