Take Me Out To The Ball Game
Heeeeeeyyyyyy batter batter batter swwwwiiiiing battterrr!!!! Just to dip myself further into the whole American culture thing, a day at the baseball was definately required! With Wrigley field a ten minute walk from Julia's apartment (well... an hour and ten minutes when you take into account the number of bars along the way!) we avoided the thunderstorms and headed up to see the Cubs play the Phillies!
A few beers at the bars around the ground and we were ready to head to the stadium.... before seeing a sign that said "Batting Cages.. Upstairs!". So armed with a bellyfull of beer we decided the best idea was to have rocks shot at me at high-speed! And armed with a bellyfull of beer I decided that the best shot to play to most of the pitches was a pull-shot... and like my pull-shot in cricket.. I still sucked! (Oh and apparantly we played a bit of basketball while we were up there, but I don't remember - ie: Julia kicked my arse several times on the way to a high-score so we won't mention that!!)
We had pretty awesome seats (with cup holders!!). The stadium is really nice, we were really close to the action and the perfectly manicured grass and ivy covered wall gave it a great touch. Funny thing is that there are apartment blocks that look into the ground and people have put bleaches on the rooves so you can watch the game from across the street! Anyway, I got to get really into the game! Although my shouts of "Hit him in the head", "Bounce him", and "Whack it!" weren't really well appreciated by the rest of the crowd. I didn't even get a chance to catch a foul ball... bummer. I did find out a bit of tradition with the Cubs crowd though, aparantly when a visiting team hits a home run, then whoever catches the ball, throws it back into the field! (usually you get to keep a homer or a foul ball etc!)
Another thing I learnt was baseball talk! The third-base umpire had it all sorted (Here is him saying "Good shot.. well run.. don't you think the 3rd base fielder smells?") and here is my attempt to say "Damn I'm hungry!!".. What do you think?
So Cubs lost 2-1, but aparantly thats not totally unexpected. I was a little bummed cos I wanted to see one of those kick-sand-on-shoes fights or even better one of those clear-the-bench-and-whack-the-pitcher rumbles... but was not to be! Maybe next game!
All good here... Off to Vegas tomorrow to celebrate my birthday!!! Trouble!
