Cleveland Indians @ Chicago White Sox (1)

Today I went shopping for some more essentials,which took a lot of the day.  I walked around the River North area around my hotel looking at things, without buying much though.  It was warm through the main part of the day, but it was always threatening to rain, with a few spots every now again.

I went to a restaurant called Wildfire this evening, where I had a reservation for 5pm, which is their opening time.  Since I wanted to get down to see the Sox game at 7, I hoped that things would be relatively rapid - sadly, despite me and three or four other bookings having all arrived on or just before opening time, we all had to sit and wait until after 5.05pm when they said they were now ready.  My server was good, though.  I had a nice petite filet mignon with broccoli and french fries.  It came in a reasonable time but by the time I'd been back to the hotel to drop off the shopping and collect the things I needed for the game and got to the station and travelled down to Sox-35th, I missed the very start of the game, but only the top of the 1st inning.

My seat for this game was up the third base line half way between the foul pole and third base.  There was a woman sitting in my seat when I arrived, so I sat in the next row forward instead, as with the dodgy weather, it looked as if many people had chosen not to come at all (the crowd was only 22000).  It's much harder to follow the game from a distance anyway, but I'm beginning to wonder if there's been a severe outbreak of piles on the South Side, because a large number of people in my vicinity and between my seat and home plate spent a considerable amount of time standing up, blocking the view.  There were groups of people who were clearly just meeting up socially and paying very little attention to the game and didn't seem to care that they were blocking the view of lots of others and in the case of the group of men near me, their language was infrequently coarse.  Surprisingly, these aren't teenagers or 20-somethings - they're all 40 if they're a day, so should know better.  In contrast to Wrigley Field, there were no ushers to be seen anywhere, and as a result people were moving seats all over the place - often in the middle of innings.

There was a very fine mist of rain falling - much like we've been seeing at the US Open tennis in New York.  Occasionally it stopped for a couple of minutes, never more than 5, and occasionally it turned into a downpour, but everybody kept playing and I stayed huddled up on my seat to keep it all dry.  The White Sox have played many close games recently, and this was another one for a long while as the Indians got a run in the first and the White Sox soon replied in the 3rd with a solo HR by Morel.  The big inning was the 7th, where Morel got another HR, this time a 3-run HR and later in the same inning local favourite Paul Konerko hit a grand slam (4-run HR) to put the White Sox out of reach 8-1 ahead.  This game also featured Juan Pierre's 2000th career hit, which seems amazing, as I remember him starting out for Florida not long ago (I've just looked it up and it was in 1998!)  Jim Thome, a former White Sox but now of the Indians again via the Twins, got some brief applause whenever he was announced, and not just from the Cleveland fans in attendance.  There is a general appreciation for one of the best players of the modern eras as his career winds down, possibly even at the end of this season.

I also discovered that my coat isn't waterproof.  It seems to have leaked blue all over me and all over my T-shirt.  Now back at the hotel, I have all my dollar bills laid out individually on the table to dry off and I've got the aircon up to 72 to keep it warmish overnight to ensure everything's dried out by morning.

Juan Pierre, after collecting this 2000th career hit