If you’ve never been to Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, buy your tickets for next season now. I know you say you hate baseball, that it’s boring, that it takes too long – well, then you’ve never been to Wrigley Field. I was there last weekend, last Friday to be exact, in the 40- degrees-but-with-the-wind-coming-in-off-the-lake-it-felt-more-like-20-degrees temperature, in my insulated autumn coat, with my brand new baseball cap on, my freezing hands in my pockets, thanking the Lord that our seats were under the terrace when it began raining, watching the Cubs lose to one of the worst teams in the league – and I was loving every minute of it.

Do you know why? Because there I was, sitting in one of the most incredible ballparks in the history of the game, a place with more character than virtually any other building in this great land of ours, watching the pastime that has gotten American through two World Wars, the Great Depression, the conflict in Vietnam, the JFK assassination, the Watergate scandal, and will surely help us get through the long road ahead in this new war we’ve just entered. But best of all, I was sitting there with a few of the best friends I’ve ever had, on a day none of us will ever forget.

And that is what Wrigley Field is all about. It’s not about the vines in the outfield, the wind blowing in or out, the manual scoreboard in centerfield; it’s not even about the Seventh Inning Stretch (though that one might be debatable). Wrigley Field is about enjoying those all too brief moments in life where everything is perfect. And despite the weather and the final score, that could not be any more true than it was for this game.

The game was originally scheduled for September 14, 2001, but there was no baseball that week. And since then we’d been inundated with the news of bomb threats, Anthrax cases, the thousands still buried under the rubble, the law enforcement agencies of the world making arrests of suspected terrorists, and nations teetering on the edge of a Third World War. But all that was set-aside for a brief time so we could enjoy the perfection of being young and living in America.

For those three hours, the only things that mattered were the count, the number of outs, and who was on first. We watched the people in the stands, admired the endurance of the vendors carrying their heavy loads up and down the steps, and listened for the crack of the bat as Sammy Sosa hit his sixty-second home run. Of course things were a bit odd as we sang “God Bless America” instead of the usual “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh inning - but that’s ok. There’s always next year when my friends and I will be sitting somewhere else in Wrigley Field, enjoying a tall glass of beer, a miraculously good ballpark hot dog, the warm, Chicago sun on our faces and getting that feeling once again that life is good.

“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”

Thanks, Mr. Jones, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Space Monkey X