Baseball game at Wrigley Field

Friday, September 16, we attended the Chicago Cubs game against the Colorado Rockies at the legendary Wrigley Field stadium.

This stadium is one of the oldest baseball parks in the United States. It is located in the Wrigleyville neighborhood of Chicago. Inaugurated in April 1914, it has been renovated several times but there is a certain desire to keep the initial cachet that is the soul of the place. The exterior walls are made of red bricks and are partially covered with ivy. A wall of vines covers the end of the field. The updating of the scoreboard is still done partly manually. The installation of lights in the stadium dates from 1988. Despite everything, the majority of games continue to be played in the afternoon.

The houses that border the stadium have built bleachers on the roof and rent the places for the afternoons of games (wrigleyrooftops.com)

Here the atmosphere is very different from what we saw in Miami. The supporters are real fans.

Even on a Friday afternoon the stadium was almost full. More than 30,000 people attended the game. The streets around the stadium were closed to traffic.

The game started at 1pm and ended around 4pm. The restaurants and bars were full at lunchtime (for the pre-game of course) and full afterwards (for the post-game of course). A festive and very family atmosphere. Everyone wore a jersey, or a cap or both in the Cubs colors. Even Jean-François couldn't resist the temptation...

The traditional seventh-inning break of games was made famous by sports commentator Harry Caray's rendition of the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game". Since his death, the tradition has continued and several celebrities have come to perform it, such as Ozzy Osbourne or John Belushi.

When we were at the game, Chicago was celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, so a representative of this community, Mr. Miguel Esparza, had the honor of singing for the occasion: Miguel Esparza Sings In The 7th Ending - YouTube

Everyone stood up and sang in unison. I think I was the only one in the stadium who didn't know the words!

We were lucky. The Cubs won their game and so we were treated to another tradition: Chicago Cubs Win Song (Go Cubs Go) - YouTube

The crowd was up again singing and dancing. So exhilarating.

In short, a great afternoon.