My 50th consecutive Chicago Cubs home opener March 30
Scorecards from the author’s basement.
The promise of Cubs opening day never gets old.
Time is a stiff wind, but when baseball’s opening day rolls in, I am young again. There is hope in the air. On April 1973 I attended my first Cubs season opener at Wrigley Field. I have not missed one since.
On March 30 I will attend my 50th consecutive home opener. I’ve made it through snow, rain, sun, lockouts, marriage, divorce, illness, a thousand woo-woos, and a pandemic. And I have a scorecard from every game. That’s the longest streak for anything I’ve done anything in life except for writing. And I’ve been outside the margins since 1973.
The business of being the Chicago Cubs have changed drastically in 50 years. Me? I’m still the bum in Yum Yum donuts, the long-gone diner next to Wrigley. I’ve followed heart over common sense. I write on this website for free. I’m a fan of incongruity. Find the sweet spot in every strange donut.
At least I have outgrown the festive nature of opening day. In 1979 the hated New York Mets beat Rick “Big Daddy” Reuschel 10-6. By midnight my friend Steve Lord and I wound up dancing with strange women to the Clash at the punk bar O’Banion’s, 661 N. Clark. Cubs opening day is your favorite song. Crystal blue persuasion, it’s a new vibration.
After another opening day a few of us adjourned to the Cubby Bear and then enjoyed shrimp file’ gumbo at a Restaurant Named Desire in Piper’s Alley. Or back when Wendy and I lived at Wellington and Lakewood and I would hoist a white Cubs flag on our rooftop porch every opening day. Joe Oshinski and the rest of the grizzled regulars at the J&R Tap across the street loved it. It was winter surrendering to our neighborhood. The house has been razed and J&R—which was a tavern of some form for 120 years-has become a gentrified pub and restaurant.
I will not submit a list of every memorable opening day (Tuffy Rhodes 3 HR and the Cubs still lost, etc.) with a few exceptions. In 1997 I saw the Cubs lose two opening days. My late friend Dave Stuart and I flew to Miami for the Cubs season opener. The airline lost my luggage for a couple of days. On April Fool’s Day mascot Billy the Marlin lost his costume head during an opening day pre-game parachute jump over Pro Player Stadium.
Me (L) and the late Dave Stuart in Miami. He gave me the shirt off his back when the airline lost my luggage.
We sat with then Marlins-owner Wayne Huizenga, a fellow Dutchman who made the obligatory “wooden shoes” joke. After the game Dave and I saw Van Morrison at the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami Beach. He covered the Tommy Edwards soul ballad “It’s All in the Game.”
By the time I got home for the Cubs home opener, the Cubs were 0-6. The Marlins beat the Cubs again 5-3 where Slo-Mo Steve Traschel was the Cubs’ starting pitcher. According to Al Yellon’s fine website Bleed Cubbie Blue, the 29-degree weather was the coldest game in Wrigley Field history. Frozen-out-by-Ricketts Cub great Sammy Sosa hit a home run. Did I say I saved every scorecard?
I got some revenge in 2000 when I traveled to the season opener at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan. The Cubs beat the hated Mets 5-3. By the time they returned to Wrigley Field, the Cubs were 2-6.
On a 36-degree day punctuated by light snow, the Cubs won the home opener 4-3 thanks to a three-run 9th-inning home run from third baseman Shane Andrews. (He had also hit the first major league home run of the 21st century in the Tokyo season opener.)
Baseball has a history of being a timeless game, but even that changes this season with an enforced pitch clock. Umpires are wearing belts with electronic buzzers that let them know when time has expired. Fools. Everyone knows you cannot tame time.
I had season tickets between 1985 and 2018. Our old Section 242 in the far right-field corner has been remodeled and renamed. But when I drop in to see the regulars it is still called “242.”
The Colonel will tell me about Henry Kissinger, Mr. Belvedere’s water bottle is filled with wonder, Quad Cities Jeff will predict a 10-win Bears season and Paul Z. will assist on a scorecard play I missed.
The ushers have an eternal spring in their step while our section beer vendor and CPS teacher Doug North stands tall with dignity and grace. Opening day is an annual gathering of stories and souls. It is more than baseball. It is a circle of life. During the rest of the season I often attend games alone, but my self is full. I know I’m not alone.
I have made countless friends at Wrigley Field home openers. It is a community in its most non-judgmental sense (except when it came to Jason Heyward’s swing).
I miss those who have crossed the baseball rainbow, starting with my parents, whom I would call on most opening day mornings, Wrigley Field fixtures like horn player Ted Butterman, forever vendor Bill Griffin, Winston Churchill fan-Goldschlager aficionado Fred Speck, Dave Stuart, the life of the 242 party, smiling Phil Pellegrino and his toothpick, and Lin Brehmer, who sometimes would wander down to 242 with scorecard and pencil in hand because he never wanted to miss a thing in life. They will always be in that opening day air.
As will Tom Boyle, the proprietor of the since-razed Yesterday’s memorabilia and stinky old magazine shop on Addison Street. Before every opening day, I’d stop at Yesterday’s and tell Tom how he could make a fortune for tomorrow by selling his shop. I’d then buy a couple of obscure Cubs baseball cards to give to my season ticket companion Angelo Varias.
Wrigley Field opening day menu, 1973.
In 1990 Angelo and I had season tickets to the White Sox and the Cubs. We sure spent a lot of time together. We purchased a small White Sox ticket package because it was the final season of Comiskey Park. The Cubs and White Sox shared their home openers on April 9, 1990. It was the first time in modern history that both teams opened at home.
Ironically, the Sox drew the day game. They beat the Milwaukee Brewers 2-1 after a half-hour rain delay. Angelo and I raced up to Wrigley for the first night opener in franchise history. Comiskey Park was bowing to history while Wrigley was opening up to a Las Vegas strip vibe that flourishes today. The Cubs opener was rained out after two innings. The next day the Cubs beat Philadelphia 2-1 before 7,791 fans. I wrote the attendance down in my scorecard.
Darkness comes to every day game.
Sometimes on the loneliest of winter nights, I’ll look back at my scorecards and photos from past opening days. The recently departed Joe Pepitone was the Cubs’ eclectic opening-day center fielder in 1973 when my streak began. The Cubs beat Montreal 3-2 on a ninth-inning rally that began with a Pepitone single.
In 1973 an Old Style beer was 55 cents and fans could buy a pack of cigs for 60 cents at Wrigley. But my memories are richer than that.
The neighborhood and the ballpark have changed in 50 years and change is a natural curve of our existence. Players come and go. Today it’s a DraftKings sports book at Wrigley, maybe 50 years from now it will be Jolly Cholly Grimm’s gentleman’s club.
But memories are embedded in my heart like jewels on a ring and precious spirits forever float in the stadium air. That’s why baseball’s home opener in Chicago is an essential ritual of faith.
That’s why it means so much to me.
Opening Day in training. Thanks, Dad.
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