6-4-3 wrote:Should we go and see the Cubs?
English friends. On September 7th, the Chicago White Sox will be playing the Cleveland Indians. It is a night game (7:05pm) and thusly, the finest way to take in the entire White Sox experience. Please to help you with a few recommendations that will further your enjoyment of your south side (of Chicago) jaunt.
1. Drive your rental car to the ballpark and find a parking spot on any of the streets west of the stadium. Don’t let the 12 foot-tall barbed wire fences that surround the stadium parking lots dissuade you from parking for free in the friendly neighborhoods that lay in wait for wide-eyed out-of-towners.
2. As you approach the stadium, take in the charm of U.S. Cellular Field: The acres of wide open white cement (an architectural theme that carries inside of the park as well), the six-story parking structure, the tree, and the burned out and abandoned housing projects beyond the cloud-scraping behemoth that is the home of the Chicago White Sox.
3. As you ride the endless escalators to your heavenly seats in the third deck, prepare your eyes for a sight unlike any other in the American baseball experience. Men in whitish tank tops and jean shorts, young children cursing at their mothers, unkempt mustaches covered in nacho cheese, bleached and tattered hairdos of women hoisting MGD beer in one hand and a smuggled-in flask of Jack Daniels chaser in the other.
4. Climb to your seat at the top of the Alps-like seating bowl, catch your breath and remember that there used to be an additional eight rows to climb, before they were lopped off like a hikers' gangrened appendage in a Wrigleyfication project undertaken four years previous.
5. Turn your attention to the field. See how the green grass and brown dirt play off the white cement concourse and seating area. Concrete everywhere should help you to feel right at home – reminiscent of the 42-inch thick reinforced cement used to fortify Churchill’s
Cabinet War Rooms prior to and during World War II - a war where proud Americans rescued Europe from tyranny.
6. Being new to baseball you may be unsure as to when a chap should cheer. Fear not, for the JumboTron scoreboard will tell you via the helpful “Fan-O-Meter.” The Fan-O-Meter will build the otherwise silent crowd to a crescendo of clapping, screaming and “Fuck-you douchebag that’s my seat, fuckwad” yelling - and then stop just before the pitcher throws the ball – returning the crowd to its prior vapid state on cue.
7. Enjoy how each second of your experience will be filled with grating noise - in the form of commercials, zany plays-of-the-week, 4-second clips of R. Kelly songs for the 4-second batters’ walks from the on-deck circle to home plate, DJ fills when the ball is thrown
around the horn, etc...
8. Remember that somewhere down there beneath the clouds, dizzy spells and wife-abusing mugs seated below you, you’re watching the current world champions of baseball – our country’s finest game. Voicing any opinion against this team will find yourself immersed in a treacherous entanglement with drunken Sox enthusiasts-for-the-day that will have you wishing you were holding a sturdy willow wood Cricket-bat. Alas, you will most-likely wind up leaving this concrete edifice with your brow bloodied, hands cuffed and spirit broken.
9. Here’s the number for Checker Taxi: 312.243.2537 for when you discover your rental car has been stolen.
Enjoy your visit to glorious Chicago!