September 17, 2007

• Well, I'm back from my journey to St Louis. I say that as if you people knew that I was going, when in reality, I had not even mentioned it so therefore, you probably didn't know. I've decided to do something different, instead of trying to fit the entire trip in one post, I will write about it over the next 2 days. I'll start with Friday and most of Saturday and finish up tomorrow with the rest of Saturday and all of today.

  I should start by saying that my brother Mark and his friends have been going to St Louis for the Cubs-Cardinals series for years. And for years, I have been bugging him to take me, but he has always said they don't have room on the bus for me. This year though, they didn't have enough people to get a bus, so that meant I was in. When we started planning this trip way back at the start of the season, I was pushing everybody to take a train, which I thought was a pipe dream. Somehow though, I managed to actually talk them into taking the train. Well, just about everybody, Mark's friend Brian (who looks just like Jon Stewart) refused to take the train and he drove down there. The rest of us (which was 8 of us) went via train. I picked Rusty up at 8:15ish and we headed over to Mark's house, as he was going to make us breakfast before leaving. After that, we went to Jeff's house where we met up with everybody else. Jeff's cousin (at least I think it was his cousin, I really don't remember, hell it could have been some guy off the street for all I know) drove us to the Joliet train station. Recently I had read an article in the paper that said that only 4% of Amtrak trains from Chicago-St Louis and vice versa were on time. No, I didn't fuck anything up, you saw that correctly, only 4%. Our train wound up being about 10 minutes late, which was still fairly reasonable. The train was smaller than I had expected, in fact, I think there was a total of only 5 cars. Yet as you might expect, with this being a Cubs-Cardinals series, there were a lot of people on the train, most of them going for the games. There was this bleacher bum looking guy who I'm convinced was homeless and living on the train. There was a younger couple behind us who were going to some place in Arkansas. They seemed to be arguing off and on throughout the trip, perhaps the girl thought her boyfriend was total hick because instead of a suitcase or bag, he was carrying all of his clothes in a clear garbage bag. Still, I had something in common with this dude. He and I both hit our heads getting into our seats. We each had done it twice when I told him that we were tied. Towards the end of the trip, I did it a third time, which makes me wonder how many times I had to do it before I learned. I'm thinking the answer is 3, because I did not hit my head at all the whole ride home.

  I had another unique bathroom train experience (read the post from 07/29/07 for the other experience) on the way down there. I got up to go to the bathroom and could not tell if the door was locked. So, I sat down and decided to hold the door shut as I tried to go. I had just sat down and took my hand off the door for a split second when somebody tried opening it. So, I quickly slammed it shut. I thought this was not going to work, so I decided to just hold it until we got to the hotel. Right after I pulled my pants up, it happened again, this time the lady that opened the door was still standing there. The funny part is that neither one of us rushed to close the door, instead we talked for about 10 seconds before I told her that if she didn't mind, I was going to finish up in here. Flash forward briefly to Friday night. We were at the strip club (yeah, I went to a straight strip club) when I got up to go to the bathroom. I had a good buzz going, so therefore I wasn't paying much attention to anything. The stall in the bathroom had no handle and therefore, no way to lock it. I just assumed that nobody was in there and opened the door to find a dude sitting there taking a shit. I felt awful about it, but still saw the humor in the whole thing. I mean, like a Seinfeld episode, it totally came full circle from the train ride to the strip club.

  Anywho, back to the train ride to St Louis. With about 2 hours left to go, we got a table in the snack car and started to play cards (a game called 99). This was the total party car and it seemed like everybody was drunk and loud. In fact, there was so much alcohol consumed on this train that by the time we got to St Louis, there was not a drop of alcohol left to be sold. It got so bad that Jeff was drinking gin and ginger ale. With alcohol comes the potential for confrontations. There was this 20 something year old guy with a very high voice (no, he was not gay) who was arguing with his uncle about the song "Go Cubs Go", the uncle, who claimed to be a fan of both the Cubs and White Sox, was arguing that the song was just marketing propaganda from WGN. I know there is no way for me to describe how this whole argument went, but it was funny as hell and classic. It was pretty heated too, complete with yelling and name calling. Jeff recorded part of it with his cell phone and I told him to put it on You Tube. Later on the song will come full circle, but I will get into that later.

  We got into St Louis pretty much almost on time, shortly after 3. For some reason, the Amtrak station is not connected to Union Station but instead probably about a quarter of a mile away. I don't quite understand this, but whatever. The station is located underneath the off ramp for the expressway and in a construction area. In short, its kind of the type of area where the mafia would hide a body. Oddly enough, there were no cabs in the area, so we started to walk towards the hotel. We were able to get a cab along the way though, which made things much easier.

  We stood at the Adam's Mark hotel, which is a pretty nice place. I wound up having a room all to myself, which was cool, it gave me a chance to be as messy and as naked as I wanted to be. What was cool was that not only did my bathroom have a phone, but it also had a tv! Granted, it was a black and white 6 inch tv, but a tv nonetheless.

  After checking in, we hung out in the hotel bar for a while before heading to the game. I've heard that St Louis might be the best baseball town in America, and I honestly think that might be true. The place is crazy about their Cardinals and its not just because they some how managed to win the World Series last year, it has been Cardinal crazy for as long as I have been coming down there (the first time I was there was in 1996). This was my first Cubs-Cards series and the streets were packed with not only Cardinal fans, but also Cub fans. As for the park, it is really nice, it has an open field feel to it. They even had 1980s cover band playing in the concourse of the park before the game. Our seats were right behind the right field foul pole, 13 rows back. Mark and I were 3 rows behind Jeff, Rusty and Brian. Still the seats were good, however the view of home plate was not good at all. The game was very exciting, the Cubs went into the top of the 9th leading 2-1. They put 2 runs on the board to take a 5-1 lead, which seemed like enough. The Cardinals however, hit a couple of homers in the 9th to make things interesting. They then put a couple of guys on to make things very tense. The crowd was electrified, both Cub fans (including myself) and Cardinal fans cheering and screaming with excitement. The Bob Howry did manage to get the last out, closing out a 5-3 victory for the Cubs.

  Now, in Wrigley Field when the Cubs win a game, they play "Go Cubs Go" over the loudspeaker and we fans all sing along. So, I decided to start singing the song as soon as the game was over. I was singing it as we were walking from our seats into the concourse when I saw a Cardinal fan probably in his 40s with his wife come walking towards us. Apparently, this either the song or my singing was quite offensive to him because he quickly grew VERY pissed about it. In fact, he was fighting pissed. Now I know I don't have the best voice around, but I never thought it was so bad that it was worthy of an ass kicking. He gave me a look and said something to me which I can not remember. He walked in front of us and I continued to sing. He then flipped me off, but I still sang. Now keep in mind, I wasn't in his face or saying or doing anything to antagonize him, just singing the song as I do after every Cubs victory. Well, now he decides to turn around and start to get in my face. He said something to me about an ass kicking, but honestly, I really wasn't paying attention, I just kept singing with a big smile on his face. I did say to him that his team had won the World Series last year hoping that would make him realize that compared to the Cards, the Cubs have nothing. But no, he was still pissed. Even to the point where his wife had to push him away from me. The whole time, I never stopped singing. I wasn't looking for a fight, but wasn't going to back down either. At this point, we all found it so funny how much rage this guy had for me. The whole time walking out of the stadium, even after I stopped singing, he kept looking back at me like he wanted to come after me. And each time he looked back, I would start singing again. He even got pretty far ahead of us and I could tell he was still very pissed, he was even using his hand to size me up to his wife, as if to say "he is a short fuck, I could totally kick his ass". For the record, I'm 5'6 and yes, he would kick my ass. But, I'm also walking with 3 other guys, two of which had baseball bats (the hotel gave us vouchers for baseball bats to be engraved at the game. I forgot my voucher at the hotel) who would probably not let it get to a point in which I get my ass totally kicked. Still, it was amazing how pissed off he got. I mean, all I was doing was supporting my team, I wasn't saying anything mean or ripping on him or his team. Plus, a lot of guys would have gotten in his face and there would have been a fight. I think its safe to say that I ruined his night. I'm not saying that I don't ever cause trouble, but it just seems like goofy shit like this happens to me on a regular and routine basis.

  After that, we went back to the hotel bar for some drinks before heading to the boring ass strip club. I know I said I was going to write about Saturday, but this post is already way too long, so I'm going to write Saturday tomorrow.

  • 1:05 am
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