Day 2 - Welcome to Cubs Park

Saturday morning began our first day in Arizona. On the schedule, a Cubs game at 1:05pm. We hit up the free breakfast at the hotel and made it to Cubs Park around 10:00am or so. This gave us plenty of time to walk around the stadium and take it all in.

The facility had wonderful landscaping and our beloved Cubbies were featured on every wall in some fashion or another. This wall featured the Cubs logos from over the years.

And here's one of two walls that featured replica baseball cards of current Cubs players. The only thing missing was big trees to give us some shade, but I guess you can't have everything with a brand new ballpark. 

After touring the outside of the park, we caught some of the Cubs pregame batting practice at the main field in their practice facility (located just across the street). It was nice to learn the ropes on how to possibly ballhawk before the game.

The gates opened 2 hours before game time and I was anxious to get inside. Gotta make sure we were the only ones to buy these tickets off Craigs List. Thankfully there were no problems and all that was left was to meander around the stadium and take in a baseball game. In right field, we found the Cubs Wives selling baseball memorabilia to raise money for a local AZ charity. Both Jim and I bought a mystery ball that featured an autograph. Jim lucked out getting one of our better starters, Travis Wood, and even got to take a picture with Mrs. Wood.

Lack of sleep from excitement and the jet lag left me feeling quite sluggish, so I had to do the Dew. Good thing I did because our starter Edwin Jackson decided to pitch at a snails pace. I do believe this was the longest of the games we watched. I saw more throws over to first base in this game than the other 4 combined.

One of my highlights was getting to cheer on former Peoria Chiefs. Logan Watkins got a triple this day, which I miraculously captured on my cell phone! I tweeted my cheering for him during the game and then the pics, and to my surprise Logan responded after the game. Too cool!

The Cubs weren't able to rally back and lost the game. Unfortunately, I think this is going to be par for the course this year, but I'd love to be proven wrong.