Wrigley Field Chicago, Illinois
| Team | R | H | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Colorado Rockies | 9 | 13 | 1 |
 | Chicago Cubs | 10 | 18 | 1 |
Highlights
As any baseball aficionado knows, Wrigley Field is located in the north side of town. We stayed in a RV park in Tinley Park, which is in the southern suburbs that as it turns out is an hour’s train ride to LaSalle Station, a short walk to the subway station and then 10 stops (20 minutes) to the ballpark. I’ll get back to why this is important in a minute.
The Rockies got on the board quickly off Cubs starter Jason Marquis when with 1 out in the first; Kazuo Matsui singled and then stole second. The league’s leading hitter Matt Holiday followed with another single delivering Matsui to the plate for the game’s first run. The Cubs got things started in the bottom of the inning when after lead off batter Alfonso Soriano popped out to 2nd, Mike Frontenot followed with a single off starter Jeff Francis. But then things looked ominous as Frontenot was picked off first for the second out of the inning. However, 3 consecutive singles by Derreck Lee, Arramis Ramirez and Mark DeRosa forced in the tying run. Then Felix Pagan cleaned the bases with his 3rd homer of the season giving the home team an early 4 to 1 lead. The Cubs extended their lead to 6 to 1 with single runs in the 3rd and 6th. Marquis was lifted in the 5th after surrendering 2 singles to Garrett Atkins & Brad Hawpe which were sandwiched between fly ball outs to left by Todd Helton & Troy Tulowitzki. Michael Wuertz came in and immediately gave up successive singles to Yorvit Torrealba and pinch hitter Ryan Spilborghs to score Atkins and Hawpe narrowing the score to 6 to 3. The Cubs responded with a single run in the bottom of the inning and the 7th was scoreless for each team resulting in a 7-3 Cubs lead at this point. Now it was approaching 10 o’clock and the train for Tinley Park was leaving LaSalle Station at 10:55. At this point it was apparent that many fans felt as we did that the game was well in hand (WRONG!!!) and decided to leave the game a little early in order to get ahead of the crowd at the busy subway station with the hopes that we could make it back to the RV by midnight. So from this point on, I’ll have to resort to the newspaper for the accounts of the unraveling. The Cubs managed to squeeze out another run in the 8th to make it 8-3 but then came the top of the ninth. The Rockies were able to put together a 6 run rally including a 3 run homer by Tulowitzki to take a 9-8 lead going into the bottom of the 9th. Fortunately for Chicago, Soriano was able to deliver a game winning 2 run single with 2 out to absolve their wrong doings. I’ve learned my lesson—I’m staying to the end from now on.