Friday Afternoon's Cubs Game
After a long Thursday at the course, and after waiting half the night in vain to see my brother off to Rome, and after hearing a litany of reasons from Ellen why we suddenly couldn't have plans for the remaining half of the night, I decided that I was taking Friday off. I'd gone to Wisconsin for 11 straight days, and I desperately needed to relax before the long weekend. Also, I wanted to see at least one game of the Braves series. I admire the Braves. The Braves, as an organization, know how to build ballclubs. The Braves are the way the Cubs should be. And, the Braves were the first team to lose to the Cubs in the playoffs in 95 years. They're the anti-Marlins: I hate the Marlins because they beat us, but I like the Braves because we got 'em in 2003.
So, Friday morning followed my usual solo-game routine: shower, coffee, walk, paper, coffee, train, scalper, scorecard, Wrigley.
I sat upstairs in the very last row, just a few feet to the first base side of the press box. I felt like hiding; I don't want to say I was embarassed to be there, but I'm definitely embarassed by the pile of crap that is the 2006 Cubs. Also, I am certainly not in the mood deal with the oblivious, sign-toting, drunken douchebags who sit in the best seats and continue to think that this team might do something. The eternal optimism of Cubdom is starting to bother me. Piles of shit don't turn to gold because you hope they might.
Somehow the Cubs managed to carry a lead into the ninth. In came our closer, Ryan Dempster. He, like the rest of the back end of the bullpen, has been severely underworked thanks to the team's poor play, and he blew a save just a couple days before. Let me tell you: Not a single ounce of confidence could be found in my entire section. Even the typically blustery drunks seemed quiet and unsure. Of course, Dempster blew the save, a three-run lead, thanks to walks, fluke hits, and defensive blunders. Tough. Comical. And lately, typical.
I hadn't been planning on it, but the Cubs' continuing tragedy prompted me to get trashed. I walked down Clark toward Lincoln Park. Seamus texted me at various times about the game. This left me under the impression that he must be at his place. I called him as I approached Diversey, only to find that he had somehow managed to watch the game while on a work assignment in the suburbs. Odd. We vented about Perez and the lack of moves, and he hung up because he was getting onto the expressway, and promised he would meet me soon. (I never did see him, because he opted to go to the Northern Ireland-Romania soccer game at Soldier. I don't care how crazy Romanians are -- soccer sucks.)
It was around 4:45, so people would be getting home from work very soon. I love catching people right when they get home from work, before they slip into fucking-around Friday lethargy. I went to aliveOne. The bartenders were just returning from the game as well, so we bitched about the Cubs. I pounded several beers. I called Sheehan at 5:30. He'd just gotten home, and was having a smoke and a beer on his porch. I warned him, "I'm getting shitfaced pretty quickly, my man! Please get your ass over here now!" He came over at 6, at which point I'd already had seven or eight beers. We bitched about the Cubs for a while. He left a few messages with a few of the Meats about Father's Day weekend, and I talked to Al about coming up to the course on Saturday. Sheehan's phone lit up. Rojas was going to some apartment to finish off a pre-game keg. Sheehan and I pounded a couple for the road and bolted.
At about 8, we arrived at the apartment, which was in a typical older greystone, on a sidestreet at Belmont and Sheffield. It was a pretty good party: several Atlantans decked out in Braves gear, some cute girls from South Dakota, and a few of the usual jamokes I hadn't seen in a while. Some guy was bitching about how crappy yet busy the city courses are, so I gave him the directions to my course. Rojas grilled food, but I didn't eat any. Keeping with a theme, we pounded beers and lamented the most recent Cubbie blunder.
I continued drinking at an accelerated pace. I drained at least six cups before it dawned on me that I'd long since passed fifteen beers. I thought nothing of it -- shocker -- and tried to ignore the growing realization that I'd become overly shitfaced. I followed Rojas into the apartment. Someone shoved a half-full tumbler into my hand. A toast was made. I downed the shot. Ugh, I thought, that was un-fucking-pleasant. For once, mine was not the evening's most shocking reaction. Two other guys had taken the same shot, which turned out to be some combination of SoCo, cheap vodka, and a splash of margarita mix. One of the fat guys curled up in a ball onto the floor in the kitchen, grasping at his stomach, which was pretty weird. The other guy ran right over to the porch railing and blew his guts out about twenty times. And what was my reaction? "Is there still beer left in that keg?" Yes, barely, the ass of the keg remained. I drank it, and it was bad. The keg kicked.
Rojas couldn't believe it when I returned to the porch from the kitchen with three more cans of beer. "Fuck yeah, these are for me," I said, "But I am not gonna stand anywhere near the railing! I am banning myself from the railing!" One of the South Dakota girls made a derogatory comment about my Villanova shirt, and I told her to go fuck the family cow back in the Dakota wastelands. I leaned against the still-warm grill and pounded the beers. Midway through the second beer, I realized that my stomach felt and sounded like a waterbed. I glanced up and saw that Sheehan looked worse than I felt. Sheehan, after all, is the catch-up master; no matter how many beers I'm ahead of him, he invariably laps me before the night is out.
Around midnight, someone called for a move to a bar. "Pizza," Sheehan said. "Home," I said. Rojas tried to get us to go to the bar; we told him that it was probably a bad idea. We went downstairs. Sheehan asked me again to go get pizza, but I had a more realistic view of the situation: "I'm beyond food, dude. It's only a matter of time before I hurl. I might, might, might make it home if I get a cab in the next five minutes." We walked for a little, maybe three blocks, and I froze. I'd forgotten my scorecard in the apartment. Fuck. I told Sheehan I had to go back for it.
I browned out shortly after the scorecard realization. I have a flash memory of plucking up the scorecard from the floor by a couch. Sheehan might have waited for me on the sidewalk, but neither of us remembers if he left when I went back upstairs. I have no idea if the cab picked me up outside the apartment, or if I had to walk to an intersection. At any rate, I got into a cab.
Chicago cabbies tend to freak out when drunk people get into their car. Why they pick people up in Lakeview between 10 and 4, then, I'll never know. In this case, my cabbie treated me like a ticking time bomb. However, I am the rare ticking time bomb that comes with detailed instructions. The cabbie asked me at least five times if I was okay. I said, "No, not at all, I'm a complete mess, but listen to me: Take the Inner Drive to Bellevue, drive slow, and don't make any fast turns or sudden stops. Please, for the love of God, do as I say. I might have to puke, so be ready to pull over. Now, I'm going to pass out, okay?" I don't know if he responded or not, and I'm not sure if my words were intelligible. I passed out.
The next thing I knew, the idiot was whipping along on the Outer Drive at a ridiculously fast pace, positively hauling ass. Since we were peeling down a highway, and not slowly cruising on a regular road as I had suggested, I was left with no choice but to puke all over the place. I hit every square inch of the back of the cab, including my pants and my shoes, as well as the entire empty seat to my left. The cabbie screamed, "Oh fuck man! You're puking in my cab!" Between eruptions, I shouted back at him, "I said Inner Drive, asshole, Inner fucking Drive!" I continued puking all over the back of the cab for the remainder of the ride, figuring the damage was already done.
We pulled up to my intersection. I admired my handiwork in the streetlights, and found it to be rather impressive. Unfortunately, the cabbie was already standing at the door, and he was pretty fired up. I told him I was sorry but those were the risks. (It's not as though I had done this at two in the afternoon in Elmhurst; he picked me up at midnight in Lakeview, and I tried to give him clear protocols, which he completely ignored.) I took out my money clip and gave him $32, explaining that this was all I had on me. "This is not enough for fare and a wash! We go to ATM!" he screamed. I screamed back, "That's $14 for the fare, and $18 for the wash. You can get a fucking wash for that!" He wouldn't hear it, though, and the next thing I knew, he gave me a little shove.
Right then, Gary the doorman jumped into the growing fray, wedging himself between us. "I'll handle it, man," he said. I ran into the building. Went upstairs. Stripped. Set my alarm. Wondered why Ellen couldn't bother to call me back. Passed out with all of the lights on.
So, Friday morning followed my usual solo-game routine: shower, coffee, walk, paper, coffee, train, scalper, scorecard, Wrigley.
I sat upstairs in the very last row, just a few feet to the first base side of the press box. I felt like hiding; I don't want to say I was embarassed to be there, but I'm definitely embarassed by the pile of crap that is the 2006 Cubs. Also, I am certainly not in the mood deal with the oblivious, sign-toting, drunken douchebags who sit in the best seats and continue to think that this team might do something. The eternal optimism of Cubdom is starting to bother me. Piles of shit don't turn to gold because you hope they might.
Somehow the Cubs managed to carry a lead into the ninth. In came our closer, Ryan Dempster. He, like the rest of the back end of the bullpen, has been severely underworked thanks to the team's poor play, and he blew a save just a couple days before. Let me tell you: Not a single ounce of confidence could be found in my entire section. Even the typically blustery drunks seemed quiet and unsure. Of course, Dempster blew the save, a three-run lead, thanks to walks, fluke hits, and defensive blunders. Tough. Comical. And lately, typical.
I hadn't been planning on it, but the Cubs' continuing tragedy prompted me to get trashed. I walked down Clark toward Lincoln Park. Seamus texted me at various times about the game. This left me under the impression that he must be at his place. I called him as I approached Diversey, only to find that he had somehow managed to watch the game while on a work assignment in the suburbs. Odd. We vented about Perez and the lack of moves, and he hung up because he was getting onto the expressway, and promised he would meet me soon. (I never did see him, because he opted to go to the Northern Ireland-Romania soccer game at Soldier. I don't care how crazy Romanians are -- soccer sucks.)
It was around 4:45, so people would be getting home from work very soon. I love catching people right when they get home from work, before they slip into fucking-around Friday lethargy. I went to aliveOne. The bartenders were just returning from the game as well, so we bitched about the Cubs. I pounded several beers. I called Sheehan at 5:30. He'd just gotten home, and was having a smoke and a beer on his porch. I warned him, "I'm getting shitfaced pretty quickly, my man! Please get your ass over here now!" He came over at 6, at which point I'd already had seven or eight beers. We bitched about the Cubs for a while. He left a few messages with a few of the Meats about Father's Day weekend, and I talked to Al about coming up to the course on Saturday. Sheehan's phone lit up. Rojas was going to some apartment to finish off a pre-game keg. Sheehan and I pounded a couple for the road and bolted.
At about 8, we arrived at the apartment, which was in a typical older greystone, on a sidestreet at Belmont and Sheffield. It was a pretty good party: several Atlantans decked out in Braves gear, some cute girls from South Dakota, and a few of the usual jamokes I hadn't seen in a while. Some guy was bitching about how crappy yet busy the city courses are, so I gave him the directions to my course. Rojas grilled food, but I didn't eat any. Keeping with a theme, we pounded beers and lamented the most recent Cubbie blunder.
I continued drinking at an accelerated pace. I drained at least six cups before it dawned on me that I'd long since passed fifteen beers. I thought nothing of it -- shocker -- and tried to ignore the growing realization that I'd become overly shitfaced. I followed Rojas into the apartment. Someone shoved a half-full tumbler into my hand. A toast was made. I downed the shot. Ugh, I thought, that was un-fucking-pleasant. For once, mine was not the evening's most shocking reaction. Two other guys had taken the same shot, which turned out to be some combination of SoCo, cheap vodka, and a splash of margarita mix. One of the fat guys curled up in a ball onto the floor in the kitchen, grasping at his stomach, which was pretty weird. The other guy ran right over to the porch railing and blew his guts out about twenty times. And what was my reaction? "Is there still beer left in that keg?" Yes, barely, the ass of the keg remained. I drank it, and it was bad. The keg kicked.
Rojas couldn't believe it when I returned to the porch from the kitchen with three more cans of beer. "Fuck yeah, these are for me," I said, "But I am not gonna stand anywhere near the railing! I am banning myself from the railing!" One of the South Dakota girls made a derogatory comment about my Villanova shirt, and I told her to go fuck the family cow back in the Dakota wastelands. I leaned against the still-warm grill and pounded the beers. Midway through the second beer, I realized that my stomach felt and sounded like a waterbed. I glanced up and saw that Sheehan looked worse than I felt. Sheehan, after all, is the catch-up master; no matter how many beers I'm ahead of him, he invariably laps me before the night is out.
Around midnight, someone called for a move to a bar. "Pizza," Sheehan said. "Home," I said. Rojas tried to get us to go to the bar; we told him that it was probably a bad idea. We went downstairs. Sheehan asked me again to go get pizza, but I had a more realistic view of the situation: "I'm beyond food, dude. It's only a matter of time before I hurl. I might, might, might make it home if I get a cab in the next five minutes." We walked for a little, maybe three blocks, and I froze. I'd forgotten my scorecard in the apartment. Fuck. I told Sheehan I had to go back for it.
I browned out shortly after the scorecard realization. I have a flash memory of plucking up the scorecard from the floor by a couch. Sheehan might have waited for me on the sidewalk, but neither of us remembers if he left when I went back upstairs. I have no idea if the cab picked me up outside the apartment, or if I had to walk to an intersection. At any rate, I got into a cab.
Chicago cabbies tend to freak out when drunk people get into their car. Why they pick people up in Lakeview between 10 and 4, then, I'll never know. In this case, my cabbie treated me like a ticking time bomb. However, I am the rare ticking time bomb that comes with detailed instructions. The cabbie asked me at least five times if I was okay. I said, "No, not at all, I'm a complete mess, but listen to me: Take the Inner Drive to Bellevue, drive slow, and don't make any fast turns or sudden stops. Please, for the love of God, do as I say. I might have to puke, so be ready to pull over. Now, I'm going to pass out, okay?" I don't know if he responded or not, and I'm not sure if my words were intelligible. I passed out.
The next thing I knew, the idiot was whipping along on the Outer Drive at a ridiculously fast pace, positively hauling ass. Since we were peeling down a highway, and not slowly cruising on a regular road as I had suggested, I was left with no choice but to puke all over the place. I hit every square inch of the back of the cab, including my pants and my shoes, as well as the entire empty seat to my left. The cabbie screamed, "Oh fuck man! You're puking in my cab!" Between eruptions, I shouted back at him, "I said Inner Drive, asshole, Inner fucking Drive!" I continued puking all over the back of the cab for the remainder of the ride, figuring the damage was already done.
We pulled up to my intersection. I admired my handiwork in the streetlights, and found it to be rather impressive. Unfortunately, the cabbie was already standing at the door, and he was pretty fired up. I told him I was sorry but those were the risks. (It's not as though I had done this at two in the afternoon in Elmhurst; he picked me up at midnight in Lakeview, and I tried to give him clear protocols, which he completely ignored.) I took out my money clip and gave him $32, explaining that this was all I had on me. "This is not enough for fare and a wash! We go to ATM!" he screamed. I screamed back, "That's $14 for the fare, and $18 for the wash. You can get a fucking wash for that!" He wouldn't hear it, though, and the next thing I knew, he gave me a little shove.
Right then, Gary the doorman jumped into the growing fray, wedging himself between us. "I'll handle it, man," he said. I ran into the building. Went upstairs. Stripped. Set my alarm. Wondered why Ellen couldn't bother to call me back. Passed out with all of the lights on.
posted by Pat at 11:22 PM
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