my predictions

 

preston

this is the biggest cub game of my life.

all post season the cubs have won due to their pitchers and catchers.

both sides of the battery have smashed important home runs, hits, and sac flies.

tonight sorta catcher kyle schwarber, who i told you about way back when, is batting second and DHing

everyone expects him to be the power supply tonight and his numbers are the best in mlb post season history

but i expect willson contrares  to finally break out offensively

he’s already picked off a bunch dudes, but his bat has been silent

he’s a rookie, but he can rock.

i love that javy baez is batting last. he’s been the biggest disappointment and

joe is clearly challenging his machismo

i expect that challenge to be accepted.

my hope is the cubs score early and often.

pictured is the super talented Preston who i went to the Cubs game with Keira Anne and Miss 604 way back in august. he said he did something compulsive and got what looks to be front row tix for tonights game. lucky duck!

how am i supposed to go to sleep or do anything

riaders just win babymy mom and i watched the game tonight and it was fantastic. she thinks shes bad luck but Jesus tells us there aint no thing.

i say ma i thought you loved the Lord. she says i dont know nothin about birthin babies or the holy scripture.

im like well the good book says watch the game, enjoy it and good things will happen.

so we watched. and i tried not to be superstitious. but i did have the radio on synched up to the tv so i didnt have to put us through the Joe Buck ringer. everyone online was complaining about him.

you know if Two people complained at me at work i’d be canned but when millions of people complain about Joe Buck they just give him dump trucks of money and stick him on the biggest stages in the world.

is life fair? ha. but you know whats great, watching the Cubs eek out a win in the last game at Wrigley with your mom. i was so nervous i couldnt eat. but i was hungry so i asked her to make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. she also set me up with soup and crackers. i drank a half a coke the whole time. i have been eating terribly this month. but for some reason the Lord is looking out for me.

even though im still very nervous about the Cubs as they head to Cleveland, heres the silver lining: because of MLB’s ridiculous rules about home field advantage, the Cubs get to use Kyle Schwarber now as their DH and we really could use one more solid bat in this lineup which tends to get stage fright sometimes. Schwarb is nuts and did well the last time we were at the Jake so im feeling great about that.

plus tomorrow it’s Jake Arrieta vs their dude Tomlin. Arrieta is the reigning Cy Young Award Winner and even though he hasn’t exactly pitched like that this year, he’s damn good and Tomlin is on 3 days rest.

i do have air miles. i could fly to Cleveland but i dont really have a grand for a ticket however i was thinking about IF I WENT to just hold up a sign that says “Cub Fan Looking For Free World Series Ticket. Will Blog About It” but so far my record with watching World Series games with my mom is 1-0.

dance with who brought ya, as they say. so i guess i will stay in the suburbs and not risk our luck.

even though luck doesnt exist.

the nice people sent me to the world series

me at the world seriesit started as a dream a little kid has when he’s playing a made up game of throwing a ball at the side of a house.

he throws it hard at some moulding and if it lands on the street its a single, in the grass a double, if it hits the tree its a triple and if hits the neighbors fence its a homer.

if it goes over the neighbors fence its an out and the game is over.

every time the goal is to get the cubs into the world series.

now the game is to help them win.

so there are more imaginary games: if i wear this cap they’ll win, if i wear this jersey, if i say my prayers, if i wear this undershirt, if i kiss this girl, if i change this blog header, if i eat this hot dog.

if i leave game five of the playoffs in frisco.

so far things have worked.

because it was the cubs it was a bumpy road, but no one wanted the cubs (who were the favorites to win the whole thing) to just coast into the world series. and they did not coast. they had to win some tough games against the game’s best pitchers. they had to win on the road, they had to win with young players, they had to win with old players.

and for the most part the unlikely heroes at the plate were catchers and pitchers.

so walking from my Lyft a few blocks away from Wrigley and seeing almost every single person wearing Cubs jerseys and hats and tshirts and ski caps and sweaters and scarves and pajamas(!) i nearly cried right there because all of this was coming true. and so much of it was due to Theo Epstein who put the team together, the Ricketts family who paid for it, and Joe Maddon who managed them.

basically a handful of strangers i’ve never met (and probably never will) have revitalized this part of Chicago, my favorite part, and did so in a classy way. so when i took this selfie in front of Harry, i was at the edge of tears because those strangers and all of my friends and readers had bought me a bleacher ticket in the second row for the World Series.

and it was no longer a fantasy day dream. it was really happening.

indians

when i got it back together i saw another emotional scene that’s not getting a lot of play on tv or in the news: actual native americans who hate the fact that the cleveland baseball team is called the Indians and has a logo that would never be approved today.

they have a long list of complaints, the first being that they are not from India. the name alone is racist ignorance based on a mistake by Columbus’s peers that they had reached India. but also they hate the fact that they are not being heard. No one today would name a team the Wisconsin Whiteys or the Jersey Jews. why do we continue to go on with being ok with calling them the Cleveland Indians when the actual natives, whose land was stolen and whose people were kicked out, do not like the name?

so instantly i was grounded. and i thanked them for being there.
lady

i got in the park, found my way next to the ivy and i sat next to a really nice dude from Seattle named Brian who had season seats there in the bleachers for quite a while. he was the perfect guy to sit next to because he really knew the game.

he and his wife come out to Wrigley 3-4 times a year he told me but throughout the season his Chicago  family uses the tickets and the rest they sell.

next to him was a lady and her daughter. the lady was a senior citizen and her daughter said the night before she had gotten drunk at the game. join the crowd!

the lady had these Cubs earrings and when i complimented her on them she asked if i had a wife. i said are you proposing? she said “if you did have a wife i would give them to you to give to her.”

THAT IS A CUB FAN RIGHT THERE.

the bleachers were packed. we were squeezed in pretty tight. but it was ok. but i couldnt eat. i scarfed down my dog, nibbled on my nachos but couldnt make a dent in them. the cubs scored early but cleveland answered with a homer. so i left to get an Old Style.

huge mistake because the Cubs gave up another run and by the time i was back in my seat and we were down 2-1.

that took the air right out of us. the first inning we were standing and cheering every pitch. by the third we were sitting and probably all thinking, “is this the Cubs that we grew up with? are these the guys we fell in love with and then they break our hearts?”

earlier Mark Prior had stood on the mound and the young lady he was with and didnt throw out the first pitch. she just placed the ball on the rubber and they posed for a picture. WTF? was that an omen.

before that Cub hall of famers Fergie Jenkins and Greg Maddux actually did throw out the first pitch(es) side by side but their expressions were also like WTF. then Jeff Garlin from Curb Your Enthusiasm (WTF?) gave a one minute pep talk… but he’s from Curb YOUR ENTHUSIASM! Bill Murray is in the house, someone please hand him the mic. Or 329089 year old Dorothy. Someone give her a Jager bottle and have her toast the 41,000 in attendance and all our ships at sea! Why are we letting some tv “star” be our voice?

nice ladies

Garlin should have been replaced by these sweet ladies who were sitting in the bleachers for the first time ever who sported buttons of their deceased parents. they told me their parents loved the Cubs and this was their way of bringing them to something they had never gotten to experience: a World Series game at Wrigley.

THOSE ARE CUB FANS RIGHT THERE!

and then the craziest thing happened. bottom of the seventh, lead off hitter Dexter Fowler is up.

the guy in front of me and to the left one is asked by the guy next to him “do you always bring your glove to the game when you sit in the bleachers?”

guy says, “i always sit in the bleachers and i always bring my mitt but i have never caught a ball.”

CRACK!

everyone starts yelling. the ball is getting close. it might be, it could be. HOME RUN AND IT LANDS RIGHT IN HIS GLOVE SERIOUSLY ONE MINUTE AFTER HE HAD SAID WHAT HE SAID

home run

and stranger still, all of my friends who were watching on TV screengrabbed the picture, i guess looking for me, and there i was: Exactly where they had put me in the second row of my beloved bleachers at the friendly confines of Wrigley Field

and yes i am holding my second Old Style and no i did not spill it. (as that would be alcohol abuse)

the ball

everyone took pictures with the guy with the ball but he would not let anyone touch it. and who can blame him.

then one guy said if you go to the Cubs they’ll authorize it for you and he said fuck that.

and another guy (me) said if you show it to Dexter maybe he’ll trade it for a bat or his jersey and he was all fuck that.

and this guy from Switzerland said “ive come from Switzerland, may I touch it?” and he said fuck that.

AND I HAD ZERO PROBLEMS WITH ANY OF THAT.

i said, dude, everyone wants to touch your balls!

rally cap

but maybe the thing i loved the most was that people asked online “i thought you woulda been wearing your Cubs hat” and i was all, duh i WAS! i had my hat on inside out

because thats what you should do in the late innings to get a rally going. it’s called a Rally Cap

and in a weird way it worked. and i kept it that way as we headed into the 8th and i got this picture with my new pal.

used tickets

as you know the Cubs didn’t win. so i walked around in a daze. people werent really partying. but they were still buying up merch. i bought a ball and a pin inside but i lost them because i havent been able to focus on anything for the entire month. its a miracle im even alive. or employed. or not married to a crazy person with a José Cardenal jersey.

ran into this guy who was paying people for their used ticket stubs because the word is on ebay theyre going for $50. i asked if he had any takers. he said “I was paying $12, someone gave me a $10, I thought it was a $20, so i gave her $10 back, so im actually down $2.”

and you know, that’s a Cub fan

right there.

lets win two tonight.

im going to the game

world series

im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game im going to the game THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUUU ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

pretty sure tomorrow i’m going to the 3rd most popular game since 2010

cubs indians first game at wrigley

Cubs lost today 1-0. it was super windy but no one hit a fly ball.

tomorrow they go against the Indians’ best pitcher.

ticket

it’s a must win for the Cubs and it’s clear they need me in the stands.

how much will i pay? about $3,000. most of which was generously donated to me. and i love everyone for that.

me monica patrick

Ticket broker SeatGeek listed the five most in-demand events it has tracked since 2010:

1. Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao boxing match (May 2, 2015): $4,672
2. Super Bowl 50 (Feb. 7, 2016): $4,531
3. 2016 World Series Game 4 (Oct. 29, 2016): $4,446
4. 2016 World Series Game 5 (Oct. 30, 2016): $4,423
5. Super Bowl XLIX (Feb. 1, 2015): $4,271

easy parking $100

im gonna wear my carlos zambrano jersey

cub bear

because they need a little spice in their lives.

im here in chicago

schawarber

couldnt sleep. poops couldnt sleep. heart racing. is this all a dream.

pooped all night. pooped this morning. poops didnt even smell like mine.

POOPS ARE YOU DREAMING TOO?

raised $2,445 on my gofund me. people are leaving the nicest notes:

Sorry it’s not more.

Right Field Sucks

Have an Old Style on me!

Go Tony Go

I hope you get to go my friend! If you catch a ball though you have to give it to me: (DONE!)

Midwesterner supporting a Midwesterner with a little Canadian tossed in. Hope you make it there!

Happy birthday and go Cubs

Happy birthday Bring Yer Own Cup!

This is the year. Go Cubs! Have the time of your life!

Getting you to the halfway mark

When the Cubs made it to the World Series, I literally thought, I hope Tony gets to go. Thanks for letting me contribute to making that happen 🙂

easy decision

Tony if I could I would buy you a ticket myself. You deserve this. You are a top notch human.

oh tony I believe in you and the cubs!

Beth and I are pulling for you Tony

Someone has to represent the College of Creative Studies!

Thank you for the busblog

Godspeed Tony!

Can’t wait to see your smiling face with a frosty beer in the stands

You better catch a ball too

Happy belated birthday!

I’m a lifelong Dodgers fan so obviously this means I really like you.

Go and enjoy every moment.

I WILL GOOD PEOPLE I WILL!

it’s ok

sad jon

we rallied a few times

wore down their best pitcher

gave up two dongs to their #9 hitter

and popped our world series cherry

this team is young and emotional and has a lot of pressure on them.

they will bounce back tomorrow behind jake, i promise.

enjoy the night.