Cubbies!!!

About a week ago, I managed to make my way over to a major league baseball game – yes, that means in person! – and it is something I have not done for quite some time.  To be honest, the last one I remember attending was four years ago.  What does that tell you?


I'm not a "sider", aka Northsider or Southsider, although my dad would kill me for saying that as he is a die hard Sox fan.  This time, however, it was a Cubs game that won over my Tuesday night.  


Considering the crazy Chicago weather, as of late, I was happy to find the weather for the first Tuesday of September was encouraging for a baseball game: cool and no clouds.  It was great, albeit a little chilly near the end when we decided to head home after the 7th inning, but still, good weather.  I did find it amusing, though, that while so much of life around us has changed so quickly in the last decade, life of the baseball game has not.  Everyone was still buying their beer and hotdogs, massive fountain drinks and bags of peanuts.  Most people intently watched the game and even brought blankets and "pillows" to sit on instead of the uncomfortable bleacher seats or stadium chairs.  If you're not a super big baseball fan it's still a fairly long night, and the Cub's scoreboard is still changed by hand.  Aaaah, the olden days.


And, despite the fact that I'm a bit of a health nut, I found myself salivating at the idea of a deep dish pizza or chicken fingers or full bag of peanuts.  The reality of their insanely high costs kept me from overindulging, but it was so funny to watch myself revert so quickly to my childhood comforts.  It was as though the smell of food in the air and the atmosphere of people lounging to watch something made me want to eat.  ... I think that's an American thing.  I had to remind myself that I was only there for two hours, and that for a mere two hours I would be okay without food or gorging myself.  In Europe, at soccer games, you don't buy mountains of food.  You can bring your own if you want or you just wait out the few hours that the teams play and then head to a pub afterwards for drinks and grub.  But, alas, that's not American culture, and it was nostalgic almost, watching myself get re-sucked up into everything I remembered about baseball games as a kid.  I may have changed in the course of ten years, but stadiums and their offerings have remained quite on par.