Take Me Out to the Ballgame (Then Watch Me Get Kicked Out)

As I was walking from the train to work in the balmy 7 degree Chicago temperature, I decided I would battle the cold with mind over matter, picturing myself sweating in the bleachers at Wrigley Field... and subsequently decided to share this story about my night with the RL crew at the Cubs game. Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed my evening.

It was sometime in August that I decided it would be fun to go to a Cub game in the bleachers with some fellow RL employees. I went online and saw that there were an abundance of available tickets in the bleachers for the September 5 night game against the Dodgers - and it was Derrek Lee bobblehead day, no less! - so on a wing and a prayer, I ordered 8 tickets.

The next night when I went in for my shift, I started asking around, hoping I could get the other 7 tickets sold. Turned out, it was easier than I thought - as a matter of fact, I wound up getting 8 more tickets. By the week before game night, there were 16 of us going (yes, they all paid me) and it was shaping up to be the RL event of the summer (shut up, I know September isn't technically "summer," but who cares?).

Chris approached me one night as I walked in: "DASI! So do you know the plan??"

I laughed at his enthusiasm. "No, why don't you tell me the plan, Chris?"

He looked at me seriously. "We get there REALLY REALLY early, get REALLY REALLY drunk, and sit in left field."

"Sounds like a plan," I agreed.

Now for those of you not familiar with Wrigley Field or their infamous bleachers, it should be noted that if you want good seats (and obviously left field right behind Alfonso Soriano are choice), you need to line up well before the gates open. WELLLLLL before. And the gates open two hours before the game. So I always plan on an additional two hours (at least) before that. My plan was to leave work at 12:30, get organized, and go. So Chris' plan was fine by me, although I didn't think I would be doing the whole "really really drunk" thing...

The next day, Rick approached me. "Did Chris tell you the plan?" he asked.

I reiterated Chris's plan to Rick.

"Yeah, but we're taking the train, and we're probably leaving at like 11:00," he added.

I raised my eyebrows. "You do know it's a 7:05 game, right?" I asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, but we need to start drinking early. And it's too expensive at the game."

I was pretty sure it was just as expensive at most of the Wrigleyville bars, but I said nothing. Hell, at least they were taking the train.

"So, you in?"

I laughed. "Hell, I'm not even leaving work until 12:30," I said. "But hopefully I'll be there at around 3:00 to get in line."

"You're getting in line at 3?" he asked, stunned. "We weren't going to get in line until about 5!"

I had to explain to him the whole "get in line early" thing, and promised him ( and the rest of the posse) that I would save them a place, but that they had better be there by 4:45.

One of the younger girls, Ashley, asked if she could ride with me. She didn't plan on drinking excessively, and didn't want to ride the train. I told her that would be fine, in fact, I would enjoy the company. So on game day, I left work and went home to do my ritual.

See, Rick was right about one thing: alcohol at Wrigley was expensive. So I always snuck in my own. I usually brought 6-12 water bottles methodically filled with Mike's Hard Lemonade, or Bacardi Razz, or some other clear malt beverage. Because you were allowed to bring in soft sided coolers, and any bottled non-alcoholic beverages under 1 liter. And they never checked the bottles too closely. This time, however, I spent extra time carefully filling 28 bottles - and each bottle held about 18 oz. So you do the math as to how much alcohol I was smuggling. Suffice it to say, it was a lot. I also brought about 6 regular waters, for me to chill out near the end of the game.

So anyway, I'm just about to leave, when Kelly calls.

"Dasi? It's Kelly. Look, we're on the train to the city, and Kristine and I forgot our tickets. Could you print us new ones?"

Ok. See, I could, in theory, but the problem was I had no idea what ticket numbers they had. The only solution, besides sending thm back home to get them, was to print ALL 16 tickets and match up everyone's ticket numbers in line, and give the remaining two to Kelly and Kristine. Which is what I had to do.

"Thanks, dasi!!" she said happily, as she hung up the phone.

So by now I am running a little later than I had hoped, because I had to print out all the tickets, and then I went to pick up Ashley. She was ready and waiting, thankfully, and we were on our way. I had on some classic rock music, and mentioned to her that this may not be her kind of music, but I felt like listening to it and it was, after all, my car. Her response?

"That's ok, my mom listens to it all the time too."

Gee, thanks, Ashley. She felt bad right after she said it, and kept telling me how her mom had her really, really young (like at 8 or something, I think) and I shouldn't take it the wrong way. To coin a phrase from my daughter, 'what-ever.'

We actually made it in pretty good time, and were third in line at the gates. We struck up a conversation with the guy in front of us, and told him we were expecting a pretty large group. He didn't seem to care, since he was in front of us. I mentioned my secret stash in the cooler, and he thought that was a great idea. I did, too, and figured I'd might as well imbibe as long as we were just standing around.

Then my cell rang.

"DASI?????" I heard, over the background yelling.

"Hi, Chris," I said.

"YOU THERE YET??"

"Yes, Ashley and I are third in line."

"KELLY AND KRISTINE HAVE NO TICKETS!!"

"I know," I replied. He was obviously already quite trashed, and from the background noise, whoever he was with was as well.

"SO WE'RE COMING BY NOW!!"

I didn't want to cause a scene this early - not in line. We still had an hour before the gates opened. "That's ok - wait a half hour!" I yelled into the phone.

"SO WE'LL SEE YOU IN A FEW MINUTES!"

And he hung up.

I turned to Ashley and our line buddy. "They're on their way - and they're wasted," I said with a grin.

I don't think our line buddy realized what he was in for. Suddenly Kristine and Colin were approaching, swaying together happily.

"I don't have a ticket," Kristine slurred.

"I DO!!" Colin pronounced happily. He pulled out his piece of paper. "Right here!!"

I matched up the numbers on his ticket to the ones I had. With my ticket, Ashley's, and Colin's, we only had 13 possible tickets left. This would be hell.

Kristine sat down and leaned against the wall. I had to pee, so Colin offered to go with me to the bar across the street. When we returned, Kristine was drinking a "water."

"This doesn't taste like water," she commented, "but it sure is GOOD!"

"I thought I gave her a regular water," Ashley apologized in a whisper.

I had to hush up Kristine to keep my stash a secret. No easy feat, I can assure you. And as I was doing that, the rest of the crew arrived. Well, most of them at least. And they all were in a similar state of drunkenness. I admit it was entertaining, but it was also a bit insane. Trying to get a bunch of drunk people organized is no easy feat, and we still had to figure out which two tickets Kelly and Kristine could use to get in.

It seemed that Rick was sick, and wasn't coming after all, but he gave his ticket to our old bartender Carl. Who was going to meet us there.

"And I have his ticket," Chris informed me. "So when he gets here, he will call me and I will drop it over the edge to him down on the street."

O-K. "Chris," I said carefully, "his ticket is a piece of paper. Do you really think it's a good idea to drop it over the wall?"

"Yup," he replied confidently. "He said he'll catch it."

"Why not just meet him at the gate and hand it to him?" I suggested.

Chris looked at me with amazement. "Good idea!"

Then we found out that Aggie and her husband were meeting us there once the game started, and so was Elsa. Which meant that if we picked the wrong tickets to give to Kristine and Kelly, one (or two) of them wouldn't get in. And try as we might, we couldn't reach any of them by phone.

The rest of the group didn't seem that concerned, they were too busy laughing and swaying and harassing some poor guy walking down the street to give us a sign (which, by the way, he did). Ashley and I, the only sober ones, tried to use logic to figure out the ticket numbers, and crossed our fingers as we gave Kristine and Kelly each a ticket and put away the remaining three.

"PICTURES! How about a picture for the Cubs website?" a guy stood there holding a camera, looking at our group with amusement.

There was an outcry of assent, and we posed as best as we could. This was the end result. If you look carefully, you can see Kristine's arms holding up the sign.


(That was right before the gates opened, when all was still good with the world. (And? That's me in the back with the sunglasses. I don't look like an old lady, right??) If you look on the left, you will see Colin with his arm around Nick. And they both have very cute, content smiles on their faces. I actually blew up that part of the picture, and changed Nick's shirt to say "The Joy of Colin." They both credit me with taking the gayest picture of them in the world. And? They're totally not gay. Too funny. Chris is on the right, Ashley's in the white Cubs jersey, Kelly's in the blue with the shades, and then there's Michelle and Greg. Hey, that only makes nine of us... and with four more coming, that's thirteen - oh, yeah, Dan and his girlfriend met us there too and there was one unused ticket. Ok, back to the story.)

So finally, the gates are opening. Security checks my coolers, and I am cleared to go in. We all got our bobbleheads, and those of us who were able ran up the ramps to get seats. Chris and Kristine both wiped out on the way up, and there was blood. But I don't think either of them cared too much. So we managed to get a nice block of seats right behind Alfonso, and all of a sudden, it starts to POUR. I'm talking HUGE raindrops coming down in sheets.

Did we move? Did we run for cover?? HELL NO!!!! We may have been wet, our bobbleheads may have been ruined, but we had awesome seats and we were going nowhere!!! Plus, there was still two hours to gametime, and we were sure the rain would pass.

In the meanitime, my "water" supply was being depleted. And everyone was getting drunker. Kristine lit up three different cigarettes and was told three different times by security that there was no smoking. The rest of our group arrived (and amazingly, we gave the right tickets to Kristine and Kelly so everyone got in no problem), and things got louder, and more animated, and by the time the rain stopped and the game started security was watching us all like hawks.

The Cubs were playing an amazing game, and I was loving every minute of it. I had only had two or three "waters," and had switched to real water. It was the top of the fourth inning, and I only had four "waters" left from the original 28. And that's when it happened.

A HUGE Mr. T type on steroids walked over to Michelle, Elsa, and Kristine. "Lemme see those water bottles," he growled.

I almost choked. And very nonchalantly nudged the remaining four "water" bottles under the bench I was sitting on. Next thing you know, the three of them are being led out by Mr. T.

Which was not a good thing. Colin very gallantly offered to leave as well, to go find the girls and stay with them at a bar until the game was over. No one else made a similar offer, so he went off like a drunken knight in shining armor. The rest of us just sat there somewhat meekly, a bit more mellow now that things had taken such a serious turn.
We still had fun, though, and it was an awesome game. Security kept their eyes glued on us, and it was a bit unnerving. At one point, in about the eighth inning, Nick turned to me.

"Dasi - got any more of those waters?" he asked.

I smirked. "I've got four, but they're really watching us," I warned.

"Eh, I'm ready to go anyway," he shrugged.

So I kicked a bottle his way. He picked it up, took a swig, and - "LEMME SEE THAT WATER!"
Mr. T had returned. Nick smiled, shrugged, and said "See ya, dasi!" As he handed over the bottle and strolled out followed by Mr. T.

I couldn't help but laugh.

The game ended in a win for the Cubbies, and as we all sang "Go Cubs Go" I was busily texting our outed pals trying to find out where to meet up. We managed to find them at one of the bigger bars, and there were cheers and hugs all around.

Kristine was wearing Colin's jersey, and when I inquired as to why, she launched into detail about her "wrongful ejection."

"I was so mad I just went EEEEYYYYAAAAHHHHH! And ripped my shirt right open, like the Hulk!" she said, demonstrating in the air.

"She did," Michelle said solemnly. "I thought she was going to get arrested. She yelled and ripped her shirt, but I just cried."

"So when I found her, I gave her my jersey," Colin added matter-of-factly.

Suddenly Nick came up and gave me a bear hug. "That was like the BEST game EVER!!" he said gleefully. "Thanks, dasi!!"

I was glad everyone had enjoyed themselves so thoroughly, but I looked at Ashley and motioned towards the door. I had had enough. We snuck out with hardly anyone even noticing.

And the next day at work, the night had already become legend. With another game outing planned for the next season.

Although I think I'll leave my "water" at home if I go with those crazies again.