My World Series Experience

Pictured above is my experience of the Chicago Cubs World Series!

The first two pictures, which were taken at Wrigley Field, are from last Friday, the night of the third game of the series. A small group of us had gone out to celebrate a birthday (insert confetti and salsa dancing emojis here) and, while passing the stadium on the way back, decided to stop off and walk around! Thankfully, we went in the middle of the game (around the sixth inning, as you can see) so it was pretty tame. There were a lot of police officers, so we felt very safe. The streets were pretty empty, most people crowded around the windows of bars, trying to get a glimpse of the screens with the game on. We wanted to go back either Saturday or Sunday night (the other two nights the games were played here in Chicago), but it just didn't work out with homework, etc.

Then, last night, the night that they won (!) I watched the game with just a few others on campus. Once that final out happened and we knew the Cubs had won campus went wild. The last picture is one I took from the stairwell of how many people were out in the plaza. Students were out there - the plaza and the streets beyond! - for several hours. I ended up staying in, observing some of the honking and hollering on the streets from the top bunk with my knitting while listening to an artist I discovered on Spotify (Sons of Korah - they put psalms to music!) which is about the most Rachel thing I could ever do. (;

These games brought up several interesting thoughts with friends, ranging from how cool it is to be here when they (finally!) won again, to the pointlessness of all this and the ridiculous amount of money that went into it. I can see both sides of the spectrum, but lean towards the latter. Every time I think of how "cool" it was to be here - to experience the hours of noise following the end of the game and the unity of the city - I immediately think of how prideful and insignificant it really is. Don't get me wrong, I would love a shirt that says something along the lines of "I Was in Chicago When the Cubs Won the World Series", but I could only wear it with the knowledge that I bought it just to show off how cool I am. That's my conviction about it all. It is a cool experience and something to talk about, but it's also just a silly game in which we pay people way too much money to entertain us. (:

- rl