South Siders with the Victory!
Chicago is a huge city. We’ve been to LA, Houston, and Dallas, but Chicago just seems on a different scale. It has the third highest population in the U.S., but it has the second highest population density after only New York City. The downtown skyline seems so much more imposing than the cities we’ve been to so far because the skyscrapers are all located in one general area of the city, whereas Houston, Atlanta, and LA all have big buildings spread throughout the whole city.
In the afternoon before the White Sox game we tried one of Chase’s favorite burger places in the city, The Counter. After the best burger we’ve had all summer, we went to the theater to finally see Dark Knight Rises. I guess seeing it 4 days after it opened isn’t too bad considering we’re biking across the country, but it was definitely the only movie we were actually looking forward too this summer. It didn’t disappoint! From there we checked out the iconic Millenium Park and the famous “bean.” We took some obligatory photos of our reflections in the bean before our next stop: U.S. Cellular Field.
The stadium itself is nice. It opened 21 years ago and it has seen some extensive renovations within the past decade. The video screens didn’t give us the information we wanted necessarily, but we really dig the multi-colored pinwheels on top of the centerfield scoreboard. The concourse in the outfield is actually a really nice place to hang out among statues of the Big Hurt, Carlton Fisk, Harold Baines, and Minnie Minoso, where we spent most of the game. The centerfield batter’s eye is a nice terrace of green bushes instead of a blank wall in most stadiums.
From the advice of twitter follower @HP_OG, we paid attention to the video montages during and before the game, and they were really good! We also liked the in-game music the most out of any stadium we’ve seen so far, no offense to our friend Dan @TwinsTunes. They played a lot of classic oldies and very little Top 40. Most of the time it was songs that everyone knows and everybody loves to dance to. It was older people and young people dancing to songs during the game in the outfield concourse. Although right when we started talking about how awesome the music was in the 8th inning, a Top 40 song came over the speakers next. Whatever. The best use of music was when the White Sox took the field to Thunderstruck by AC/DC. That’s the perfect pump-up song for right before the game.
The ballpark wasn’t without its faults. This isn’t a complaining blog or anything, but we gotta tell it like it is. The two main things we decided were holding this stadium back were its accessibility and its poor cell reception limited our phones to nothing more than an expensive timepiece for 3 hours. The stadium is conveniently accessible from public transportation and is located next to the Dan Ryan Expressway, but once people get off the “L” or out of their cars entrances to the actual stadium are few and far between and difficult to get to. There were a lot of people at this game, but the stadium entrances were incredibly limited. They weren’t doing extensive pat-downs to slow down the process at the gate, there just weren’t many places to enter the stadium.
Once you entered the stadium, you were only allowed to go to the level where your seat is located. For example, our seats were way up in the 500 section of the stadium, and we were only allowed in that area. One thing we do at every stadium is take a lap around the main concourse and explore the stadium. That seems like a natural thing to do, but people with tickets in our area aren’t allowed to walk around the main concourse. Lucky for us, we convinced a cool stadium worker to let us on the main level or else we wouldn’t have been able to do our usual exploring.
The White Sox fans had a lot to be excited about in this game. Paul Konerko, Adam Dunn, and Alexei Ramirez all homered in the 11-4 victory over the Twins. Dunn went 3/5 with 4 RBI, and fan-favorite Konerko went 4/4. The Twins actually had a 4-2 lead after 6 innings before the bullpen completely melted down and wasted a nice start by Cole De Vries by allowing 9 runs in the seventh and eighth innings. Twins leftfielder Josh Willingham hit his 24th and 25th homers of the season and had all 4 Twins RBI, but several misplays at the wall in leftfield were devastating for the Twins.
After 3 straight home team losses for us, this is the first game we’ve been to that the home team has won since June 30th in Atlanta. After a quick stop in Milwaukee to see the Brewers and Miller Park, we’ll be back to cheer on the Cubs in Chicago this weekend. Here’s hoping the Brewers and Cubs can get the B4B team back to .500 on the season!
Gm 1– 4/13 @ Safeco Field – Oakland A’s @ Seattle Mariners
Oakland wins 4-0 (WP – Colon, LP – Hernandez)
Gm 2 – 4/24 @ O.Co Stadium – Chicago White Sox @ Oakland A’s
Oakland wins 2-0 (WP – Milone, LP – Floyd, SV – Balfour)
Gm 3 – 4/27 @ AT&T Park – San Diego Padres @ San Francisco Giants
San Diego wins 5-3 (WP – Luebke, LP – Hacker, SV – Street)
Gm 4 – 5/3 @ Angels Stadium – Toronto Blue Jays @ LA Angels of Anaheim
Toronto wins 5-0 (WP – Morrow, LP – Haren)
Gm 5 – 5/7 @ Dodger Stadium – SF Giants @ Los Angeles Dodgers
Dodgers win 9-1 (WP – Lilly, LP – Zito)
Gm 6 – 5/8 @ Petco Park – Colorado Rockies @ San Diego Padres
Padres win 3-1 (WP – Suppan, LP – White, SV – Thayer)
Gm 7 – 5/12 @ Chase Field – San Francisco Giants @ Arizona Diamondbacks
Giants win 5-2 (WP – Cain, LP – Cahill, SV – Casilla)
Gm 8 – 5/20 @ Coors Field -Seattle Mariners @ Colorado Rockies
Mariners win 6-4 (WP – Beavan, LP – Guthrie)
Gm 9 – 5/30 @ The Ballpark in Arlington – Seattle Mariners @ Texas Rangers
Mariners win 21-8 (WP – Beavan, LP – Holland)
Gm 10 – 6/3 @ Minute Maid Park – Cincinnati Reds @ Houston Astros
Astros win 5-3 (WP Lyles, LP – Arroyo, SV – Myers)
Gm 11 – 6/15 @ Tropicana Field – Miami Marlins @ Tampa Bay Rays
Rays win 11-0 (WP – Moore, LP – Zambrano)
Gm 12 – 6/22 @ Marlins Park – Toronto Blue Jays @ Miami Marlins
Blue Jays win 12-5 (WP – Romero, LP – Sanchez)
Gm 13 – 6/30 @ Turner Field – Washington Nationals @ Atlanta Braves
Braves win 7-5 (WP – Minor, LP – Strasburg, SV – Kimbrel)
Gm 14 – 7/6 @ Busch Stadium – Miami Marlins @ St. Louis Cardinals
Marlins win 3-2 (WP – Nolasco, LP – Westbrook, SV – Bell)
Gm 15 – 7/13 @ Kauffman Stadium – Chicago White Sox @ Kansas City Royals
White Sox win 9-8 (WP – Alexrod, LP – Teaford)
Gm 16 – 7/19 @ Target Field – Baltimore Orioles @ Minnesota Twins
Orioles win 4-3 (WP – Chen, LP – Burnett, SV – J. Johnson)
Gm 17 – 7/24 @ U.S. Cellular Field – Minnesota Twins @ Chicago White Sox
White Sox win 11-4 (WP – Jones, LP – Fien)