A wise man once said...

..."the more things change, the more they stay the same." Truer words were never spoken, and I thought of them last night when I made my annual pilgrimage to the "Friendly Confines" of Wrigley Field.

I tried to think of how many Cubs games I'd been in my life and decided that 30 (most of them losses) was as good a number as any, but this was the first time that I went as the guest of my son. Because he was joining me from work, I took the el to the park as I had done many times before. This was the first time I took the Skokie Swift, however, which is now known as the Yellow Line, and transferred at Howard to what is now known as the Red Line. (Were the old names really that confusing?) Along the way, I passed a number of familiar landmarks which brought back memories of my days as a young man growing up in the city in the 1980s.

One place I failed to see was the Heartland Cafe in Rogers Park. It used to be just west of the el tracks but I couldn't spot it. I went there once with some friends and I think it was the first time I ever went to a vegetarian restaurant. There were a lot of culinary firsts for me in those days. After I quit drinking in 1982, I fell in with a "good" crowd and we went out to dinner a lot (how eccentric!). Growing up in a house where ethnic food meant Kraft spaghetti from a box on Fridays (with ground beef added after Vatican II), I marveled at all the exotic restaurants in my adopted city. I remember sampling Greek, Mexican, Thai, Indian, and God knows what else for the first time back in those days. I felt a little like Marco Polo relating all of these adventures to my wide-eyed family back in Minnesota.

After Rogers Park comes Uptown and it still looks as gritty as ever. The el passes Harry S Truman College and in case you've ever wondered, the period after the "S" didn't fall off over the years; it was never supposed to be there in the first place. I read once that Truman's parents couldn't agree on a middle name for baby Harry. Since both of their choices began with an "S," however, they compromised by giving him just the letter--no middle name. It could have been worse, I guess; they could have nicknamed him "Booty."

A few stops later and the park emerges majestically to the west. As soon as you get off at Addison and make your way down to street level the energy of the place just hits you. The sidewalks are teeming with people, the bars are hopping, and music seems to be coming at you from all directions. It's positively electric! (And to think that at one time, in the early sixties, there was so little interest in the Cubs that the upper deck was closed on weekdays. Now you can't get near the place.) And that's the outside of the stadium. Once inside, you're quickly reminded why you're there in the first place. It truly is the Cathedral of Baseball and you'd be forgiven if you glanced around for those little containers of holy water or were half-tempted to genuflect when you see the field. If you live in a city that still has a cookie-cutter ballpark then you really need to visit Wrigley. And if your team has one of those retro-style parks then you should know that this is the experience that the architects were trying to replicate. Like they used to say about Coca-Cola, it's the Real Thing.

My son and I had bleacher seats and since I was to arrive first he urged me to sit in left field if at all possible (the bleachers are general admission). This, he explained, is because that's where the most homers are hit. I got there just in time to watch the last Brave at batting practice and no sooner did I sit down than a ball went soaring directly over my head and into the waiting glove of a fan standing out on Waveland Avenue. Cool! (I'd better pay attention.) After I settled into my seat I looked around and realized that not only was I the oldest guy in the vicinity but the oldest by about 20 years. And then I realized it had been about 20 years since I last sat in the bleachers. Not much has changed, except the prices, of course. My ticket said $50 on it although my son and I paid $65 to his boss somehow (handling, I guess). When I first moved to Chicago in 1981 bleacher seats were only $2.00, less than a ticket to the movies at the time--and no one wanted them! I can remember more than once waking up on a Saturday morning and, finding out it was nice outside and the Cubs were in town, wandering over to the park to take in a game in the bleachers. That was before it became cool to go to Wrigley. In those days, retired blue-collar guys who lived in the city would take the bus over and buy tickets on the day of the game. They'd have a one or two-day growth of stubble, smoke cigars, and listen to the game on their transistor radios while they watched. (Nowadays you probably can't even smoke a cigarette within a half-mile of the place.) Many of them seemed to know each other and they conversed intelligently about the game while they drank beer, ate peanuts, and kept score with the cheap programs they used to sell. I tried telling my son that Bill Veeck (who?) was a regular in the bleachers back in the seventies when it was really unfashionable to sit out there. He'd take off his shirt and get a tan, knock back a few Budweisers, and even take off his wooden leg and flick the ash from his cigarettes in there. At this last part my son looked at me sideways as if to say, "Now you're going too far, Dad."

The rain held off and it turned out to be a beautiful night to watch baseball. I laughed at myself a little for worrying at one time about lights in Wrigley Field; night baseball is a great idea! We each had a couple of hot dogs for dinner and I was struck by another modern-day phenomenon--tipping vendors. When did that practice come into being? Probably around the same time that tip jars were installed at Starbuck's, I suppose. Trends always sneak up on me. Reminds me a little of the first time I went into a record store and saw that there were no records anymore, just CDs. Now not only are there no records anymore, there aren't even any record stores.

As I said before, the more things change ("I smell a blog posting, Dad"), the more they stay the same (Cubs lost). In a pitcher's dual (at Wrigley?!?), the North Siders took it on the chin, 2-1. I can only imagine Carlos Zambrano's frustration with his teammates. "Come on guys, can't you score more than one run against the Braves?" Although knowing Zambrano, I suspect his language was a little more colorful than that. Oh well, my son and I had a good time.