Holy Cow!

WHILE I WILL ALWAYS BE A ST. LOUIS CARDINALS FAN, I will proclaim right here: there is no other baseball stadium; wait, make that any sports venue, anywhere, like the experience of Wrigley Field.

By the way, I'm not a Cardinals fan just because they are the most successful baseball franchise ever that don't wear pin-stopped uniforms. I am a fan because I grew up in Tulsa, and at the time, the Tulsa Oilers were a farm team for the Cardinals and all the Cards games were broadcast on KRMG radio in T-Town. I wrote about that in a post a while back called, Take Me Out To The Ballgame.

Back to Wrigley. Today was Opening Day for the Cubbies--their 100th at Wrigley!

That's a lot of Opening Days. No one knows better than Cubs fans that their team holds the record for the most consecutive seasons without winning a World Series. Still the place will be packed and rowdy. And every homerun ball hit in to the Wrigley stands by the opposing team will be hurled back on to field by the Cubs fan that caught. It's one of the things that makes Wrigley Wrigley.

The last time that our family attended a game at Wrigley was on a June 13th (my Amazing-Missus' birthday). It was one of Harry Caray's last years as the announcer for the Cubs. We looked forward to the 7th Inning Stretch when Harry would lean out of the press box and lead us in singing, "Take Me Out To The Ballgame..."

That night the Cubs and the Padres played through 14 innings. By that time, Harry had apparently enjoyed enough brewskies that I thought he might fall in to the seats below when he leaned out to lead us in another stanza during the 14th Inning Stretch. 

Fortunately for us, on that rare night in Wrigleyville we got to hear Harry exclaim at the end of the game: "Holy cow!" "Cubs win!"

Fans today were not so lucky. The Cubs lost to the Phillies 7-2. As I post this the Cards are playing that other Pennsylvania team. Go CARDS!