I sat in the center-field bleachers Sunday night for Game 3 of the Cubs-Sox at Wrigley, and it was just what you would imagine.
A night game in this series ensures the blood-alcohol level will be in a danger zone, and those expectations were not unmet.
Sitting in a row in front of us was a couple: the guy in a Cubs shirt and his female friend in a Sox shirt — at least for a while.
There were also two teen girls in Sox shirts sitting in the row behind us.
Now, I'm of the mind that if you wear a Sox jersey to Wrigley or a Cubs jersey to the Cell, you're daring people to at least say something. And you'll never be disappointed.
So I'm coming back from a mid-inning break, and I see the Sox girl in front of us talking to the ones behind us. It was very animated and not surprising. The one in front obviously was over-served.
Turns out, a girl in a Cubs shirt "accidentally" dumped a beer that just coincidentally landed on the girls in Sox shirts behind us and the one in front.
The girls in back were drenched, but they took it in stride and laughed. The spiller said it was an accident.
But the woman in front of us wasn't having it. F-bombs, middle fingers and other insults were flying up. The security guard, who resembled Carlos Zambrano, just stood there. He said he didn't see it.
The woman wouldn't let it go and became even more animated. She started flipping off fans in front and to the side and had entire sections booing her. At one point, she flashed fans in front while fans to the side started chanting: Show them again, Show them again!
Yes, it was a Jerry Springer show.
The really fun thing about sitting behind a woman like that is that peanuts and other projectiles intended for her bounced off some of us. Collateral damage.
So the Big Zzzzzz security guard finally told her to calm down. As he walked back, she flipped him off, and when he saw that he finally kicked her out.
I saw other girls in Sox shirts throwing cups at a male Cubs fan who provoked them by knocking out cups they stuck in a fence to make a design.
I saw a girl rushed to first aid, crying and screaming in a wheel chair.
I saw another girl in a Sox shirt kicked out after trying to evade security.
Another guy wiped out going down the steep, slippery concrete steps in the bleachers.
There was a lot of provocation between fans after the game, but it didn't get out of hand.
Actually, considering all the circumstances, it was a relatively mild night.
Good times.
Only in the bleachers.
My question is, what was a Sports Editor of the Sun -times doing slumming it in the bleachers?? Shouldn't you be in a nice cozy box being served your cocktails instead of wearing them??
Roman responds: I was being a fan, my friend. Not of one team more than the other. I hope both reach the World Series. I grew up a Sox fan and have grown to like the Cubs. But if they do both reach the Series, then I will declare my allegiance.
I'd rather sit in the stands than in the press box any day.
I recall a day in the left-field bleachers about 35 years ago. A guy who had had far to many Old Styles was shouting at Greg "The Bull" Luzinski who then played for The Phillies and who is from the Chicago area. People were taking it in stride and also razzing Luzinski until the drunk idiot used the P-lock word. That was when a guy who was about The Bull´s size stood up and jabbed the drunk. The guy said "My girlfriend is polish too. You got a problem with Polish people?" Well the drunk said something else stupid which I can´t recall and then all hell broke loose. We got caught up in the middle of it. All in all I remember numerous people being restrained and then kicked out by the Andy Frains and The Bull leading off the top of the next inning -Doesn´t it always happen that way?- and hitting a towering drive onto Waveland. Ah ya can´t beat fun at the old ballpark! Go Sox next weekend!
So all the trouble makers were in sox gear? Sweet.
I had a great weekend watching the games from Hollywierd also! Walk off homer, a perfect shellacking, great pitching performance with a circus act to close. What more could you want? I Loved it all! Leave it to the sox fans to whine about the conduct of the Cub fans, why not they have a whiny little baby manager so i suppose everyone should act like that as well boo hoo.
Roman responds: No, the woman who started it all was wearing a Cubs shirt. And there's no way it was an accident. If I had been sitting there at the time, I would have called for her ouster.
The guard was asleep at the switch.
Lets see what happens at cellphone park this weekend with the cry baby. I imagine the sox fans themselves crying even louder after a beating in their own house.
Roman I suggest sitting in press row over by there this weekend, you will never have as much fun as you did last night in the bleachers, do they even have bleachers over there in the cell?
GO CUBS!
bleacher seats definitely = admittance for multiple events (ya know, the actual baseball game and the carnival acts that ensue around you) and after a similar experience last night well worth the 5x face value ticket price! I try not to be surprised by the happenings out there, but you haven't lived until you see a fan get slapped upside the cheek with a wrapped hotdog (from a vendor, no less - and by accident, i'm sure). Good times indeed!
Roman responds: Hey, didn't I see you last night? You were wearing the green t-shirt?
To ALL CUBS FANS...WIN A WORLD SERIES, UNTILL THEN, YOU ARE JUST THE LOVABLE LOSERS WHO HAVE ACCOMPLISHED ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN 100 YEARS.
Yeah, but the Sox will always be second best in this city, even with your World Series! We are the lovable losers, while your just losers!
Typical White Sux comment by Aloysius. Hard to talk smack after getting your A**ES KICKED three days in a row.
Go ahead and bring up something that happened 3 years ago. Nobody cares anymore, just ask Ozzie and Kenny. They both said as much in recent print articles.
Aloysius, I wonder what you'll say when we take all 6 games this year. Oh never mind, I know, you'll bring up '05...again!
1. What shirt were you wearing Roman?
2. I am bringing my pregnant wife to the Bleachers in July.....she has never been to a Cubs game at Wrigley...I am not showing her this article. Sox fans should'nt throw peanuts, don't they know there is a food shortage on the way...they may want to save them.
Long time Sox fan so I can vent on some of their fans:
For some reason, many Sox fans use this series as an avenue to vent about their lot in life. Call it what you will but way too many Sox fans are mad at the world...major chip on their shoulder. I can't take my kids to the games with the Legue-wannabes there. Maybe we're PO'd cuz we have Jim Belushi as an honorary fan, or worse yet, John Cusack.
I agree about 2005...let it go. Fans who keep bringing that up are also talking about the '85 Bears. Isn't the idea to try to win every year? Cubs are flat out better than the Sox this year and it's not even close.
Well Sauganash Steve....You can bring up.......1908!!
Sauganash, come on dude. Are you guys REALLY trying to say a CHAMPIONSHIP means NOTHING??? If 3 years is ancient history as you say...what's 100 years? Learn to give credit where its due chief. Cubs fans are talking real big. What do you get for winning the crosstown classic? A 5th of Old English!
Well Roman since you weren't there to witness what started the entire chain of events you can't say the girl in the Cubs shirt started it since she may have been provoked by the girls in the Sox shirts to begin with, Personally I can't see wasting a perfectly good beer by dumping it on a Sox fan even if provoked. I believe that is a perfect example of alcohol abuse! And seeing how the beligerant one was collateral damage to begin with I have to ask myself if she would have been that animated had she been collateral damage of a Sox fan dousing a Cubs fan?
Several Years ago at Soldier Field during a game against the Pack a woman sitting by herself in full Pack attire and penant, nursing a fifth of vodka five rows behind me and my sons provoked the guys sitting in fron of her with many expletive laced comments during the game until one of them finally turned around snatched her Pack penant and ripped it in half. Ofcourse she created such a scene security soon arrived and was about to escort the guy that ripped her penant out when the entire section rose to his defense. Finally security listened to what had provoked him and they insisted he replace her penant then escorted her and what was left of her vodka out of soldier field. So maybe your perception of the events may be totally inaccurate.
Beyond that it was a great week-end and I'm looking forward to a repeat this coming week-end......GO CUBBIES!!!!!!
Roman responds: There was an elderly couple sitting behind me (and the guy's going to read this, so please send in a comment), and he told me the beer was not dropped by accident.
C'mon, Tim, a girl in a Cubs shirt drops a beer and it accidentally falls on three girls in Sox shirts. That's like the Magic Bullet theory. This is the Magic Silver Bullet theory.
I agree it's a wasted of $6 to pour a beer on anyone ... well, almost anyone.
The interesting word here is provoke, and bculz brings up a good point. All it takes for me to "provoke" a Sox fan and get middle finger directed or four letter words sent my way is wearing a Cubs hat. No words, no look, just wearing my teams colors, and I get a-holes in my face. It would take a lot more to provoke me, a lot, as I respect every fans' right to attend games. It does seem Sox fans have a major chip on their shoulder. Or, a Napolean complex. I don't get it ... after winning a Series three years ago, you'd think Sox fans would be a little more comfortable with themselves. But, its actually worse ... Sox fans are mad at the world, and seeing blue/red makes many go into a rage. Oh well, Cubs fans, just ignore them. That's the best thing to do.
Roman I have no doubt that the beer was dropped intentionally, I am just wondering what prompted it and you have to admit that hitting 3 sox fans with one $6 beer is pretty darn good coverage but besides the blatant abuse of alcohol proper ettiquette says that beer should not be mixed with a sox fan's whine!
I think all this is silly.
I was glad to see the Cubs win because THIS YEAR, they deserve to, and because THIS YEAR I'm annoyed with the Sox' petty focus on their supposed inferior status.
In any case, I'm cheering for living teams, not dead ones. After all, what value did the '85 Bears have for any team from '86 on? The '85 Bears were the '8f Bears and that's the end of it. So, too with the 2005 Sox and 1908 Cubs.
Should have known that any topic involving sox fans wouldn't focus on something about the actual baseball game(s) but on themselves, and bad cubs fans and on and on. Oh well, the three game visit is over for the year and now Wrigley can gratefully return to enjoying the games. My grandfather used to say the best thing about the white sox was they kept the riffraff out of wrigley. The "beer spillage incident" just goes to show what happens, sounds like normal cellular behaviour to me, flippin people off, f bombs, flashing, so what else is new. It could have been the team manager and everyone would have applauded him. So who won the game anyway, or are we still daydreamin about back in '05.
Are you sure there wasnt a SECOND BEER dropper?
Roman responds: That's not bad - for you. Maybe he/she was in the bushy knoll under the center-field cameras.
Awesome story...great read...If that doesn't make ya proud to be a Chicagoan...maybe you 'should' move to Arizona..where the above mentioned fun lands you in Tent City...which..in reality...is more like a drug party with bad food and no alcohol....if you're not afraid of vatos, that is...and have cash...which...c'mon...I'm Hitman...ya think I suffered?...he//..I came out with a habit...Thanks Sherriff Joe...
It's things like this I point to when people ask me why Tuesday is my favorite day...
Thanks Roman..
Ritchie Zisk....Oh, Ritchie Zisk, please....Paging Ritchie Zisk...
I saw this together in the last blogtopic....say it outloud.. it made me laugh...nowhere close to with...but directly at the Ritchie Zisks....and congrats on the kid, culzie...oh..and ya have to sing culzies part really loud...funny...screwUwhitesox
blogtopic=better than thread
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nah..There isn't one player on the Sox roster I'd rather have than who the Cubs have..
didn't think so ..but I wanted to see ...I saw
The San Antonio White Sox has a nice ring to it..
ya'd have more fans
Posted by: Hitman | June 22, 2008 10:05 PM
.......THREE STRIKES YOUR OUT....
AT THE OLD......BALL GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: bculz | June 22, 2008 11:21 PM
Did I hear a report of some suspicious looking hobos lurking around the knot hole? And a strange puff of smoke coming from the Wild Hare (and singing armadillo and frog sanctuary) back fence?
Is there a S.T. crime reporter on this? or is it being handled solely by the sports department?
Did I hear a report of some suspicious looking hobos lurking around the knot hole? And a strange puff of smoke coming from the Wild Hare (and singing armadillo and frog sanctuary) back fence?
Is there a S.T. crime reporter on this? or is it being handled solely by the sports department?
Two things:
1. Hitman, the answer to the "This Day in White Sox History" trivia question on the Jumbotron last Tuesday at Comiskey was Ritchie Zisk. Just an FYI.
2. Roman, if you ever use the phrase "bushy knoll" again in this blog, I swear I will boycott it forever. I thought it was grassy knoll anyhow. Does center field really have a hyphen?
Roman responds: I admit it's a weird term, but there are bushes, not grass in that area. And I always forget our style on center field. You're such a grammar cop.
Roman responds: No, the woman who started it all was wearing a Cubs shirt. If I had been sitting there at the time,
I would have called for her ouster. The guard was asleep at the switch.
My response: But you wasn't there Roman, you gave the wink-wink and left. Do you really think White Sox fans are that naive?
It is okay you switched allegiances - don't hand me that sports-writer objectivity crap - to the Cubbies after moving up North,
most people do that anyway to fit in.
No beer tossed around until you leave the scene of the crime, huh, sounds mighty suspicious to me, Roman!...lol...Anyway,
White Sox fans will treat Cub fans with more dignity when they visit WHITE SOX PARK OR COMISKEY, only newbies call it the Cell,
plus we already know you guys and gals are a bunch of wusses....lol....
Elderly couple in the bleachers??? There's a rare find. I'm 36 and I already feel like I'm too old for the bleachers. I need shade and a guaranteed place to sit!!
Roman responds: Good point. I was one of the older guys there, too. But yes, these people were a bit older. Wish they would write in.
at least you qualified your statement....
Bushy Knoll...
this has so many implementations...
Band Name
Movie Title
Porn Star Nic
Blogsite
gosh...you should trademark this one!!
So then......in playing this out to ad nasueum....would the little window where the guys sit and change the score on the scoreboard be considered....
The 3rd floor window of the Book Depository???
Roman responds: It was the 7th floor.
what will drive you and other even crazier..is that...IVE BEEN THERE...and looked out the window...and actually stood in the Bushy Knoll...it was higher than the 3rd floor....looking back....but it was college...and well...i may have been too!!!
Cubs fans are wusses????? seems to me it was a Sox fan spewing expletives over a little spilt beer. Besides a Sox fan sitting in the bleaches is like Custer riding into the Little Big Horn....suicide! Cub fans don't have that problem at the cell cause it's never sold out except when the Cubs play there!
Grassy knoll. That's GRASSY knoll. Bushy knoll sounds like a cat disease, or a really great fantasy football team name. There you go Roman, you're all set. You're welcome.
Roman responds: Geeezuss! I know about the grassy knoll in Dallas. I wrote a review on a book that studied the assassination. There are bushes at Wrigley, not grass, in the centerfield bleacher area. Got it?
Roman:
I must have been sitting only a few rows behind you. I only caught this out of the corner of my eye, but the beer that was tossed did in fact hit the girls behind you and then made this miraculous turn in mid air (defying various laws of beer tossing physics)and nailed the woman in the row in front of you in the knee.
But what I found odd is this: Once the two women behind you in Sox shirts were hit with the beer, I distinctly remember that their heads snapped back and to the left -- almost as if they had been hit from the front.
Fortunately, my friend was at the game with his camera and he was taking video at that moment. While the footage is somewhat grainy, it clearly shows the two women's heads snapping back and to the left and both of them clutching their throats.
Other fans at the game are on the film pointing to someone in the green grassy knoll section in straight away center field, but my friend, Sapruder, didn't have that on his video.
Oh well. This could remain a mystery for the next 40 + years.
Roman responds: You know what's funny, later in the game, those girls in Sox shirts ended up with guys in Cubs shirts who were sitting next to them.
Thanks Julie..yet another score for my day, Tuesday...It makes sense, tho...Ritchie Zisk and Tuesday are both mongo fun to say...
it gets me thru wednesday's bs
So are you going to call your fantasy team "Bushy Knoll" or what???????
Roman responds: No comment.
Roman responds: You know what's funny, later in the game, those girls in Sox shirts ended up with guys in Cubs shirts who were sitting next to them.
Sedition from a sox fan? Shocking!
Actually I think those girls in the Sox jerseys who ended up with the guys in the Cubs jerseys were offering a visit to their bushy knolls... if you "knoll" what I mean.
Ha! I kill myself.
P.S. I got it on Super Secret Service Warren Commission advice that the person on the grassy knoll who threw the first beer was none other than... Roger McDowell, former Mets pitcher and cameo appearance dude.
Grassy knoll. That's GRASSY knoll. Bushy knoll sounds like a cat disease.
Posted by: Julie B. | June 25, 2008 08:29 AM
***
Shame on you Julie, don't be blaming the cat. Anyway you read that line, still sounds like part of the female anatomy...*smile* (Yes, my mind is in the gutter)
Moving on:
Real reason for beer dousing. Cubbie ladies simply couldn't stand the sight of THE WHITE SOX FEMALE HOTTIES! Go back and review the pics on this website. Cubbie girl just looked and thought this sucks and doused the White Sox Females....lol....Imagine if the Cubs had lost a game what would have happen?
While the footage is somewhat grainy, it clearly shows the two women's heads snapping back and to the left and both of them clutching their throats.(SEEDY)
great Post Seedster....
also...the "Clutching the Throat" gesture...is the internationall signal for OVERPRICED BEER!!!
also...the "Clutching the Throat" gesture...is the internationall signal for OVERPRICED BEER!!!
True and LOL
No, no boys - "Clutching the Throat" gestures at Wrigley are due to the Old Style in the cup.
Just remember our agreement if the Cubs make the world series!!!
You don't have a girlfriend and time is running out for that exception! You have until I return from Israel to use that "get of jail free" card!
Hello, Roman and Sox and Cubs fans of Roman's blog. You be a spirited group. I was the lesser half of the "older couple" sitting behind Roman at the Cubs victory at Cubs Park last Sunday. The girl to my right and one row up was in a Cubs jersey and seemed to me to be way over-served already when in a conversational mode with the 2 Sox-jerseyed young ladies next to me she unexpectedly drained her whole beer onto the two ladies she was talking with.
In the overspill, the beer hit me and my wife, and Roman even got a few drops or so. I looked to my right and saw the Cubs lady being talked to and settled by her male friends who were embarrassed. These two men said so over and over as they apologized to the rest of us. The almost-agreed-upon solution was that the overserved Cubs lady would buy a beer for the two Sox kids. But the lady said no, so her boyfriend agreed to do it. Then, the Sox lady ahead of Roman in the front row of our upper section (storied/captioned/featured in Roman's original Blog) turned and with voice, middle fingers blazing, raucous and seemingly-overserved mumbles urged the two Sox ladies to retaliate against Ms. Cub and began getting the whole bleacher section involved in the aftermath. Eveyone else was trying to settle the first lady and now to settle down this Sox lady from down in the front row (Bob Eucker's seat). The crowd was really involved and everyone was having a great time--the first row lady was quite an entertainer--sort of like Red Fox or Richard Pryor on fire in front of an appreciative audience. She was throwing dares, amazing sexual taunts, and etc. to all four directions of the earth--at least that portion of it that sits under the score board in Cubs Park. And she was playing to the crowd. We, the crowd enjoyed the whole thing.
Except for one thing, thought I, when you are too close to the stage, rotten fruit thrown (as in the audience preparing to greet the "King" and the "Duke" in Huck Finn's tale of his trip down the Mississippi in the 1830s) tend to cause collateral damage. I thought with the things being thrown in the first row Sox girl's direction from other audience members, things might get out of hand and we could get collateralized too. As it turns out, that worry went unmatrialized.
This afternoon, I went to Sox Park again with about 50 of my firends, we rented busses and all sat together, in the bleachers and no such Cubs antics happened. Cubs fans and Sox fans were enjoying each other's company tho the Cubs people were not too pleased with the game and its outcome. Those who can add anyway.
Walking down the runway afterwards, three obnoxious and overserved young lads in Sox shirts were egging on and then skirmishing with two Cubs-attired young men. The disgraceful Sox trio were overserved and did provoke it too. Again, I got splashed with beer and jostled as the group rolled on past us down the ramps. I picked up a cellphone in the battle and handed it over to the security team which was on the spot in seconds.
This response was in direct opposition or contrast to the response we received at Cubs park last week when I and others signaled several time to the large Cubs security cop, Mr. ZZZZZ, who stood there and did not respond at all, even looking the other way at first, when I and several other people asked him for help.
My only problem with Roman's blog which was terrific and right on cue--to egg on andengage his Cub fans fans, a partial purpose to a newspaper's blog I would think--was that he characterized us as an older couple. Though in our late 60s and early 70s, within the last five years, my wife has climbed both Mt. Ranier and Mt. Kilomanjaro, and I raced up the Hancock to celebrate my 70th. We spent a week of last summer doing 45 miles of canoeing on the upper Missouri river and the summer before white-water rafting 100 miles of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho.
Old is not a lesser state of being; and like the rest of life it is in great part a state of mind. Maybe in my next life here, I'll get young again and go throw beer on people I am sitting and talking with at a ball game and then flash the whole audience around and stumble out with the help of two or three guards and friends or better yet start a food fight.
Or go sit behind Roman and then read his blogs the next week.
Hey, this was fun.
Old guy
Bob...thanks for solving the "Lone Beerthrower" mystery!!
I once had a conversation with Justice Earl Warren but not about the amazing lone bullet theory. The lone beer theory in this case really did happen in fact.
Bullets go in one diretion; beer goes everywhere. Amazing what one can learn in the bleachers that one may have never covered in school or in doing research on an event at a grassy knoll.
Or as Yogi once said, "you can exxperience a lot by merely being in the way."
Publius the Second
No special coverage on the blog. No live at the bleachers? I understand. JUST BASEBALL. NOBODY INTERESTED IN THAT BUT...Sox fans.
Bob:
By any chance, did the Sox babe in the Uecker seats in your story mention (during her stand up routine) whether she was:
a former ice skater?
a current yoga instructor?
a card carrying member of the famed Rockford Thunder rollerball team?
a shotgun brandishing sidekick on the Rex Bandwagon?
a grammar queen?
a spelling bee?
Because outside of the Sox jersey, she sounds every bit like our dear, loveable and loquacious... Julie B.
Roman responds: No, it wasn't Jules. She wouldn't act like that.
Thanks for sticking up for me, Romie! Ahhh, blogging in the summertime..........