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Chicago Cubs Fan Opening Day Diary

By April 10, 2013June 18th, 2018No Comments
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At Bacon Sports we strive to bring you the freshest, most unique content that the sports world has to offer. We don’t have press credentials or a fancy title but what we do have is a love of sports, a ton of creativity, and the ability to make people laugh…sometimes.

For all of you who couldn’t be at Opening Day in Wrigley we wanted to give you a taste of what really goes down. Chicago Cubs fans are as social as they come. The play on the field is secondary to what goes on in the stands and at the bars, and that’s why we decided to document everything that we did and do a running diary of our experience.

Our goal of the day was to meet as many people as possible, have as much fun as possible, and spread the word about Bacon Sports. We had no ticket to the game, no set agenda for where we were going to go, or any inkling for what we were going to do. We were just going to let the day take us.

This is why being a Chicago Cubs fan is so awesome. Queue the Montell Jordan music, “This is how we do it…”

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The first Cubs fans I came across were true fans as they had flown in from Las Vegas to attend Opening Day. She had given him two tickets as a birthday present (note to self: start asking for tickets for my birthday) and said that he had the option to take whoever he wanted to the game. It wasn’t a hard decision for him as not taking her would have resulted in sleeping on the couch for at least a month. Wise choice.

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On the biggest day of the year for the Cubs someone at the CTA had the genius idea of having the escalator go up instead of down. Clearly this agitated the already drunk guy next to me as he said, “I have to pee so bad every time I take a step it hurts. What d*ckhead came up with this idea?” Good to see that Cubs fans are already in midseason form at 10 am on Opening Day.

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Say hello to Chase, a die hard Cubs fan from Kansas. He was attending his third consecutive Opening Day and was trying to be the first person in the stadium (really). We took a minute to find out more about Chase’s story and see how deep his Cubs fandom runs.

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Meet Joel. This guy is more die-hard than John McClane and was rocking one of the more unique customized jerseys of the day (to see all the random jerseys that we captured at Opening Day click here). Since we love all things jerseys we asked Joel to give us some insight into his jersey as well as to do a Harry Carry impression for us.

We put together a compilation of some other Cubs fans doing Harry Caray impressions. You can check that out here.

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The Big G’s Superhero has come to save the day. This guy not only does this Superhero gig but also takes improv classes at Improv Olympics and he’s a semi-pro wrestler (WWF style). Dos Equis needs to give him a call because the title for Most Interesting Man in the World may be up for grabs. See Big G in all his glory in this video.

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This is the line to get in the Bleachers at 10:30 am. We decided to head to the front of the line to go find out what time those people got there. Little did we know that we’d run into a guy wearing an amazing Cubs Starter jacket.

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Walking past us was this guy, Matt, who was holding up a foam finger that said “Ryan Braun Sucks”. It doesn’t get much easier of a layup than this. What came out of his mouth next was pure gold. After watching the video please help make Matt’s dream become a reality by letting Cubs fans know about his Fujifilm idea/chant.

If you want to see just the remixed version of “Fujifilm ajahjahjah!” click here.

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For those that don’t know, the guy on the right is Greg Hunter. He is my partner in crime today and is a big part of the Bacon Sports team.

Shout out to our new friends at Improv Olympics. This guy was hustlin’ on the street and convinced us to stop in for a quick beer and some sports trivia.

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This was the guy running the trivia who was gracious enough to let us get on stage and hold up our banner. To anyone who has ever considered doing improv I’d highly recommend it. It’s one of the best things that I’ve ever done in my life.

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Entrepreneur of the year award and man after my own heart goes to this guy who was selling old school random baseball cards out of a suitcase.

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Not only was he going hard in the paint with the cards he was selling but he was rocking a Dr J Roosevelt High School jersey. I’m convinced that I am somehow related to this guy.

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He showed us some of the gems that he had in his suitcase. That right there is a Montreal Expos Randy Johnson Upper Deck rookie card from 1989. I know that it’s from 1989 because that’s the same year as the greatest baseball card ever, the Ken Griffey Jr rookie card.

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Who is Pat Clements? According to this guy he was Roger Clemens brother who pitched for the Yankees. Two brothers with different yet very similar last names. I guess you learn something new every day.

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George Bush Commander in Chief card from Desert Storm. That a walk-off!

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A meeting of the minds between us, the Budweiser girls, and some guys who crush it on white bucket drums.

Most people are shocked to know that Greg, know as G-Hunt in the rap game, can spit some mad rhymes. While walking to our next location he decided to drop an impromptu freestyle session.

While I’m talking about it, we met up with another crew that drops the beats on the drums and I wanted to give you a taste of what they were doing (they really start crushing it at the 22 second mark). I definitely have a soft spot for the white bucket drums.

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Our first stop is to check out 3639 Wrigleyrooftop. If you are a fan of the Nature Boy Ric Flair’s stylin’ and profilin’ then this is the rootop for you. A ticket here will cost you less than a pair of Natche’s alligator shoes but will impress you just as much. I’ve been here many of times and they do it right.

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The view.

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Of course someone would be dressed up in a giant ivy costume. This reminds me of the Denny Neagle Pittsburgh Pirates card where he’s just chilling in the ivy.

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Shout out to our friends at Wrigleyville Sports. They partnered with us on our Upset Special Bracket Challenge. If you need some fresh new Cubs gear then this is the place to get it.

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Say hello to Sweet Baby Ray (in the middle), the owner of Sweet Baby Ray’s, the best BBQ sauce in the land. They just opened a new Sweet Baby Ray’s bar/restaurant less than a week ago in the location where that German bar was and the place was already packed. Greg is from North Carolina so he and Sweet Baby Ray dished about some of the good BBQ joints in Carolina. Ray couldn’t have been cooler to us and was every bit as awesome as you’d hope he’d be.

Next time you are in Wrigley you’ve gotta check this place out. The smell of succulent BBQ had our mouths watering like Pavlov’s dog and rumor has it they’ve got some killer bacon. Yes please!

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Our next stop was Deuces and the Diamond Club where we met the lovely Layla. We were chatting about creating a “Bartenders of Wrigleyville” series and she was down for being our first one. She said that we should call the girls “startenders” which we quickly decided was a fantastic idea.

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The second startender is Stephanie. We just told her a funny joke about this Dallas Cowboys quarterback that got paid $55 million guaranteed even though he has only one career playoff win.

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Startender number three is Nikki.

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On our way to the next spot when we run into a furry Cubs fan.

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At the Stretch we caught a bit of the Carmen and Jurko show. The guys were cool and even gave us a plug on Twitter so we’d like to return the favor. Check them out from 10 am – 2 pm on ESPN 1000 for all your Chicago sports chatter.

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The Budweiser girls making friends with more Superheros.

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Love at first sight.

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Say hello to Canhead. He’s probably the most randomly famous person we met all day (no joke, dude has partied with George Clooney) and has his own Facebook page. No, those cans aren’t glued to his face, they just stick on. If you want to hear more about this dudes crazy life, see him do a Harry Caray impression, as well as do the robot then check out the interview we did with him. Not only was he entertaining but a bunch of drunk Cubs fans kept photobombing us in the video (which makes it even better).

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This crew wasn’t going to the game. Instead they were doing a bar crawl. That is so Cubs fan of them…and awesome.

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USA! USA! This guy and his boys went to Eastern Illinois University, home of Tony Romo. A heated exchange about the merits of Tony Romo ensued with him challenging his friend to a $100 bet that the Cowboys would win the Super Bowl before the Bears.

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We head up to Murphy’s Rooftop to see what’s kicking. It is interesting to see what people will do when you have a non-iPhone camera and a microphone. As you can see everyone thought that we were someone important and started cheering once we told them we were going to take their picture.

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Always be promoting.

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The view.

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Ladies be loving them some Greg.

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These are my new friends Lyn and Mark. Lyn is the CEO of the Lodge Management Group and Mark is the GM at River Shannon. If you’ve partied in Chicago you’ve probably been to one of their bars. Kudos to Mark for rocking the sweet Banksy shirt.

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Those are phone jacks just in case you brought your rotary phone with you.

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That turtleneck is definitely number one.

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There was a Red Bull truck bumping tunes outside the old Harry Caray’s. We decided to get a different perspective from inside the truck to see what was going down.

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On to the next spot where we hit up Moe’s Cantina, which is always bumpin like an R.Kelly video after a Cubs game. Say hello to our fourth startender.

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As you can see everyone is really torn up about the Cubs losing.

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Especially her. Seems devastated.

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Her too.

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Our new friend Wayne popping bottles YMCMB style.

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Last stop of the day is at Cubby Bear. Like at Moe’s the crowd sure seems somber. By the way, that guy in the Sammy Sosa jersey must be like 8 feet tall.

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This is the perfect post Cubs game picture. It looks like someone is about to get lucky.

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This shirt says it all about being a Cubs fan.

So there you have it, that’s our Opening Day experience in Wrigley and why it’s awesome to be a Cubs fan. If you are new to Bacon Sports hopefully that gave you a taste of how we roll. If you are a brand looking to reach a bacon loving sports fan audience that digs sports comedy, nostalgia, and jerseys then holla at us (rob@baconsports.com). If you are a business in Chicago and want to partner up with us then we’d love to hear from you. We are creative balls of energy that love to create unique content.

Don’t forget to check out us on Facebook or on Twitter @BaconSports.

Rob Cressy

Rob Cressy

Sports loving free throw specialist and yinzer living in Chicago who is awesome most of the time, has run with the bulls in Spain, and is a graduate of Second City's Improv program.