Cubs-crazy dad takes daughter to first game at Wrigley
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By Steve Sands | Friday, September 05, 2008 |
My daughter Sydney reached several milestones this summer: She jumped off a diving board for the first time while her legs quivered in fear, rode her pink bike without training wheels for a couple of seconds and started kindergarten in late August.
She also celebrated a rite of passage for a child reared by a Cubs-crazy father. We made the three-hour pilgrimage to Wrigley Field in late July to see the Chicago Cubs battle the Florida Marlins in a sun-drenched Friday matinee.
In her own way, Sydney straddles a fine line with ease. She is all-girl, singing along with Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel and picking her outfits each morning with the seriousness of a Paris fashion designer.
But she knows how to keep Dad happy, occasionally snuggling in my lap to watch a couple of innings of a Cubs game on television, and when I ask her the next day to guess whether the Cubs won or lost, she invariably picks a win.
Sydney never had a chance to root for any other team, though. I brainwashed her with as much skill as any secret agent. I recently chided her for telling a neighbor girl that the friend had to get off our backyard trampoline if she was a St. Louis Cardinals fan. Deep down, of course, I was cheering, as strongly as any Bleacher Bum, for my daughter’s show of loyalty.
She had been quite happy to tag along with me this summer to three minor league baseball games. Twice, we rooted for Ryne Sandberg’s Peoria Chiefs when they played the Quad-Cities River Bandits, and then we watched the Iowa Cubs play in Des Moines. Both teams are minor league affiliates of the big club in Chicago.
So when my wife announced in late July that a co-worker had two tickets available for a game at Wrigley Field, it was time to complete, in the words of one of Sydney’s favorite movies, “the circle of life.”
My parents took my brother and me to a half-dozen Cardinals-Cubs games while we were growing up in Springfield, Ill., the Mason-Dixon line for the traditional baseball rivalry. My brother rooted for the Cardinals and came home elated most of the time. In all those trips, I saw the Cubs win once, a game played in miserable heat and humidity at the former Busch Stadium in St. Louis. It taught me that Cubs fans must suffer, even in victory.
In my more reflective moments, which don’t last too long, I doubt the wisdom of indoctrinating my daughter into this cult of perpetual sorrow. However, I feel that suffering produces character, and I now have loads of it to pass on to her after 44 years of unanswered prayers. (Yes, I actually whispered a desperate prayer in the waning moments of the playoff collapse to Florida during 2003.)
As luck would have it, that same Marlins club finished its pregame batting practice as Sydney and I emerged from the tunnel at Wrigley Field on July 25. Mesmerized, I inhaled the grandeur of the deep-green infield and ivy-covered outfield walls and the cracking echoes of the wooden bats striking the balls. If the day had a soundtrack, I would have cued the angels to begin singing a heavenly chorus.
I looked down at my daughter to see how she was reacting to this splendor. Her eyes had zeroed in on a vendor toting a 6-foot-high pole of cotton candy. I took a picture of her with the stands rising up behind and then we found our seats for the game.
Florida took an early 1-0 lead in the second, but the Cubs responded in the bottom of the inning when catcher Geovany Soto ripped a home run into the left-field stands. Helping Sydney circle hidden figures in a special program designed for the kiddies, I never saw the ball leave.
The Cubs’ Reed Johnson hit another solo home run in the bottom of the fifth and the Cubs took the lead. However, Sydney, gorged on a thick, salty pretzel and sticky cotton candy, snoozed contentedly, her head precariously balanced on my left shoulder, her little tennis shoe-clad feet curled up in my lap.
Florida tied the game 2-2 in the seventh and took the lead 3-2 in the ninth on a solo home run by Jeremy Hermida. Fresh from her nap, Sydney cheered with 41,000 other die-hard Cubs fans for a rally in the bottom of the inning, but it never happened.
As we filed out of the stadium, I held her hand tightly as she pulled me through the crowd, smiling and laughing as though the Cubs had never lost. For a minute, I wallowed in another Cubs defeat, but not for long.
In a summer of so many changes, it was comforting to know some things never will.
Contact the features desk at (563) 383-2345 or newsroom@qctimes.com. Comment on this column at qctimes.com.
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