Waiting for the Cubs

First, what the heck were Admin and Son of Admin doing in these seats?

Total face value:  $100.80.  How’d we snag these tickets? By the way, what’s up with the prominent Toyota piece of crud in the photo on the ticket? Part of their deal with the Cubs? Looks like it’s the Toyota Cubs instead of the Chicago Cubs. More on that later.

We met before the game for some dinner at a favorite spot — Sheffield’s.

I had a perfectly delicious, homemade sausage with peppers, plus baked beans, while Son of Admin worked his iPhone to find something at a reasonable price. He doesn’t just have a guy, he’s got, like, 6 guys. “No way we’re paying face value tonight,” he said. A sign of the horrible no-show problem the Cubs have for less-than-marquee games.

We met three of his guys at the corner of Addison and Sheffield. Fists full of tickets were fanned before our eyes!

One guy says, “I can give you these 200’s, row 4, no obstructed view, and I’ll GIVE them to you. As in FREE. Or, I got these 16’s where you can sit with the Ricketts for $40 each.

Now, Admin and Wife of Admin had just turned down similar seats from Tom Ricketts himself (see previous blog)! Why would I want these tonight? Especially when FREE seemed like a good price.

Because Son of Admin was popping for them, that’s why. Woo hoo! Plus, it wasn’t a sellout so SRO wasn’t an option.

We passed Ron’s new statue …

… and headed in through Gate D. We ran into usher friends Tom …

… and Margaret …

… both of whom were amazed by our $100 tickets. They were used to seeing us way up at the top of 206, which, by the way, was a loooong way away from these seats. Our usual spot in standing room isn’t even visible below, somewhere in the dark void below the luxury boxes to the right.

But it was a fine night with a dramatic sky …

(photo by Son of Admin)

And we were close. How close were we? Check out Aramis Ramirez standing right in front of us as he prepares to hit one of his 5 hits for the game (3 singles, 2 doubles).

And we were so close that everybody in the section was holding up fancy phones taking pictures, just like us …

photo by Son of Admin

But what about the Governor? Down in those seats, Cub management seats, there was tons of schmoozing going on. Marketing guru Wally Hayward …

… sat two rows below us with a contingent of potential somethings … sponsors, like maybe the Toyota guys responsible for the abomination that stands above the left field bleachers (see photo on ticket above). Two other Cub marketing types arrived and spent their time with their backs to the game pitching something or other, neither of them seeing a single real baseball “pitch.” In fact, it looked dangerous. If a left-handed batter had hit a line drive foul ball in their direction, neither would have had a chance as the ball would have drilled either in the back of the head.

Son of Admin heard these words spoken by a Cub employee (I wrote them down on my scorecard at the time): ” … anything that will lead to the merging of our two brands together.” Scary. Something like the “Toyota Cubs”?

Then the guy in the white shirt arrived and the schmoozing intensified. Standing up and delivering hand shakes all around, during an inning! That’s when Admin and Son of Admin, with no rehearsal, screamed in perfect unison, “DOWN IN FRONT!!”

“Who is that guy?” I asked two fans in front of us.

“Governor Quinn.”

“Ha!” I replied, not exactly embarrassed by my ignorance due to a long-standing policy of ignoring all state political news, mostly because so many Illinois governors go from the State House to the “big house.” Not that Governor Quinn is headed in that direction.

Wally left early. Laura Ricketts was there and left early (I tried to get a photo of her but none came out well — my bad). But the Governor stayed until the bitter, very bitter (Braves 5, Cubs 4) end. Son of Admin escorted him from the section.

Somewhere along the way the Governor lost his glasses. That’s how it goes at the old ball yard!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 26th, 2011 at 9:41 pm and is filed under The View from SRO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.