In preparation for tonight’s game six in Cleveland, I had a few thoughts about this past weekend’s World Series games at Wrigley Field.Wait a minute, don’t race through that sentence and forget it. Those words. Imagine. “This past weekend’s World Series games at Wrigley Field.” The World Series. Wrigley Field.Are you kidding me?I can’t believe the Cubs are good. I can’t believe the Cubs are this good.I can recite the World Series winners and losers for the past fifty years or so. Four years from now, when I’m reciting them backward in my head, and I say, “2016, Cubs over Indians,” I still won’t believe it. (Foreshadowing.)But we’ve got the rest of our lives to marvel at the unbelievability of it. Today I’m talking about real things that I’ve noticed since Friday.Wrigley is still Wrigley. On Friday I took my youngest son and daughter to Wrigley Field during the day. We couldn’t go to the game, but I just thought it’d be neat to absorb some of the atmosphere. We parked, walked a few blocks to Wrigley, took some pictures, went into a couple of shops, looked around, and just enjoyed ourselves. We had a blast.
I haven’t been to a game in a couple of years, and they’ve made a lot of changes to the park and the surroundings since then. But despite all the changes, Wrigley is still Wrigley. It’s just a bit different. When my kids reached out to touch the stadium, completely on their own accord, they were still touching the memories of 100 years of baseball. That doesn’t go away with a jumbotron and a few ads.This series has turned my son into a baseball fan. He has played baseball for six years, and we’ve gone to games, and he’s watched parts of some games on TV. But this is the first time he’s sitting down at home to watch entire games. He recognizes players. He talks about the game before and after it happens. I became a fan during the 1985 World Series when the Royals beat the hated St. Louis Cardinals. I still have a soft spot in my heart for the Royals because of that initial experience. I suspect my son will look at this year’s World Series in the same way.People get old. I know, that’s a ground-breaking revelation, isn’t it? Of course people get old! But every now and then we see someone we haven’t seen in a long time and we think, “Boy, he’s really grown old.” It’s a ridiculously obvious thing to think, but I’ve thought that a number of times in the past few days.On Friday, when my kids and I were walking around Wrigley Field, we saw Ronnie Woo Woo. I first remember seeing him in the bleachers at Wrigley when I was kid back in the eighties. He’s been around a long time, so it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s getting old. But I was surprised.I saw Bobby Dernier on the Fox pregame show, and he’s no longer the speedy outfielder I remember from my youth. Chip Caray still makes my ears bleed. They’re both older.One person appears to have avoided getting older though: Wayne Messmer. That dude’s rendition of the national anthem on Sunday night made me wonder why anyone else on Earth ever bothers to sing anything. Wayne Messmer has all the singing.Games are too long. I’m a baseball purist, so games never seem boring to me. But for the love of God, can we speed things up? The average game length for the series thus far is 3:24. I understand every pitch is important, and concentration is key, and blah, blah, blah, but there’s something to be said for just throwing the damn ball!I’m ready for it to be over. I know this is blasphemous, but part of me will be happy when the World Series is over.Baseball’s regular season is 162 games. That’s a long season. And because it’s long, each individual game holds less importance than, say, a regular season NFL game, which has only 16 games, and consequently permits the NFL to imply that every game is life-or-death. But when the baseball postseason arrives, each game is important because the entire season comes down to one game, or five games, or seven games, or, as is the case right now, two games.I can skip a game during the regular season. There’s always another one tomorrow. But the postseason has more urgency.Still, enough is enough. I’ve skipped a game or two each round, which has helped with burnout, but let’s get it done.I’m not getting any younger.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: What A Cubs World Series Means to MePREVIOUS POST: The Song That Reminds Me To Appreciate