Street Corners and Tastee Freeze

The second stop of my Easter vacation trip was Chicago.  Obviously I’ve been there several times (for Cubs games in 2009 and 2016), but the Dodgers were playing there during my Easter vacation so I wanted to get back.  I was able to go to two games and do a Wrigley Field tour before heading out to the last stop on my Easter vacation trip.

I arrived at my hotel around 3:30 on Tuesday.  I had been to two Adam Richman Man vs. Food spots in Chicago (Gino’s East and Lucky’s Sandwich Company) and they’ve since done a Casey Webb Man vs. Food Chicago episode.  Of the three spots Casey Webb went to, one has closed.  I was interested in the other two.  If it was earlier in the day, I might have gone to Timothy O’Toole’s, where he had his challenge, which was the Big Timmy Burger.  Obviously, I wouldn’t be up for the challenge, but I could have done another burger.  But I decided that I wasn’t too excited about a burger (you can get a good burger lots of places and it was on the show not because the burgers are so great, but because they had a challenge).  It was a little out of the way also so I decided to just order from Lucky’s since it was much closer to where I was staying.  Lucky’s is like Primanti Brothers in Pittsburgh.  They put coleslaw and fries on the sandwich.  Three years ago, I had the two bagger (corned beef and pastrami).  This time I had the Fredo (ham, salami, and capicola).  It was quite tasty.

I went to the game on Tuesday night.  I was feeling full from the sandwich and didn’t eat at the game.  I wanted some Illinois craft beer.  It took some searching, but I found a Half Acre Daisy Cutter.  They had plenty of stuff from 3 Floyds in Indiana and Bell’s in Michigan, but Half Acre is a Chicago brewery (there was also plenty of Goose Island, but that’s Anheuser-Busch InBev).  It was pretty good.  The game was not good. It was Jose Quintana for the Cubs against Kenta Maeda for the Dodgers.  Maeda gave up six runs in the first two innings.  Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez hit home runs.  The Dodgers had some chances to score more runs, but they ended up losing 7-2.  Let’s move on.

My view on Tuesday night

I started my day Wednesday with a tour of Wrigley Field.  The tour was very good.  It’s amazing that before 2016 the last Cubs championship came before Wrigley Field was built.  In fact, the Cubs were not the original tenants of Wrigley Field.  The Chicago Federals of the Federal League played there.  They were renamed the Whales and won the only baseball championship won at Wrigley Field (they won the Federal League there in 1915, the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 in Cleveland).  They are still the reigning Federal League Champions as 1915 was the last year for the Federal League.  I think the tour guide said that the Whales won the only championship ever at Wrigley Field, but it appears that’s not the case.  Five NFL Championship Games were played at Wrigley Field before the Super Bowl Era began (I think the Bears playing in Wrigley Field was mentioned on the tour, but they didn't mention that Wrigley Field hosted the most NFL games out of any stadium until it was passed by Giants Stadium).  The last one was in 1963 when the Bears beat the Giants 14-10.  The first night game at Wrigley Field was in 1988, but it could have been decades earlier (the two games I went to were the first night games I've been to at Wrigley Field).  The Cubs were going to put in lights in the 1940s, but they donated steel that was going to be used in the construction of lights for the war effort.  The tour guide said that the Cubs lost home field advantage in the 1984 NLCS because they couldn’t have night games and that’s what spurred them to put in lights by the end of the decade, but my quick internet research indicates that story is a myth.  We got to sit in the bleachers.  The tour guide suggested bringing a baseball (or any white sphere close to the size of a baseball) if you’re sitting in the bleachers so that if you get a home run ball hit by the visiting team you can keep the home run ball and throw back the fake one.  The basket at the top of the wall was not put in for catching home runs, it was put in to catch bleacher bums.  Apparently they used to run along the top of the wall and several fell onto the field and hurt themselves (they also changed the wall so that it comes to a point at the top, which makes running along it much more difficult).  The last interesting thing makes perfect sense, but I never thought about it before.  Wrigley Field is the only Major League Ballpark that still exists today where Jackie Robinson played.  Of course, Fenway Park was around also, but Jackie Robinson never played there.

Looking in from the bleachers

Me on the field at Wrigley Field

After the tour, I ordered a personal deep dish pizza from Pequod’s.  Casey Webb had a pizza with pepperoni and sausage on Man vs. Food so that’s what I did.  I have to say, it was pretty underwhelming.  The crust on the bottom of the pizza was too thick.  It was like having pizza ingredients on a big piece of bread (it’s not like the crust was particularly tasty).  I ended up cutting off a lot of the crust from the bottom.  On the outside of the pizza, rather than using dough, they used burnt cheese.  They made a big deal about the burnt cheese on the show.  It was nothing special.  It was a long time ago that I had Gino’s East, but I remember that being a lot better.  Three years ago I had a personal Giordano’s pizza at Wrigley Field and that was better.  It’s not like it was terrible.  You take cheese, tomato sauce, pepperoni, and sausage and put them together and it can’t be too bad, but I wouldn’t be having it again the next time I’m in Chicago.  And of course, I’m reminded of Jon Stewart’s words of wisdom about pizza:

I already knew that it wasn't really pizza, but I was still expecting better.

I was back at Wrigley Field on Wednesday night for the second game of the series.  I had a Bell’s Oberon to drink.  I’m like 99.5% sure that I had a Bell’s Oberon one time either before or after a Notre Dame football game at Jon’s recommendation, but if not, I thought I might not have ever had a Michigan beer (although on my beer state list I listed Bell’s Oberon and Bell’s Amber for Michigan so apparently I did have a Bell’s Amber at some point) so I went with that over a 3 Floyds beer or another Half Acre Daisy Cutter.  It was a solid baseball beer.  I just had a hot dog to eat.  It was listed as a Chicago Dog so I was a little worried that they’d have all those extraneous ingredients (Chicago is right about not using ketchup on hot dogs, but all that other stuff doesn’t belong on there).  The hot dog was good, but the bad thing was that they only had yellow mustard.  Cosmo Kramer knows that’s not acceptable:

It was Cole Hamels against Walker Buehler.  The Dodgers got off to a good start.  The Dodgers had runners on first and second in the fourth and an infield single (with no error) resulted in a run scored and runners on second and third.  Unfortunately they couldn’t get those runs in from second and third.  Cody Bellinger hit a two-run homer in the top of the sixth to put the Dodgers up 3-0.  But then the bottom of the sixth happened.  The first three batters went strikeout, single, fly out.  But Buehler couldn’t get the third out.  Anthony Rizzo walked and then Javier Baez hit a home run on an 0-2 count.  Scott Alexander came in.  He had been good so far this year, but not this night.  He gave up a double to David Bote and then they intentionally walked Wilson Contreras to set up the lefty-lefty matchup with Jason Heyward, but Heyward hit a home run.  So they had a runner on first with two outs and ended up getting six runs.  Anthony Rizzo drove in another run in the seventh off of Joe Kelly (who has been terrible) to put the Cubs up 7-3.  Alex Verdugo hit a three-run home run in the 8th to make it 7-6.  Max Muncy’s walked to lead off the ninth, but a strikeout and a double play ended the game.

My view on Wednesday night.  You can see part of the pole that obstructed my view of left field on the edge of the picture.

I like Dave Roberts, but I'm going to complain for a minute.  He had Cody Bellinger hitting sixth in both games.  The Cubs had two lefties pitching.  I understand moving Bellinger down a little bit against a lefty, but he had Corey Seager hitting fourth.  Seager is another lefty and he hasn't been anywhere near as good as Bellinger so far this year.  So far this year, Bellinger has hit second twice, third four times, fourth 15 times, fifth thrice, sixth five times, and seventh once.  It makes sense that Bellinger was hitting lower in the lineup earlier in the season, but by now, he needs to be hitting much higher.  Nobody can get him out right now.  I would have him hitting third probably (you could definitely talk me into second).  You need to make sure he's hitting in the first inning.  I don't think he's hit any lower than fourth for the last few games and hopefully he won't be hitting lower than that any time soon.

So it was two disappointing games in Chicago, but the beauty of baseball is that you have 162.  I can have a pretty good time at a game during the regular season even if the Dodgers lose.  If I go to a Notre Dame football game and they lose, I’m miserable.  Attendance at the two games was 35,536 and 35,743 (about four times the attendance as the game I went to at Tropicana Field).  Wrigley Field was good.  Unfortunately the ivy wasn’t green.  But other than that, everything at Wrigley was good.  Since the Cubs have been consistent contenders, the atmosphere is very good.  I had a pretty good view for both games.  On Wednesday, I was closer, but a pole was more of an issue.  Fortunately, the infield wasn’t obstructed at all, but I couldn’t see most of left field.  There were four home runs in the game and three of them were to left field.  When Bellinger homered, I was able to move down my row a bit to look around the pole and see it land.  I had two big criticisms of Wrigley Field the last time I went.  One was the beer selection.  It could still be better, but there was a definite improvement.  The other was how difficult it was to move around when I got food on the upper level because there was only one area up there to get food/beer.  Thankfully the renovations added a bunch of areas up high where you can get food and beer.  I didn’t actually buy food at the game where I was sitting up high, but it would have been easy to quickly get something to eat and I was able to quickly get my beer.  Thanks to these improvements, I’m moving Wrigley Field up at least two spots on my rankings.  That puts it at fifth ahead of Kauffman Stadium and Petco Park.  I have PNC Park at number four.  I was only there once seven years ago.  I’m going back at the end of May for two games.  So let’s see if it can hold off the improved Wrigley Field for the fourth spot.  The one thing I didn't like about the renovations was that they moved the bullpens.  You can check out one of my favorite websites to get an overview of how it has changed.  They moved the bullpens off the field.  Ordinarily I don't like having the bullpens on the field, but I don't like how they've moved them to a secret lair underneath the bleachers.  They'll show you who's warming up on the scoreboard, but I'd prefer it if the fans nearby could actually watch the relievers warm up (and say all sorts of stuff to them).  But the improvements outweigh that negative change.

I'll end by pointing out that the last team I saw lose a game at Wrigley Field won the World Series.

Terrible Tropicana Field

Going into the season, I had been to 28 of the current 30 Major League Baseball Stadiums.  I had 28 out of 30 after getting to Anaheim four years ago and then I was back to 28 out of 30 after getting the new Braves stadium last year.  I’ve had plenty of time, but I didn’t have much of a desire to get to the last two.  Tampa Bay and Oakland have the two worst stadiums in baseball and I just wasn’t motivated to go.  I always said that I’d go when they got new stadiums.  They need new stadiums, but I don’t know when that’s going to happen so I figured I’d make it happen this year. But I wasn’t just going to go to Tropicana Field.  I needed to combine it with other stuff.  So Tropicana Field was the first stop of three on my Easter vacation trip.  I’ll get to the other two stops later.

I left the day after Easter for Tampa.  I had been dealing with a cold for a few days and then my stomach was a little unsettled on the way to the airport.  So I was a little concerned as I was on my way.  When I got to Florida, I just took it easy.  I ordered some alligator tacos and they were pretty good.  Lent is over, but I learned this year that alligator is allowed on Fridays in Lent.  Obviously I knew that fish was allowed (which I took advantage of twice this year when I went out to dinner with friends on Fridays), but reptiles and amphibians are allowed also.  If I was making the rules, I’d say no vertebrates, but if we’re making sacrifices it seems that lobster and shrimp shouldn’t be allowed either.

Anyway, after relaxing for a bit, I headed to the stadium.  I waited until the day before to buy a ticket.  I like sitting near home plate, but tickets seemed overly expensive on Stubhub (which was still cheaper than the Rays’ website).  The issue was that in order for a robust secondary market to exist, the team needs to sell a good number of tickets and the Rays don’t (especially for Rays-Royals on a Monday).  I had my eye on a ticket on Stubhub and I was able to wait it out until it came down $5.  In reality, I probably could have just bought the cheapest ticket way out in the outfield and then sat wherever I wanted, but whatever.  I had a pulled pork sandwich and a Coppertail Independent Pilsner (I wanted something local).  Both were fine, but later on I saw a stand selling Cuban sandwiches and regretted not getting that.  I don’t think I’ve ever had a Cuban sandwich, but I was in Florida so that would have been something to try.

My view for most of the game

After five and a half innings, the Royals had a 3-1 lead, but the Rays came back.  I watched from my seat until the seventh inning stretch and then walked around.  The Rays took the lead on a home run by Mike Zunino in the bottom of the seventh.  If you go to the 3:26 mark in the video below, you can see me as his home run goes out.  The home run goes to center.  A little bit to the left there’s a section of chain link fence and I’m standing all the way to the left wearing my yellow St. Edward’s Hall shirt.  I ended up walking around and taking a seat pretty close to the field for the end of the game.  The Rays won 6-3.

I had very low expectations for Tropicana Field and those expectations were met.  Let’s go through what I didn’t like.  It’s the only stadium with a non-retractable roof.  Baseball should be played outdoors unless it’s raining or it’s 109 degrees in Phoenix or whatever.  It’s one of three stadiums with artificial turf (Chase Field in Phoenix was just added to that list, so if I do an official reranking after I get to the Oakland Coliseum, it's definitely moving down in my rankings).  Baseball should be played on grass.  When I was looking through the chain link fence, it appeared that the warning track was the exact same surface as the fake grass, only it was brown instead of green.  Does that help the outfielders at all?  Aren’t they going by feel?  It’s not like they’re looking at the ground when they’re tracking a long fly ball.  The food and beverage selections were decent, but they definitely could be better.  But I guess it doesn’t make much sense to have a huge variety when you don’t have many fans.  Attendance was 9,914 and it was quiet.  I’m not sure if I’ve ever been to a minor league game with more fans, but it’s not out of the question.  I’ve definitely been to minor league games with a better atmosphere.  It’s more fun going to a game with 6,000 fans when the stadium holds 6,000-8,000 or whatever than going to one with 9,914 when the stadium holds 42,735 (although the capacity for this season is 25,000 because they’ve covered up the seats on the upper level).

Seats that they don't sell because they can't sell them

My view at the end of the game

So not surprisingly, I have Tropicana Field ranked last on the list of stadiums I’ve been to.  Here’s an idea that I love, but it definitely won’t happen:  if the Rays make the playoffs, they have to pick the stadium of an AL team that didn’t make the playoffs for their home games.  I mean, yes, they can probably sell more playoff tickets playing in St. Petersburg than they could in another AL city, but I don’t want to watch games on TV played in that stadium.  To make this slightly less unrealistic, for logistical reasons let’s assume that they have to play every round in the same city and they have to pick right at the start of the playoffs.  As of today, the Rays have the best record in the AL, the Yankees would be the first wild card and and the Mariners would be the second wild card.  Where would the Rays play if my very unrealistic idea was adopted?  Like if they thought they were going to play the Yankees (or it least that was a strong possibility), would they pick Boston and hope that Red Sox fans show up to root against the Yankees?  But then they’d be running the risk of having lots of Yankee fans show up also since it’s a fairly short trip.

They have some rays swimming around in right center.  That's kind of cool, I guess.

So I’ve been to 32 stadiums all time (29 out of the current 30).  Tropicana Field ranks 32nd.  I’m expecting it to get bumped down to 33rd when I get to the Oakland Coliseum (which I’m expecting to be 32nd), but we’ll see.