Day 5 - Baseball Wind-down

After 3 straight days of baseball, it was time to ease ourselves out and bring vacation to a close. It was another sleep in morning with the promise of some ball-hawking at the Cubs batting practice. If you're not familiar with ball-hawking, it's basically waiting beyond the outfield fence in hopes of tracking down a homerun ball.

With umbrellas in tow, Tom and I headed out towards left field. On my merry way, I happened upon a homerun ball that bounced off the safety netting in right-center field and dropped at my feet. Sweet! I got an almost pristine baseball (it has a fence gouge) as opposed to the mush generic Minor League Baseball practice ball from the other day.

Now the goal was to assist Tom in getting a ball. The outfield fence had a green wind screen, so you could see when a player was swinging, but before you knew it, a ball could be screaming by your head. It was extremely hard to track the ball, but the umbrella gave me a false sense of safety.

My chance of catching a ball on the fly was zero, so I was left trying to predict the ricochets off the fence and rock landscaping. There were only about to that landed near me. The first was me vs. the 65+ yr old man. Since I already had a ball and saw his actions were going to mow me over, I eased up at the last minute so as not to cause a collision. I let it be known that I was displeased with his overly aggressive technique.

With no acknowledgement from the old man... well... Bring It! Game On! We went through quite a drought, so I had to be patient in hatching my plan. I was ready to block-out the old man or even set a pick, so Tom could use his speed and sweep in to snag the ball. Unfortunately, I just could not predict the trajectory the ball take off the fence and landscaping. The ball was settling in near a cute little shrub, which I didn't want to take out, but had to give the old man a run for his money. Basically, I clocked him upside the head as a blindly reached for the ball. Accident or not, I did pick up his hat and apologize. How sincere it looked behind my inner smile is anybody's guess.

I'm happy to report Tom was able to track down a homerun ball and neither of us took a shot from any of the spherical missiles. We caught with Jim after batting practice was over and headed over to the ballpark. Tom was nice enough to take the illegal umbrellas to the car. Here's the path he took. 

I spent the time waiting in line so Jim, Tom and I could get our photo taken at the marquee! One of the best things I stood in line for and it was free!

We lucked out with our seats be high enough up the left field line that we were in the shade, so instead of hiding on the concourse for a few innings, I was actually able to hang out in our seats and watch a bit of the Cubs pregame.

It was another beautiful day, not as hot as the previous, and the difference between Chicago at around 1:00pm got the same sarcastic applause and laughter as all the previous days.

Even though we didn't get to see a Cubs win at home and hear them play Go Cubs Go, Tom and I were still all smiles. The 3 of us were also part of history, this game set the Cubs Park and Cactus League single game record with 15,276 in attendance.

While at the game we also learned about a new weather phenomena thanks to our phone emergency alerts. I later found out another name for these dust storms is a haboob. We ended up leaving the game during the warning time frame, but just like back home with a thunderstorm, we could see the haboob much further south in the distance.

With an early wakeup of 4am in our future, we opted for skipping the Cubs split squad game and hit Dave and Buster's for a little gaming. I think we were all victorious at least once whether it be basketball, pacman, or racing. Here's my screenshot from the Mario Kart racing game.

We ate our last meal outdoors in the beautiful weather, and then returned to the hotel to pre-pack and open some baseball card packs. I failed to mention on Monday that prior to hitting the fields, we headed over to a local baseball card shop for Tom and Jim to peruse. The shop was technically closed, but the owner who was next door at his primary business, a laundromat, let us in and locked the door behind him.

Yep, we were locked in a baseball card shop, given all the time we needed to hunt for Tom's needles in a haystack. With the 3 of us, we were pretty efficient with our time and helped Tom find more than enough cards than what wouldn't fit in his carry-on bag. Good thing little sis had a bag she'd be checking.