I attended my first Chicago Cubs game on Aug. 3—not from inside Wrigley, as I imagined I would when I moved a block away from the storied park last September, but from beyond the left field wall.
Even though the Cubs won, I felt like I showed up late to a funeral, like I resisted trying to sneak inside the church unnoticed but could hear through the walls that something simultaneously sad and celebratory was going on inside.
My hope was to enjoy their matchup against the Kansas City Royals with an earbud tuned to the radio broadcast and surrounded by the dedicated fans who set up lawn chairs along West Waveland Avenue, grasping at their own sense of normalcy by settling as close as possible to the forest green bleacher seats they’d rather be occupying. So, I positioned myself at the corner of Waveland and North Kenmore, with a view of the back of the third base line foul pole and a corner of the adjacent empty upper deck seats.
On two other occasions, I had walked around Wrigley during these empty-stadium games to find an encampment of Cubs fans on this corner. This night, perhaps because it was a Monday or due to the scary weather or a combination of both, just one other “spectator” stuck around for the whole game; I’d later find out when he turned his back to reveal a custom jersey that it was Mai Tai Guy, who became internet famous for swiping a home run ball from some kids last summer.
The dreary, 60-degree night was more appropriate for an October playoff game than a casual August contest. Two brief but intense downpours soaked the neighborhood early in the evening. The wind assailed my back from down Kenmore like I had Aeolus, Greek god of the winds, behind me trying to blow out a trick candle for nine innings. It whipped the street sign back-and-forth like a spring doorstop vibrating violently after being flicked sideways. If I didn’t have access to a calendar, I could’ve been convinced this night marked the end of baseball season, rather than Game 10 of this unusual midsummer start.
Music from the park speakers carried over the wall. Walk-up songs, brief organ interludes—including renditions of The Temptations’ “Get Ready” and a Lady Gaga tune I recognized but couldn’t identify by name—and a horrendous, tone-deaf version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” reached my ears. A year ago, maybe that organ wouldn’t have felt so church-y. This night, the melodies were bittersweet reminders of where I was and especially where I was not.
In the bottom of the sixth, one of the few natural sounds of gameplay escaped past the ivy and brick. I heard the crack of Kyle Schwarber’s bat, even glimpsed the ascending ball, but it drifted harmlessly foul. I felt like I peeked through a stained-glass window to hear and see a relative of the deceased powering through a melancholy speech while their eyes welled up.
In the top of the seventh, three young boys exited the house on the corner where I was perched to play a game of catch on the sidewalk. One of the boys seemed to pretend to be bad at catch and, for comedic effect, let the ball hit him in the groin. Their nonchalant tosses intensified into heated keep away, and at one point an errant throw skipped off the pavement into the passenger side door of a passing black SUV. The kids gasped and became wide-eyed, but to their relief, the driver didn’t stop to scold them. I seemed to be among children whose parents let them entertain themselves outside because they weren’t quite old to understand the sorrow and sentimentality within the walls.
With the Royals down to their final three outs, a fan riding a sleek motorcycle rolled down Kenmore and came to a stop right next to me. The man, probably in his mid-20s, pulled off his helmet and asked me, “Still in the top of the ninth?”
“You bet,” I responded. “Actually just started.”
After each of the final outs, the fake crowd noise became rowdier. When Alex Gordon’s pop out to Javier Baez gave the Cubs the 2-0 victory, my new acquaintance reached into his backpack for something: a skinny can of Michelob Ultra. He cracked the beer right there on the sidewalk as the stadium speakers showered us with “Go Cubs Go” from behind the wall.
“Eerie, huh?” he asked without waiting for my response because he already knew it. “I came down here just to hear that song and drink a beer.”
It was like he showed up just in time to hear the final processional hymn, and the beer he sipped was a tribute to his lost friend: 2020 Cubs baseball with in-person fans—or, if the outbreak trends continue, potentially the premature conclusion of this entire MLB season. Beyond the confines of Wrigley, we could only listen in to this remembrance of what baseball used to be.
The COVID-19 outbreak on the St. Louis Cardinals grew to 13 positive tests on August 3. I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind that, at the rate entire series are being postponed, this very well could have been one of the last Cubs home games of 2020… in August… 10 games in.
Eerie, indeed. Like a funeral.
