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Published: September 30th 2010
Our time in Chicago has come to an end. Craig’s really disappointed to be leaving as he was looking forward to coming here so much and he’s had such a good time, but we’ll be coming back in December for the ice hockey.
I feel like we’ve done nothing here except go to the baseball. Craig went to five games, and I went to three. He saw the Cubs four times at Wrigley Field, against the San Francisco Giants three times and playing against the St. Louis Cardinals once. Unfortunately the Cubs only won one of those games.
Craig loved watching the baseball at the iconic Wrigley Field with it’s ivy wall and old-school scoreboard. We also did a tour of Wrigley Field. (It was so great to go to the baseball at Wrigley & to see the Cubs play! It’s hard to describe how cool it is to see a game there, it’s so much different to every park. They don’t have a jumbotron screen at all, all they have is a couple of small LED scoreboards along with the main manually operated scoreboard. Other than that it’s just the baseball & an organist playing some tunes to
keep the fans entertained, which is a lot different to any other ground. It’s almost like watching a game in a different time period, really good stuff. Unfortunately I only saw the 1 victory, with a 2-0 win the second night. The other games results were a 1-0 loss, 13-0 loss & 7-1 loss. The 13-0 loss was a tough one, as the Giants were up 11-0 after 3 innings, including 3 homeruns that went directly over my head in the left field bleachers. Still really enjoyed the time at the games, besides the results! - Craig)
Last night we went to US Cellular Field to see the White Sox play against the Boston Red Sox. We had such a fantastic night, it was the best game of baseball ever! On our way in we got asked to fill out a survey for Chevy and scored two free White Sox t-shirts for our efforts. We also got two free bobble head dolls of one of Craig’s favourite players, Andruw Jones, as we entered the gate. This was because sometimes they had out free gifts to the first so many people (in this case the first 20,000 fans) entering the
ground to entice people into coming to the game. At previous games we’ve gotten things like keys rings and pens. The bobble head giveaway was to celebrate Andruw Jones scoring 400 career home runs, which he did in July. We were expecting little bobble heads, but they were about a 7-8 inches tall. It was fantastic! It was also really funny later in the game when Andruw Jones came up to bat, people were waving their bobble heads in the air.
We were there right as the ground opened, and so were some of the first people in. As we came in, the Boston Red Sox were on the field for batting practice. During batting practice heaps of balls go into the crowd, and the players occasionally throw the practice balls into the crowd, too. Every time we’ve gone to the baseball Craig’s wanted an official MLB baseball, either from catching a foul ball during the game or from getting one during batting practice. Unfortunately he hadn’t had much luck so far. So he left me in our seats (which were great seats by the way, three rows from the front between the third base and foul pole) and
went off to behind the home run line in left field to try and get a batting practice ball.
I watched him for a while, and a couple of balls came so close that they were almost within grasp, but someone else grabbed them. I could see he was getting frustrated. This was his last chance to get a ball! Then I noticed that a few people were standing near where I was, because occasionally a ball came our way. So I decided to stand up right at the front to try and get a ball also. After standing there for about half an hour with nothing coming my way, I decided to head over to where Craig was and stand near him to increase his chances of getting a ball.
On the way over to where Craig was, I noticed that there was a space against the fence where no-one was standing, and there was a player standing not too far away. I thought that the next time a ball came over near my way, I could yell out to the player and ask him to throw it to me. Sure enough, I got my chance only
about 5 minutes later. The batter hit the ball right near me, and when the player caught it I yelled out, “Can I please have the ball?” and leaned over the fence to show a bit of cleavage. It couldn’t hurt! And I got a ball! (Go Stef!!!! So awesome that she got the ball! - Craig)
I wandered over to where Craig was and met him halfway, right behind the foul post. As he was walking towards me a woman approached him and asked him if he’d like to be on the jumbotron for a chance to win $100. He said yes, but I’ll talk about that a bit later. While we were standing there behind the foul post, another ball got hit right near us and Craig got another ball! But as he doesn’t need two, he gave one to a nearby kid which I thought was really nice! The kid just had a shocked look on his face, and Craig heard him saying to his dad, “Why would he do that!?” (I kind of wish I hadn’t given the ball away now, I should’ve kept that ball too but the kid really seemed to enjoy it
so it’s all good. - Craig)
During the second inning, the lady came to get us so Craig could play the competition on the jumbotron. It was during the third inning, and they asked him a ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ question about who the White Sox had played against when Andruw Jones had gotten his 400th home run. Luckily the lady had told Craig the question in advance, because he hadn’t seen the game and he didn’t know! So in-between the time when the woman approached him and when she came to get him, he was able to buy a White Sox magazine to find out!
So Craig got to be on the jumbotron! Unfortunately I don’t have any evidence of this. I was filming the jumbotron but this was only the footage of the Who Wants to be a Millionaire host asking the question, and I didn’t realise that they had the footage of Craig on the big screen next to it! I just thought that they’d stuffed up and they hadn’t put any footage of him up there. Yes, I’m an idiot! I felt so bad. (I have no idea how Stef mucked this
one up, the two screens are side by side & are absolutely massive! But doesn’t matter, would have been cool to have video of it but the couple of photos of me with the camera in front of me will have to do - Craig)
Of course Craig answered the question right and he won a crisp $100 note. We also won a couple of T-shirts and a White Sox hat, which Craig gave to me because it was more a girl’s sort of hat with the hole at the back to put my ponytail through. While there, Craig also met the White Sox mascot who swapped hats with Craig and made for a very funny photo!
While at the game we saw some Red Sox fans and some White Sox fans screaming obscenities at each other, looking like they were about to get into a punch on. That all changed when one of the Red Sox fans got sent a photo on his phone from a mate from Boston who was watching the game at home - their screaming match had made it on the TV telecast. They were all really excited and the best of friends
after that. Very funny.
To top off the night, the White Sox won the game with a run in the bottom of the ninth inning. What a fantastic evening!
Craig also saw a game of ice hockey while in Chicago, which I’ll let him talk a little bit about! (It was awesome to get to a Blackhawks game while we were there. It was only a preseason game, however it was the first home game since winning the Stanley Cup (the championship) last season & was also against the arch rival Detroit Red Wings. The game ended up being a sell-out & was a record preseason crowd. The atmosphere in the United Center was electric & it was just fantastic. I ended up having great seats on the 1st level, only 5 rows from the glass. Watching the game from there was amazing, especially when the players crashed into the boards right in front of me! Seeing ice hockey live for the first time was fantastic, the game is just so quick & the ice surface is really quite small leaving not much space for the players, it looks so much smaller than on the telly. Before the
game they had this awesome intro that went for around 6 to 7 minutes, where they showed this motivational video on the jumbotron, while all the lights went out in the arena, before coming back on in different shades of red & other colours too. It was really well done & got everyone in the crowd really fired up, I’m looking forward to seeing the games in the real season later in the year! The game was a pretty good one, with the Hawks winning 4-2. It was great to see the guys have a win, plus score a few goals so I could join in the celebration. Every time the Hawks score a game, the massive air horns go off first, followed by “Chelsea Dagger” by The Fratellis (if you haven’t heard it, google it & have a listen.) Anyway the crowd goes completely nuts, everyone is singing & dancing around & it is simply awesome! Looking forward to some more of it when we go back in December! - Craig)
We did do some other things apart from sport in Chicago. On one of our first days there we went to Legoland Discovery, which had big Lego
models including the city of Chicago made out of Lego. We also got to see how Lego is made, and there was even a ride. Did you know that the colour of the first Lego piece ever made was yellow? Neither did we! ( I Did - Craig)
We went on a couple of really fun tours while in Chicago. The first tour was a Chicago Gangster tour, where two men who dress and spoke like gangsters told us all about Chicago’s gangster history and the years of prohibition. We also got taken to some famous places like the movie theatre where John Dillenger was caught and killed, and the site of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre. Our guides also did lots of fun stuff like make us duck whenever we heard gunfire (which they played over the bus’ speakers).
We also did a Segway tour. In some of the cities in America we’d been seeing groups of people doing tours on Segways, and we knew that we had to do one at some stage. It was so much fun! It was actually a lot harder to pick up than I thought it was going to be. You
had to push your toes down to go forward and your heels back to go backwards, and this took a bit of getting used to. Craig was good at it almost immediately, which was a surprise considering that he has terrible balancing skills! We were lucky that we were the only two people booked for the tour, so we got a private tour for the price of a group tour. We’re going to do another Segway tour sometime before the end of our trip, it was just too much fun! (The segway was a lot easier than what I thought, after about a minute I pretty much had the hang of it & was already maxing it out & hitting the speed limiter. I really want a segway, such a cool way to get around - Craig)
We checked out Navy Pier, but there wasn’t really much there. It was all very touristy and over-priced. They had a funhouse maze there which was a bit of fun, trying to make our way through a hall of mirrors with strobe lighting everywhere, and squeezing ourselves through giant air bags. We also had lunch at Bubba Gumps, as I just had
to have some more of the key lime pie that I’d tried at the Universal Studios Bubba Gumps! I also tried clam chowder for the first time, and it was absolutely beautiful! So I’ll be making us go to Bubba Gumps again somewhere before this trip is out!
From Navy Pier we also did a 30-minute cruise on Lake Michigan to see the Chicago skyline. The sun was out, there was a cool breeze coming across the water and it was just beautiful. The view was simply amazing & we really enjoyed the cruise.
Speaking about the sun, we didn’t see much of it while in Chicago! It was a pleasant 25 degrees for the first couple of days that we were there, and then we hit a day of about 35 degrees. The very next day, it went down to 12 degrees with a freezing wind! We’d gone from wearing shorts and t-shirts and sweating, to wearing our big jackets! It was 12-15 degrees for a further few days before coming back up to a pleasant 18-20 degrees for the last couple of days.
We went up the Sears tower, or as it’s now known, the
Willis tower. They had three sky deck ledges similar to the one up the Eureka tower, except these ones were permanently out over the edge of the building. Craig didn’t want to go anywhere near it, but I tried to make myself go on it. I could only go a couple of steps before I got Craig to quickly take the picture so I could get the hell off! I hate heights (though not as much as Craig). (I made it up to about a foot away, but that was as far as I could make it. Damn wimp that I am - Craig)
We weren’t really too keen on seeing anymore zoos, but Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago is free so we thought we may as well check it out! We hired bikes from the hostel and went for a lovely ride over there. The zoo was a lot bigger than I thought it would be for a free zoo, and we spent a nice couple of hours having a look around.
Another thing we did was go for a walk around Millennium Park and check out the cool sculptures and artwork that they had around there.
They had an outdoor concert hall designed by Frank Gehry, and they also had two fountains with videos of people on them that spat water out at you! It was a beautiful day when we went for a walk around, and we had a great time.
So now we’re in Detroit after a 5 and a half hour train trip from Chicago. We’re going to the Henry Ford museum and checking out some car stuff tomorrow, will let you know how we go!
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Dale Chicago Motivational Speaker
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Chicago people
Came across your site. You have done more in the city then most people who live in or near it. Chicago is a great city.