Friday, January 15th, Tom picked me up around 11am to begin our trek to the Windy City! CubsCon2016 was just hours away. After roughly 3 hours we made it to your destination, the Sheraton. Good thing our plan was to valet park because all of the parking decks were full when we got there. Yeah, just a few thousand Cubs fan descending on one hotel for the 2pm check-in, with the intent of not missing one minute of the festivities to come. Oh, and we learned that the magical valet garage door will rise when your car gets close enough. (I never had to worry about that at a Days Inn.)
Upon entering the lobby, my ears were filled with the sweet music from the Cubs' organist Gary Pressy. There were Cubs fans in every corner and an energetic buzz in the air. The atmosphere was magical. In the photo below, you can see Gary Pressy sitting at the organ, while chatting with who I would learn to be Scott the Agent. Yes, I asked them both to sign my plate!
Tom got us checked in while I got the first to signatures on my plat, and picked up our Cubs Convention 2016 packets. The line waiting had begun, but I never had a disappoint at the other end! We dropped our things off at the room, grabbed one of the programs and started our moseying around back in the lobby. Tom took this pic of the Pepsi and Mt. Dew Cubs logo, which was on our way to Cubs Charities and the Fergie Jenkins Foundation rooms.
This is when it becomes quite evident that I was living in the moment. We found out the Cubs Charities ran out of grab bags to buy, so we popped into Fergie's Foundation to see how much people were signing for. We turned the corner and quite the lineup was sitting in front of us... behold Rollie Fingers, Lee Smith, Bill Buckner and Fergie Jenkins. Wow, was I really going to get them all to sign my plate?!?! Yes, yes I did. Shout out to Mom for the "mad money" and Grandpa for the Christmas spending money.
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Oh yeah, that's right, I was living in the moment and have ZERO photos to show for this experience. I recall a discussion between me and "the man behind the table" about whether my plate was a large or small object. Small objects cost $20 for a signature and large objects for $40. With each signature only having a small amount of real estate, I was hoping for $20 per signature. Rollie was trying to get an answer out of "the man behind the table", who apparently didn't have any authority. I held up my money and said, "I have $80 I'd love to give you to get all 4 signatures." Rollie looked at me and said, "Give it here!" They passed the plate down the line and as Lee Smith passed it off to Bill Buckner, Lee said, "Don't screw it up Buck." I was on cloud nine after those fun exchanges.
Our next stop was vendor alley, where you could buy just about any Cubs item you could possibly dream of. The Cubs minor league affiliates also had booths with merch and some giveaways. As you can see, the Myrtle Beach Pelicans had a sand sculpture of Joe Maddon, the Cubs manager...
...and they were giving out kick-ass pairs of Joe Maddon replica glasses. Gotta say I had fun wearing those for the afternoon/evening and giggling at Tom as he tried to compute the Joe Maddon/Harry Caray style glasses adorning his sister's face.
Vendor alley was below the lobby, and one more level down was the official Cubs merch store, Cubs authentics, an auction area, and the corals for all the signing stages. At this point it was fairly empty because people had started waiting inline on the ballroom level for the opening ceremony. I snuck off while Tom held our place in line. I found the Schwarber Bomb encased in plexiglass and being guarded.
Next up was the Opening Ceremony. I didn't know what I was in for, other than knowing we wouldn't have a seat and I'd have to bob around to try to see the people on the stage. We settled for a spot off the side of the stage where I could see the video board and Tom had a good view of the stage. While patiently standing in wait for the festivities begin, I had to find out who the well dressed man with the Cubs 'W' pin was standing to my side. I knew he was a worker, and was determined to find out who, and get him to sign my plate. I had a nice little chat with Matt Kenny, Senior Director of Wrigley Field Event Operations.
I also scared him away. I explained to him about my days with the Peoria Chiefs and how the children on DARE Day wanted an autograph from anyone with a team shirt. I was having fun making this a moment like that and asked him to sign my plate. He didn't want to devalue the plate, but the value was in my eyes, and this interaction was priceless. I suppose I didn't technically scare him away, but people started clamoring a bit thinking he was someone. He exited stage left in a blink of an eye.
I had a good view of all the phones and tablets taking video/pictures... thank goodness for the video board.
The best part about the ceremony was the energy in the room. Standing in one spot for the extended period of time was getting to me, so I headed down to the lower level to get in line for the surprise autograph sessions. Apparently all I missed was a video package. I'll take that in exchange for the adrenaline rush of getting autographs and chatting with other Cubs fans.
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I don't have any pictures of the fellows I got signatures from during the surprise session. Tom was kind enough to help me cleanup on the autographs during that short time period. We passed the plate back and forth and managed to acquire Eric Jokisch, CJ Edwards Jr, Jeimer Candelario, and Pierce Johnson.
After the surprise autograph session, we headed back up to the ballroom for Friday Night with Ryan Dempster. I always enjoyed Dempster when he played and one of my favorite autographs is a picture I took of him signing autographs at Spring Training, while he wore his glove on his head.
Dempster did a fantastic with the late night show format. I honestly didn't think I'd laugh that much. Between his sense of humor, video packages, and the Cubs playing along, it was fantastic. I've been searching for a video clip to show, but am striking out. Below if a shot of Dempster interviewing Schwarber, Bryant, and Rizzo. (The closet I would get to theme all weekend)
By 10pm are stomachs were craving a real meal, not just trail mix and beef jerky. I do need to mention that was very pleased with the availability of free water throughout the hotel. They had plastic cups next to the water machines, or you could just keep on filling up your water bottle. On the flip side, they could have done a better job making sure us well-hydrated people had enough toilet paper in the restrooms.
Anyway, Tom wanted to take me to the Billy Goat Tavern, which was made aware days earlier via text. It was within walking distance and Tom recalled it having good food, so why not?
When we got there is when I found out it served Cheezborgers! Hey, I remember seeing that SNL sketch. In 2016, the lady behind the counter was pushing Double Cheez, Double Cheez, Double Cheez! Not sure if it was just the hunger factor or not, but that was one really good Double Ceezborger.
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