Day 3 - Practice Makes Perfect

After a much needed good night of sleep, it was up and at em for another hotel breakfast before hitting the diamonds.

Yes, diamonds... 5 baseball diamonds in total. Us baseball nuts headed over to the Cubs practice fields. 4 diamonds mimicking the shape of a four leaf clover with a coaches watch tower in the middle. And here we were, 3 huge Cubs fan, free to walk between all 4 diamonds and "mingle" with the likes of rookie, A, AA, and AAA ball players. Simply awesome!

The atmosphere at the practice fields was just that... practice. Soooo, I couldn't exactly let the kid in me out to ask for autographs. Instead I watched the practices and helped pickup foul balls that left the field. Dallas Beeler was practicing bunting with a couple other players. I picked up 3 balls and was headed over to the fence to slam dunk over the fence.

To my surprise, Dallas came over and told me to keep them. I couldn't help but question the fact that they would need the 3 balls in hand. He kindly told me to keep a couple of them, so I handed 2 of the 3 back to him. Dallas tried to give one back to me... wanting to make sure I had 2. I told him I had yet to snag the ball that was down at my feet. Such a simple interaction, but left me with the biggest smile on my face, and a new player to root for.


I didn't take many photos because because Jim was prowling around with his super zoom lens. I simply absorbed what I could and watched how these skilled ball players were still running some of the basic drills I did back in middle school. Practice, practice, practice.

Eventually the boys started a bit of batting practice on the field we had easy access for ball hawking. When a couple of our favorites from the Kane County Cougars made their way to bat, I headed beyond right field with Tom in hopes of snagging a home run ball. We were shut out this day, but fun none the less.

The practice fields wrapped up before noon, allowing us enough time to grab a quick lunch and head to Phoenix Municipal Stadium to watch the Cubs take on the Oakland Athletics. This was a fun game to watch, but trying to stay in the shade was quite difficult. Palm trees just don't do the trick. 

Our Cubbies came through this day and gave us a win! Two back-to-back home runs by Lake and Valbuena and a couple solo shots by Olt and another by Lake. It was great to see some pop in the bats! We also got to root on another former Peoria Chief, Wes Darvill, who we had also cheered for during their practice earlier in the day. Yes, we are dorks and cheered during practice.

I can't imagine all of the Cubs took the bus to and from the game, considering some of the starters magically disappeared halfway through the game. As you can see, there was a growing crowd of people hoping to get autographs. Even if we had shown up early for the game, I don't believe we would have gotten any. The ushers at the stadium seemed to be on a power trip and more than likely wouldn't have let us get down near the field.

That evening we met up with Shane, a Cubs trainer Jim has gotten to know through the Cubs Fantasy Baseball Camp over the last few years. It was nice to hit a local bar that wasn't overcrowded and listen to the boys talk baseball and share stories.

Two days of baseball down and two to go.