When I got to Pran’s place in Chicago I discovered he lived on the windiest street in the windiest city in the country. Yes, you do need to know that.
Game Notes:
We took a straight shot on the red line train to the south side of Chicago and there is a stop right at US Cellular Field, which is always convenient. The White Sox have only won three championships in their history but boy do they let you know it! All around the outside of the park there were signs and statues and banners proclaiming the franchise’s victories in 1906, 1917 and 2005. Less common were banners singing the praises of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox who were busted for throwing the World Series and subsequently banned from baseball.
UGH, not this shit again. We had to buy $36.00 tickets because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to move to the lower levels of the stadium and complete a proper review. Dodger Stadium is the only other place I’ve encountered this practice. I’m not going to go off on a big rant about the bourgeoisie and the proletariat again but I still think it sucks. Also, due to this rule it meant ushers were extremely strict and checked our tickets at many locations on the lower level. Side note – there really are only two levels from which the common fan can watch the game at US Cellular Field. There is the lower seating bowl then the next two or three levels up are luxury space and then the top level. Like Progressive Field, this place had far too much luxury space but we’ll get to that later.
On a related note, our ticket also had a designated gate entrance. I’m over twenty parks into this trip and the White Sox are the first team to have this rule. Even though we bought tickets to the lower level, we still weren’t allowed in on the third base side and had to go over to the first base side of the stadium. That’s just lame and the White Sox certainly did not make a good first impression.
Once we finally got inside the first cool thing I found at US Cellular were these chair tilter things. It was readily apparent that the seats originally all faced straight forward but someone had the idea to tilt them towards the game action a bit. I thought this was a great idea. Many of the new parks have seats that are built facing more towards the game but obviously ,if a team really wants to, they can change their straight-facing seats (*cough*redsox*cough*).
The food options at US Cellular were a little better than I was expecting. I finally got to try a “Chicago Dog” IN Chicago. They called it a Comisky dog but we’re really just splitting hairs at this point. Their take on it was exactly the same as Detroit, right down to the poppy roll. I don’t know what the hell was going on in Atlanta with the cucumber slices and whatnot. Then we found corn off the cob!
They had ears of corn they shaved right in front of us, just like mom used to do so I wouldn’t burn myself or hurt my little teefyweefies. (I can’t believe I just wrote that, but it’s staying). Then they had all kinds of toppings for the corn (cheese, butter, salt, garlic, etc.) and it was actually quite good. The White Sox’ battle cry has always been “win ugly” and their ice cream booth was called “Winning Ugly is Sweet.” As we kept on our loop I made the insightful discovery that, while aptly named, each of the food booths was called something different but for the most part, they all served the same products! That somehow has to tie in with my recent marketing lesson from Minnesota, right? If the budget allowed I’m sure I would have checked to see if the hot dogs at the Carlton Fisk booth were better than those at the Robin Ventura stand. The last thing about the concessions is that the prices were pretty good. Their standard hot dog was only $3.25 and the rest of the fare was pretty reasonably priced. I was definitely expecting a hike in a big city like Chicago.
The White Sox provided a lot of cool things for their fans to do around the park and I took full advantage. Here’s me pretending to be over 6 feet tall, and a pitcher. If you’ll notice though, I’ve taken the liberty of pointing out my revenge for the ticketing screw job. I used their fancy display other than for its intended use. Who wears a Red Sox hat with a White Sox uniform?! I showed them!
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We took a lap around the outfield and there are all kinds of statues and fan activities and cool decks to watch the game from. I found our friend Carlton but he was in the wrong pose. I tried to help him out but he was having none of my antics that day.
A couple of other things I liked were, on the left, the Miller Lite Bullpen Sports Bar which seemed like a great place to watch the game from and, on the right, the Plumbing Council sponsored shower thing that allowed fans to drench themselves if they so chose. It was pretty hot but, as it turned out, I didn’t need to use the shower thing.
OK, so we completed our loop downstairs, we finished upstairs; we just needed one last picture to prove we were both there at the game. Annnnndd bam!
Ready for the game, right? Not so fast.
First rain delay of the trip! It lasted an hour and a half and it POURED. We’re not talking about a little shower, these were grown up rain drops and some people got drenched. We rode out the storm in the upper deck under an overhang wondering aloud about various things baseball, the stadium and where the tipping point was for teams in terms of profitability during a rain delay. If it’s a fast moving storm and the game is delayed for an hour and a half (like ours) not a lot of people are going to leave and the team will get to sell 90 minutes more of beer/concessions and the concessionaires have a very captive audience. But when does a team start to lose out on profits because the fans give up and go home? 2 hours? 3 hours? If anyone can find this answer I’d be very curious to know.
Like I said, the storm was fast moving and we soon were underway again with the sun returning by the 2nd inning. I know I’ve put a lot of pictures in this post but I have to include just a couple more. At every stadium I’ve been to the grounds crews have been the most meticulous groups of people I’ve ever seen. They all have that quality about them where they have to get it just perfect. Guys will rake the same spot over and over again until it’s just right. The White Sox crew was no different. Before the rains came and when the tarp was removed they spent a lot of time grooming the field and it looked great. Then just before play was to begin a guy came out with a bag of dirt and flung it haphazardly about the infield. I thought they would blend it in with the damp ground but they just left it, even when play resumed. For guys that are so hung up on any inch of soil that is higher/lower than the rest of the infield, this struck me as a very odd move.
High Points:
-The White Sox are the first team I’ve seen to offer a 50/50 raffle. The previous nights winner took home ~$6800. Not too shabby, kind of felt like a high school football game though.
-The fans at US Cellular were really good. It was kind of a shock to see how into the game they were, right from the starting lineups. Throughout the game there was that healthy buzz/chatter in the background and that definitely has been missing at the last handful of stadiums. Also, I found out you can’t be a fan of the White Sox and of the Cubs. At US Cellular fans had tee shirts with inscriptions like “Friends don’t let friends root for the Cubs” and “I bleed black, not blue.” At Wrigley there were similar sentiments expressed but we’ll get to that next post.
-In Seattle and a few other places I’ve seen vendors walking around the stands with coffee in a big pack on their backs. I hadn’t yet seen the tequila guy doing the same!
-The organist at US Cellular is an extremely talented individual. He or she played songs from just about every genre you could think of. There was hard core rap, Britney Spears and famous baseball classics rolled into one. Nice job.
-This high point goes to me: A few years ago my friends at Eastgate had offered to pay me $200 to dye my hair jet black and leave it for two weeks. I didn’t take them up on the bet and now I’m thankful. I saw a redhead in the stands who had done just that, only his roots were showing and what with the pale skin he just looked ridiculous. I didn’t take a picture but trust me, it was awful.
Low Points:
-The aforementioned ticketing/gate debacle was downright terrible.
-Like Cleveland, the White Sox wasted way too much of their prime real estate on luxury space. Taking up multiple levels, the entire mid-section of the ballpark is filled by boxes. Maybe when my company has one of those boxes I won’t care but for now, as a common fan, I’d like to see teams cater more towards fans who are going to show up and care about the team as opposed to those that pay their (very good) money but never make it to the game. For some reason the Indians and White Sox really stand out in my mind as the worst offenders.
-The fireworks display at the beginning of the game was FAR too long. Many children were upset.
-The girl who sang the national anthem belonged on star search, in a bad way. She was the typical over-theatric, over-coached, over the top annoying little ten year old whose parents, I’m sure, were very proud.
-He’s pretty much despised by most of the league (see picture below) but White Sox fans love them some AJ Pierzynski. He’s got to be one of those guys that you hate, unless he’s on your team. Like Rasheed Wallace in Detroit.
Overall Grade: B
Game Stats:
Teams: White Sox vs. Twins
Final Score: 12-2 White Sox
WP: Gavin Floyd
LP: Kevin Slowey
Rain Delay: 1:29
Time: 2:54
Announced Attendance: 30,565
Ticket Price: $36.00
Parking Price: N/A
Trip Stats:
Home team record: 16-6
Best Anthem: Tropicana Field
Miles Driven: 8564
States Visited: 19
Countries Visited: 2
Beds slept in: 27
Highest Gas PPG: $4.19 [$4.81 if you count Canada]
Next Stop: Chicago Cubs
Favorite Park: Petco Park (Padres)
Stadium Grades:
Marlins: D
Rays: B
Braves: B-
Rockies: B+
Mariners: B
Giants: A-
Athletics: C
Angels: B-
Dodgers: B+
Padres: A
Diamondbacks: B
Rangers: B-
Astros: B-
Blue Jays: C
Tigers: A-
Indians: B-
Reds: B+
Cardinals: B
Royals: B
Twins: B-
Brewers: A-
White Sox: B
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