Outside Oberlin

Wrigley and Chicago Show the True Baseball Experience

by Zach Pretzer and Ian Haynes

As my two teammates, who for the sake of privacy we’ll call Eight and Mr. Chicago, strolled onto the lawn of our friend, who we’ll call The Dude, on Sunday at 3 a.m., The Dude and I were already getting into the car and preparing for our voyage to the Windy City and an afternoon baseball game at Wrigley Field. Eight jumped off of his newly acquired bike and stumbled to the car while Mr. Chicago uneventfully jumped in the rear seat in The Dude’s Ford Focus, and from there, while all the Obies in Obie-land languidly walked back to their dorms after a night of drunken fun, our journey began.
After being awake for roughly 21 hours apiece, the four of us encountered the first significant happening of our trip when along the Indiana Turnpike our Focus was almost demolished by some animal that closely resembled a wooly mammoth or sloth. The Dude quickly maneuvered out of the way of the death-ridden beast, and after counting our blessings we cruised into a roadside Dunkin’ Donuts at about 6 a.m. and took pictures with the workers to take home for our coach, who is widely regarded as a prominent connoisseur of fine pastry products. The employees of Dunkin’ Donuts didn’t seem too happy standing next to Eight and Mr. Chicago, who reeked from their over-consumption and stripper yuck from the bachelor party of the night before, but nonetheless the photo opportunity was seized and our travels to the Windy City carried on.
Following a few more near-death experiences with giant turnpike beasts (you’d be surprised how many animals wish to end their lives prematurely before the sun rises), The Dude finally led our car off of Route 80 into Chicago and soon we could see the Sears Tower and F.A.O. Schwarz in the distance. Well, perhaps we couldn’t quite see the immense toy store yet but it was nevertheless already in all of our minds, although thoughts of giant pizzas and bleacher seats at Wrigley Field certainly paid visits to our heads as well. It should at this point be noted that there is a distinct reason Mr. Chicago has earned his pseudonym for this article. A native of Naperville (which is only about 25 miles outside the city of wind and good pizza), Mr. Chicago knew absolutely nothing about the city, other than how to get to Wrigley Field. As a lover of the game of baseball, I can truly appreciate that. However, since we arrived in the city nearly five hours before game time, which was 1:20 p.m., our sleep-deprived yet strangely wide-awake quartet needed to know how to reach other places of fun and intrigue than just Wrigley Field. After Mr. Chicago caused us to become lost in the ghettos of the South Side of Chicago for a while, we finally arrived in a nice part of town that oddly resembled Oberlin — it was perhaps even more diversely interesting. Thus, we were content in parking in an area of familiarity and headed out for a view of Wrigley Field, perhaps one of the most heavenly and welcoming ballparks in all the land. The ticket office didn’t open for several more hours, so being satisfied with a temporary visit to the home of the Chicago Cubs we decided to hit up the El (elevated train) to embark on a trip to the infamous toy store of the big city, F.A.O. Schwarz. I was personally almost as excited to play around in the toy store as I was to attend the Cubs game, but before my excitement could be justified the four of us became aware of a peculiar detail about stores on Sundays throughout the country, not just in Chicago: they’re not open for very long, and certainly not open early. It’s amazing what extremely important facts can be ignored when living in the little bubble we like to call Oberlin for any extended period of time. Nonetheless, we soon realized that we had four and a half-hours to kill and really nothing to do and became slightly angered at The Dude for suggesting we leave Oberlin at 3 a.m. so we could “enjoy the city a little bit before the game,” but we would later appreciate his idea as it added all the more to the making of a quality road trip.
At this point, we had really no idea what to do with ourselves, and we were hardly waiting on the advice of Mr. Chicago to suggest a great place to visit. Instead, we decided to stroll around the area for a while, and after walking past about eight Starbucks Coffee Houses, we came upon another Dunkin’ Donuts. Naturally, we snapped another picture to bring back to our coach, and soon after The Dude busted some excellent words of wisdom. He knew of a great mall, “The Water Tower Place,” to kill some time at, and it was near the toy store which we were waiting on to open. By now, it was 10 a.m., and it wasn’t long after we arrived in the mall that we came to the disturbing realization that absolutely nothing in the city of Chicago is open on Sunday mornings. After playing around in the glass see-through elevators and purchasing miniscule cups of lemonade for $2.50 with an apparent 100 percent sales tax, we left the once hope-filled mall, and returned to our original source of entertainment, F.A.O. Schwarz.
Well, it was one thing that the damn toy store wasn’t open early, but apparently they didn’t even have hours posted on the door. In hopes that the store would soon open, we visited the neighboring Borders and killed a little more time, and returned to the “world of toys” around 11 a.m. in anticipation that they would finally be open. Despite all of our hopes and dreams, the bastards were still closed, and it finally dawned on us that they actually made up their hours at their own convenience. For the time being, we lost our patience with the gaming heaven and turned our thoughts to a more immediate subject of urgency: Chicago-style deep-dish pizza. The thought of it now almost makes me drool on the keyboard as I write.
The renowned pizza parlor, Giordanno’s Pizza, was our destination, but firstly we had to locate it. The Dude, a native of Wyoming and subsequently a fine-tuned outdoorsman, suggested we head in one direction and continue to do so, so we did. Along the way, our tetrad of road trippers for some reason or another became aware of the need to visit the bathroom — after all, we had now been awake for 30 hours and had been so excited about the thoughts of actually venturing out of O-town that peeing had been completely secondary until then.
The first place that came to mind as a good place to use the bathroom was a hotel that was across the street. The Sheridan, probably the second-best hotel in Chicago, looked promising as a place to relinquish the pressure on our bladders that we had recently discovered. The Dude asked the bellhop if we could use the bathroom, and after taking a long look at us, he kindly responded, “We don’t have any bathrooms.” We were baffled by this response, and were near the point of asking him, “Well then Mr. Bellhop, where do your residents use the bathroom?” Instead, we accepted our denial and entered the doors right next to the Sheridan, those of the Four Seasons Hotel. We first asked their bellhop if they just had a bathroom, and he looked at us rather confusedly and told us that they were on the seventh floor.
So we finally paid a visit to the bathroom, but we couldn’t have possibly known that our newest of troubles was only right around the corner, literally. As we left the bathroom, which by the way was the most ridiculously lavish bathroom I have ever laid my eyes upon, we turned the corner and entered the elevator to go back down to the first floor. Unfortunately for us, the elevator only had really big floor numbers ranging from seven to 35 or something, and we unaware that we had to take another elevator on the other side of the floor to get back down to ground level. So, we walked around a little in what was possibly the most beautiful hotel ever known to man or woman, took our picture in front of some really expensive things that we had no right to be in the same room with, and were finally instructed about a half-hour later by a few people where the correct elevator was located. We realized it was too good to be true — certainly the only reason the bellhop let our asses into the Four Seasons was because he knew we would never make it out.

We left the Four Seasons and then noticed that we were underneath some absurdly tall buildings, so we stared up at them as the clouds passed by. It was at this point that not only did we realize we were extremely dizzy and once again lost, but we were complete hicks, hardly different from Crocodile Dundee visiting New York City. We finally made it to Giordanno’s, noticing only as we arrived that it was basically across the street from the Borders we visited an hour ago. Eh, one block east, ten blocks west, what’s the difference. After eating the tastiest pizza of our lives, we finally ventured back onto the El and made it to the original reason for our entire trip, the beloved Wrigley Field.
We gave away an extra ticket to a little kid whose dad was attempting to purchase an extra bleacher seat, and failed to give away the other ticket as we couldn’t find a suitable girl to attempt to hook up with Mr. Chicago. As we waited in line to enter Wrigley, it didn’t take long for us to become mindful of the fact that Chicago Cubs fans are completely senile. An example of this can be demonstrated in a random fan we met, whom we’ll call Ty Cobb. He came up to the four of us, who were wearing baseball jerseys, and asked us if we played football. We told him that we actually played baseball, and his eyes lit up as if he had known us forever. Ty Cobb told us that he once batted .419 in the “national tournament.” Whatever the hell the national tournament was we may never know, but we did attempt to ask him, “What national tournament,” and he replied, “Oh, the big one.” This guy was perhaps the biggest burnout anyone has ever laid eyes upon, but he proceeded to tell Eight that he’s 40 years old and he could probably bat twice as good as him.
We approached the front of the line and Mr. Chicago was told he couldn’t take his book bag into the stadium, so he had to walk clear across the other side of the stadium to check his bag. Naturally, we couldn’t wait any longer to enter the stadium so we left Mr. Chicago behind and found our seats in the center-field bleachers. It was at this point that the biggest disappointment of the trip occurred: the three signs we made in hopes of making an appearance on the Chicago television station, WGN, were completely useless.
The first sign we made, and the one which we were most proud of, said “Hey Arne, pick up our tab!” Arne was the Cub’s cameraman for WGN, and we was famous for never picking up the tab when going out with friends and Cubs associates. As we proudly raised our sign which we thought to be clever, the public address announcer came on the microphone and told everyone in the stadium to bow their heads in a moment of silence for Arne, who had devoted 35 years of service the Chicago Cubs. We now looked like complete idiots and felt pretty bad, but were still mad the guy had to die on us the day we make it to Wrigley. Our second sign stated, “We drove all the way from Cleveland to escape the DH,” but no one understood it, and a few people actually asked us what it meant. The third sign was about Cubs’ first baseman Fred McGriff, but he didn’t even play in the game.
For most of the game, we were rather unaware of what was happening on the field as the antics of the fans in the bleachers were much more interesting (whomever is really a Cubs fan must really be a true fan), and Mr. Chicago located us a few innings into the game. We had our picture taken with a devout and famous Cubs fan, nicknamed “Ronnie Woo-Woo.” This nut dressed in full Cubs attire, with a complete uniform and everything, and the entire game he yelled, “Cubs, woo! Cubs, woo!” He became a little annoying after awhile, but was nonetheless really entertaining.
As for the game itself, the Cubs lost, as usual, and Sammy Sosa hit his 64th home run into the left field bleachers. The funniest thing about Sosa’s home run was that after he hit it in the eighth-inning, the Cubs moved within one run of the Pittsburgh Pirates heading into the ninth. However, a majority of the Cubs fans had already left, knowing the fate that was in store for them. After all, it’s been that way for almost a century.
On our way out of the ballpark, we ran into Ty Cobb again, and he told us how he stole an autographed ball that Sammy Sosa had thrown into the bleachers from a little kid, and had proceeded to sell it back to the kid’s father for $50. It’s touching moments like these that almost make you cry for the sharing nature of Chicago Cubs fans. As the bleacher t-shirts say, “Wrigley Field bleachers — shut up and drink your beer.”
We made it back to our car, and then we gunned it to the heart of downtown Chicago in hopes that F.A.O. Schwarz, the second most important part of our trip, was still open. As it turned it out, we made to the toy store with an hour still to spare, and we indulged ourselves in three wondrous floors of remote control cars, karaoke machine and giant Lego fun. Before our hour was up, we had played with virtually every toy in the store (Mr. Chicago even ventured to the Barbie collection on the first floor) and purchased a “Hum V Base Control 500” walkie talkie set that cost $10.00 and $39.99 after tax.
The ride home was a long one, considering Mr. Chicago got us lost again for over an hour on the South Side, but quotes from the movie The Big Lebowsky from The Dude and remembrances of the trip we had just taken made it possible to extend our sleepless streak until we arrived in good old, sweet Oberlin, Ohio. As The Dude dropped us off in front of North, we told him to take it easy, and to that, he replied, “The Dude abides.”