– Leave to go to game from Jim’s house at 4:30
– Get into 3 separate 1 MPH stop and go traffic jams, including one agonizingly close to the park while we take bets on what inning we’ll get there
– Pay $12 for preferred parking (ie: parking on the curb and .3 of a mile away from the park)
– Get to my seats in the top of the third, only to have to deal with kicking people out of my seats. (Sadly, they were mildly cute.)
– Long foods lines because of volunteer staffing not prepared for this many people (which seemed consistent throughout the park; lord knows what’d happen if the Brewers could draw on their own)
– Two whole Cubs hits while we’re there!
– Swept Dominated by the Brewers.
– Decide to try and wait out the traffic by stopping at the Fridays, and shockingly find an empty table.
– Waiter earns every cent of our $0.00 tip. How hard can it be to get napkins. Or to come back once an hour.
– Leave the park at 11:00 – 1h20min after the game has ended, with all but the in-park (and not that big) Fridays cleared out – and find a horrible traffic jam.
– Get stuck in an hour long 1MPH stop and go traffic jam around the Lake Forest Oasis, as they’ve bizarrely opted to shut down two lanes when they only needed one, forcing three full lanes of traffic to merge together.
– Drop people off at Jim’s at 2:00am. 10h30 minute trip, only 2h of a brutal game.
– Stop for ice cream shake!!!!!!!
– Get home at 2:30am
– Wake up at 8:00 to go to work.
Public Transportation or forget it. Tickets will probably be just as scarce next year for Wrigley, but unless you want an all day thing or don’t mind staying overnight in Milwaukee, skip the Cubs/Brewers idea. For the same hassle, you might as well buy a plane ticket and follow them some place else.
It was a thoughtful birthday gift, though. I’m going to have to edit the story when I tell them about it.
I never want to talk about this again.
are you the moron who was sitting right behind home plate last night constantly yelling ‘woo, woo’ while people are just trying to enjoy the game in peace and quiet?
Surprised to hear that you had problems with getting food at Miller Park. I’ve been there for a few packed houses and never had an issue getting anything. It helps to go up a deck to get something if you can.
I was actually all the way up in the upperdeck – section 423, if I remember right, second row to the top (although some sections went up furthe). I didn’t say this before, but I was pleasantly surprised by the view – I’ve sat top row in Wrigley and Cell (the ones they tore down this year) and the Miller Park cheap seat were the best. You don’t feel as removed from the field as other parks – more like right on top of it. Very good for $12 seats.
Are there parking shortcuts? We ended up finding one way late on the way there, then while taking it back, I entertained the passengers by driving on the wrong side of the road for a while.
I’m thinking a lot of the parking/traffic problems were due to having an unusual high pecentage* of people coming from one direction to the park, and there’s not anything they could/would be able to do about it. I hope they work on that, but I suspect it’s not a huge concern.
* – it looked about 2/3rds Cubs, well past enough that the Brewer fans were annoyed and loudly seeking Vengenance. What amused me is the between half inning camera shots 90% of the time only found people wearing Brewer gear. (the other 10% were pleasant looking ladies in Cubs gear, of course.)
(The huge problem on the way back was due to overnight IDOT construction work and not at all a Brewer problem, but it added to annoyment.)
Ronnie Woo Woo is (somehow) a revered Chicago icon, so while it’d be in bad taste for me to wish for him to die, I wouldn’t mind wishing that he’d stay far far away.
Miller is a great place to watch baseball of that there is no doubt. Cheapseats are great and the ability to walk all around the stadium is one of the really cool things that old ass County stadium didn’t present. Its great to go there on a normal night where you can walk around and pretty much sit wherever you want except for the club seats which are guarded heavily.