By Susan Van Arsdale
Published in The Burg
Have you been following your baseball team through spring training? Now it is time to start planning a trip to their home stadium.
It might be too late to get to Opening Day. That’s today, March 30, but check it out.
Maybe the actual home opener is yet to come. The Sox aren’t home until April 3.
I’ve been doing a little looking. Tickets for the opening game are a bit more expensive than the rest of the season. Maybe a good reason to go later.
One friend of mine, Jenny Frazier, said she had never been to a home opener, even
though she has been a Cardinals fan since she was five years old. She remembers watching them win the World Series with her dad and her Grandpa. Last season she wanted to go see Albert
Pujols and Yadi begin their last season, but she really had no plans.
Then out of the blue a co-worker that she didn’t even know very well, called and asked if she wanted to go to the game the next day. She just happened to have an extra ticket. “I was ECSTATIC. I couldn’t believe she would ask me. I knew nothing about her except she is old enough to be my mom, and she was a HUGE Cardinal fan like me. Her husband didn’t want to go, and she knew of my love for the Cardinals so she thought we would have a good time together. It was a chance I couldn’t refuse!”
She added, “Our seats were on the 3rd base side in the lower bowl. (AWESOME SEATS)
We soaked up all the festivities, The Clydesdales, and seeing several Hall of Famers in attendance. I couldn’t believe I was there, it was so surreal. The Cardinals won 9-0. Adam Wainwright got the win!
Going early in the season might have some weather problems so plan ahead and take lots of clothing. Chuck Grant said he has been to several openers at Comisky. He said the worst one he has been to was “Probably the 2016 opener. It was extremely cold! I was at a pregame party across the street on 35th, where the old park stood. At 1:00 it was snowing so hard you could barely see the stadium. It quit snowing, but it was freezing, and the Sox lost to Cleveland. Todd
Frazier’s homer was about the only highlight.”
But, you might get lucky. Mike Maglish wanted to see a Cubs opener and drove all the way to Cincinnati for it. “This would have been maybe 2002? The weather was strangely beautiful. We were just going to buy tickets from a scalper outside the stadium. Long story short we paid pennies for them because there was a brand new website promoting themselves, and they pulled up, sold tickets for less than face value, and drove away. I happened to be right there. Amazing experience.”
Tickets any time are expensive, but after the opener the prices go down, and there are lots of deals. Family Days tickets at Comisky are pretty reasonable and come with some food coupons. Be sure to check sources to find the best deal. We often use Stubhub rather than going to the team website, although that doesn’t have the deals listed on it. And if you aren’t picky about the day, go when there is a cool give-away like a Carlton Fisk bobble-head or a t-shirt or an insulated picnic bag.
We are headed to Florida in April to see the White Sox play Tampa Bay. Well, there
might be other things to do, like visit family and walk on the beach, but that game is one of our goals. Then in May we may pick up a game in Kansas City where there is a beautiful fountain in the outfield and a reasonable hotel right across the street.
So look up some schedules, plan a trip, and take in a baseball game or two this summer.