On Thursday night, our friends from London, England were in town, so of course, we needed to “experience” Wrigleyville. Before the game, we decided to eat at the new Harry Caray’s Tavern located at 3551 N. Sheffield Avenue. However, the place was already packed at 5:15 pm. We chose to move on and walk to Clark St. The restaurants on Clark St. were empty. We attributed the emptiness to not being located next to the Addison El stop.
We ate dinner at The Central – www.thecentralchicago.com. The Central had a lot …

Over two months ago, I wondered why I never thought of watching live horse racing. Today, I finally decided to drive to Arlington Park to watch the races during my lunch (two) hour(s).
The drive to the track was 15 minutes from the office. Since only 8 races were on the program today, I could watch 4-5 races and still be back at the office in a reasonable amount of time (plus with my laptop and Arlington Park’s wireless network I could work during the 30 minute downtime between each race).
Admission …

The day began with driving to my corporate summer picnic out in Aurora, IL – a 60 mile drive from Wrigley Field. In order to make the drive more worthwhile, we planned to spend the day in Aurora by visiting my wife’s aunt and uncle who live there and attending the Kane County Cougars game Saturday night against the Lansing Lugnuts.
The day had all the makings of a fun family day as we were attending events that were kid friendly (minus the kid part for us). First up was Blackberry …

It’s the All-Star break for Major League Baseball. Generally that means, unless you are attending the All-Star festivities in New York City, cities’ sports events’ calendars are sparse (unless the WNBA happens to be playing).
Since we were driving back from Minneapolis to Chicago on Monday, I looked for events taking place in Wisconsin cities that were on route. Those cities included Eau Claire, Madison and Rockford, IL (we could detour to Milwaukee if necessary). Madison, WI was hosting the Northwoods League All-Star Game on Monday night starting at 7 pm …

Two weeks ago, I wrote an article about if you were attending a baby shower that you should try to find a sporting event on route. These rules also apply for a wedding. This weekend Nicole and I are in Minneapolis, MN for one of our best friend’s weddings. In fact, I am in the wedding party. But that would not deter me from finding an event to attend.
We had the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner on Friday night and the wedding Sunday evening – …

In my last baseball game before MLB’s All-Star break, the Cubs beat the Reds 5-1. Carlos Zambrano pitched a gem of a game – giving up only one hit (a HR to Adam Dunn) in 8 innings.
I attended 41 regular season games (43 if you count Spring Training) in the first half of the season this year. Just short of my record 42 regular season games attended before the All-Star Game in 2004.
I bought a standing room only ticket to last night’s Cubs game. Most people refuse to purchase …

Sometimes not much excitement happens at a baseball game. Last night was one of those nights. With our season tickets already in hand, the Ultimate Sports Wife and I crossed the street to attend the Cubs game. The Cubs beat the Reds 7-3. Ryan Dempster became the first Cubs pitcher since Rick Reuschel in 1977 to win his first 10 decisions at home. An interesting side note, but nothing to get too excited about. The Cubs ended up 81-81 and 20 games behind division …

For the second time in three days, we attended the Giants game at AT&T Park. Yesterday, we had planned to purchase the Chevron ticket deal we had purchased for Friday’s game. However, in order to avoid the ticket handling fee from tickets.com and since we were buying 6 tickets, we planned to buy the tickets at the Giants’ box office.
Ticket Buying Tip #8:When attending a game with more than 4 people it generally makes sense to buy tickets ahead of time or at the box office. Normally …

I booked our flights to San Francisco in early June and called my parents that we were planning to visit over the July 4th weekend. My mom, knowing I would want to go to a Giants game and not a believer in scalping tickets outside the park, logged onto the Giants website and discovered they were selling $32 face value tickets for $12.50 each (you have to buy at least 4 tickets plus a $25 Chevron Gift Card for a total of $75). My mom, excited about the …

As expected, I arrived at US Cellular Field and bought an upper deck ticket from the box office for $8.50. I talked to one scalper who wanted $15 for a “better” upper deck ticket but I declined. The surprising part was that my seat was “Limited View” – meaning I was behind one of the poles atop the stadium. Obviously, other fans agreed with my thoughts that it was better to watch the Indians and White Sox play for an $8.50 upper deck seat than the Cubs and White Sox …