From Busch to Wrigley

By John Chagaris College AP
June 13, 2005
Last week was a week I was looking forward to for a long time, that's right being able to see The Red Sox play in Busch Stadium for the first time since the 2004 World Series, I know that reads like I was at the Stadium for the World Series but we all know that I wasn't, and to see the first time ever the Sox would play the Cubs at Wrigley. Unlike my trip from hell last year when I went to Cape Cod, this might have been the greatest trip I've ever been on.

The day started early on Wednesday morning having to wake up to get to the airport for an 8 O'clock flight, at least the flight attendant on Southwest was an absolute riot with quotes such as "If you need help hit your call attendant button and a disinformed I mean uniformed attendant will assist you." Once arriving in St. Louis, after about an hour layover at Chicago Midway, myself and Bob, a frequent reader of this column, had the choice to take a Taxi to the Radisson (God I hope I spelled that right otherwise Anna will be allover me) which would have ran $40, or take the Metro link to 8th and Pine and only pay $4 (since we got an all day ticket) wow that was an easy choice. After checking in and going up to our room, 608, we begin to unpack when Bob has the great idea to open the shades and look at the view and the view might have been the greatest hotel view I've ever had. That's right a picture perfect view of the Arch. After visiting the Arch we looked at the clock and decided it was time to head over to Busch, we went to get our tickets at the ticket window, that's right four seats in Section 256, well we could only use two tickets but that's another story for another day. Before we were able to get our tickets because for some reason you have to wait until an hour before a game to get player's tickets, we walked by gate 3 I believe, and looked at the construction at the new Busch Stadium. I personally cannot wait until next season to come back to St. Louis just to see the new stadium. The only drawback of the game was that it poured, and we're not talking about a little nice sprinkle, I felt like I needed to go and build an arc. While it was raining myself and Bob snuck into the back ticket lobby right near the clubhouses where we were able to meet a lot of great fans and the one and only Joe Buck, who is my favorite current announcer. The two highlights of the game were David Ortiz’s home run which sparked a 3 run rally in the sixth inning and Edgah’s home run in the 9th which helped shut up a guy who was all over Rent all night. I quickly was reminded of how nice the St. Louis fans are and they truly are the best fans in the game. It was well worth staying for a game that was quicker than the rain delay, can’t wait to head back next season to see the new Busch.

Thursday started with a trip back to the airport. If you’ve never been on the metro link then you wouldn’t know the policy of getting a ticket. You get a ticket and you just seem to walk on and your ticket is never checked, so I decide to get a ticket to get back to the airport because I’m a nice guy but Bob refuses saying if they’re not checked anyway why bother? Well we get on, me with my ticket and him without one and wouldn’t you know there was somebody going around to check tickets. We quickly jumped off at the next station which was Stadium, nice to see Busch again. After getting to the airport and flying to Chicago we were greeted with a subway system unlike all subway systems. At least in St. Louis you knew the train would be there every ten minutes, well not in Chicago, they had a mind of their own and while waiting for a train back to the airport on Saturday we waited 22 minutes, insane. Finally after taking the train to the redline and switching to Grand we walked the three blocks to our hotel, the Best Western of Chicago, room 1606, they loved giving us rooms that ended in 06, After we checked in we went to one of my favorite places to eat, that’s right an ESPN Zone. If you’ve never been to an ESPN Zone, what are you waiting for? After our meal we went into the arcade where I quickly blew $26 playing games such as slap shot where I had to shoot pucks past a goalie, a game where you tried to strike out a batter, I tried Big Mac and Bob tried the Philly Phantic, and both of them took us yard, played Madden on a big, big, big screen, shot some hoops, threw a few touchdowns and even bowled, there is something here for everybody. After a trip to the Navy Peer we had Pizza at easily the best Pizzeria place I have ever been in, Lou Malnati’s. the small 9” Sausage Pizza was so filling I could only eat 1.5 out of the 4 slices.

Friday started with lunch at the Hard Rock Café and then it was off to Wrigleyville. It didn’t take long for me to get angry at somebody at Wrigley as they told me after I paid $5 for a program if I wanted a scorecard I would have to pay an extra $2, well being stupid I paid the extra 2 and was pissed when I was thumbing through my program and found a scorecard, damn Cubbies. I won’t even begin to talk about the game , even through Ortiz hit two homeruns, and I got to see Maddux hit a home run. It may have been because it was a blowout but Wrigley just didn’t have the atmosphere as a Busch stadium. Friday night we went to a place were I had the best steak I have ever had, Harry Carry’s. The Filet I had was to die for, and what made the place even better was that I got to meet Sox second basemen Mark Bellhorn. Great atmosphere at Harry Carry’s, singing Take me out to the Ballgame on the hour in the bar each hour, and watching the Cardinals kill the Yankees, it was a blast.

On Saturday we had the honor of going back to Midway, if you’ve never flown from Midway here’s a suggestion, pack so you don’t need to check your luggage. The wait to check our luggage was very long and if we would have arrived 10 minutes later we would have missed our flight home.

Overall it was a great trip and I can’t wait to head back to St. Louis to see Busch next season, it was great having to eat the cost of two tickets this year but whatever.

Ciao,
Chag

The Beasts in the East

The Beasts in the East
By John Chagaris College AP
June 2, 2005
Well it’s been a month since I have had the time to pen a column, first time since April 17th that it is a real column instead of something like Bush or Monkey Yeah, which was pretty funny if you ask me. But now it’s time to focus our attention back to America’s past time, that’s right baseball. If you were to divide the season into nine innings we would be in the bottom half of the second inning, still plenty of time for each team to come back, with the exception of Kansas City. Only one division seems to have a clear cut leader and that comes to my St. Louis Cardinals who are leading the National League Central by a whopping 6.5 games. We have only played 52 games, yet they are 6.5 games up.

Enough about the National League central, there are only two divisions that are going to have multiple teams battling it out for one if not two playoff seeds and they are the beasts in the east. As of writing at 7:12 EST, Baltimore has a 3 game lead over Boston, a 4 game lead over the Jays and a 4.5 game lead over the Yanks. That’s three teams within 4.5 games. Currently the Yanks are on a four game losing streak, as much as I hate the Yankees can you really see them not going on another ten game winning streak. The only thing that the Yankees lack now is something that they lacked all of last year and that is pitching. It seems that once again George went to a nursing home to find his pitching staff. Kevin Brown is 40, Tom Gordon is 37, Buddy Gromm is 39 but he’ll be 40 on July 10th, Randy Johnson is 41, he’ll be 42 by season’s end. Mussina is 36, Pavano is 29, Quantrill is 36, Rivera claims to be only 35 but that age has been questioned for a long time. Mike Stanton just turned 38, Tanyon Sturtze is 24 and Chien-Ming Wang is 25. Out of their whole pitching staff only three are under 30. Their average age comes out to be 35 years old. But then again the whole team is old besides Chien-Ming Wang and Robinson Cano nobody was born in the eighties. Hell nobody was born before 1977 either. Coming down the stretch injuries will continue to come into play with how old this pitching staff is, which The New York Post already dubbing Randy Johnson as the Big useless, how are they going to react down the stretch when the Yanks don’t make the playoffs. while they are getting older the Sox are getting younger, with the exception of david Wells the Sox have young starting pitching. also Baltimore and Toronto have a few young guns and in a few years the Sox and yanks will be battleing for the bottom of the division. But the division to watch is the National League East. Atlanta leads right now with a one game lead over Florida but look at this the Mets and Nationals are tied for third with 2.5 games back and the last place Phillies are 3.5 games back, this division will be fun to follow down the stretch.

Now let’s move on to the NCAA College World Series, and if you are ready for a massacre be lucky because that is what is going to happen when Quinnipiac faces Texas. I have always been against automatic bids because let us face it when a team goes 24-22 do they really deserve to be playing for a national championship? Quinnipiac would be lucky if they scored two runs, and would be even more lucky if they gave up less than 15 runs to Texas, my prediction Texas clobbers QU 20-1.

Well I’m going to head out and try to grab something to kill my headache but before I go I figured I’d catch everybody up on what I’ve been doing and not being able to write. It’s been a combination of traveling to NYC to going to Fenway to working in home Theater, yeah it’s been that simple wish it was more exciting to tell. Well I’m off and hopefully I can get back into the swing of things and update more often.

Ciao,
~Chag