US Cellular Field was our second stadium destination in Chicago. We were going to see a pretty decent pitching match up on paper. Buehrle v Harden. Turns out neither pitcher got out of the 5th though. Luckily Chicago knows how to have a hood time regardless of the on field performance. I think they have some practice with that for the past 101 years on the north side, so the south side must have taken a page from their book.
Before the game Ben and I chilled out at Aric's watching a few movies, waiting for him to get home from work. Someone suggested to Aric that we go to Reggies, ahead of time for the game because, A) they have good beer, B) they have good beer specials, and C) they have a "shuttle" to and from the game. All excellent qualities for a bar to have. Reggies is known for being a "heavy metal" bar but when we got there around 5, they were playing 90's pop rap. "Ok..... Weird" we all thought but as we got to talking to the bartender she informed us that the owners daughter was in the building and "the owners daughter gets what the owners daughter wants." As soon as they could they switched over to some pretty good rock that could pump anyone up and make them bang their head.
As for the beer specials... Half off Founders and Stone drafts and $2 extra for 8 jumbo buffalo wings with each beer. You cannn put it on the booard..... YES!
The shuttle was leaving just as we were finishing up or food. The bartender did agree shot with us all after hearing about our trip (whiskey and buffalo sauce.... Interesting to say the least) and we were gone. It felt like our own personal limo bus too because it was a full sized school bus with us, the driver, and 4 other people. This shuttle really knew how to make an entrance too. The bus was painted to look like some kind of daemon lizard and it blared death metal out the windows as we pulled up to the stadium. Pretty much everyone in a two block radius stopped and watched us get off.
Once we got into the stadium we had some fun posing with all the monuments scattered around the field but didn't have time for much more because the game was about to start.
We sat out in left field in the bleachers. this was the first time we actually sat in legit bleachers, not seats. Luckily they had backs to them and it wasn't crowded so it wasn't bad at all. It was actually nice because you could spread out and it was decent Home Run territory.
US Cellular accomplished something that not many parks have done. Because there were not many seats in the outfield and the jumbo-tron was in center, literally every seat in the house had an OK view of it. Totally changes the big league game experience if you don't have a view of it. So that was cool.
Once the game started, the left field fans immediately turned into the "Josh Hamilton Haters," something we were very familiar with from the Toronto massacre, so we felt right at home. Unfortunately the rangers got a decent lead early, so there wasn't much to cheer about.
In the middle of the game everyone started rush out of the stands for some reason. Then we figured it out. A Sheet of rain came down and it randomly started to pour. It only lasted a little bit before it let up to a light rain so we took the opportunity to move down to the first row.
The hot dog guy came around trying to bargin with people selling them for $4. Ben tried to get him down to $3 but he got rejected. About 30 seconds later he came back and made us a 2 for $6 offer. Who knew vendors actually bargained?
Eventually people started to trickle back to their seats once the rain subsided so we got kicked back to our original seats but it was getting late in the game so we moved right on up to between home and 1st for the last couple innings. The White Sox actually had bases loaded in the bottom of the 9th but couldn't connect on a walk off, ending Aric's chances of seeing a Chicago team winning at home.
We got back on our heavy metal bus, back to Reggies and went straight back to Aric's from there to pass out.
Basketball in the A.M.
U.S. Cellular was a pretty cool stadium. The outfield concourse was the coolest part with all the legend statues and a full bar. Food variety was good. Fans.. angry but into the game so it's acceptable. The palce wasn't ushered to death which I think is huge for a stadium that doesn't sell out. All in all a good stop.
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