Philly Rolls Through Chicago

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My kind of town, Chicago is..  First off, some general thoughts on the town of Chicago.  The city is beautiful and the fact that there is a beach along the whole town is pretty amazing.  Everywhere we went was very nice and extremely clean.  The people were also incredibly friendly and nice, even when a few of us (see scooter) were living up to their Philly reputations.

We started Friday off at the Cubby Bear which is directly across the street from the famous Wrigley Field sign.  It reminded me of a Chikie and Pete's feel.  There was a real solid showing of Philly fans here, and also the entire weekend.  For Friday's game we sat along the first base side in the last possible row, but much like CBP the view was still very nice.  The rooftop seats outside of the park are pretty impressive and Wrigley has a tremendous baseball vibe to it.  The Phillies played pretty well and Cory Lidle pitched a great outing to give the Phillies a chance to win.  Our group was questioning the move to pitch to Derek Lee.  But Latroy Hawkins came through to be the MVP of the game for the Phils.  It was great to get a win in our first time at Wrigley.

Post game we checked out Hi-Tops which was a good time.  Very nice scenery and a packed house following the game.  We rested up a bit after that and took a walk along the beach.  I have never been to a major city with a beach before, so I thought it was pretty impressive.  This is where we have a great group shot with some nice Chicagoins.  After we checked out the beach we ran into the guy on the scooter who allowed our special friend take it for some off roading.

Friday night we wandered around the city a bit and ended up at nice bar called Cactus.  I am a huge fan of any bar where you can drink outside, and the weather was perfect.  Great times.  We think we went somewhere after Cactus, but no one can confirm this.  Please note on the picture below of the Wrigley Field sign, it isn't just horribly off center, I was trying to get the Phillies flag in the picture as well.

We got a slower start to Saturday and ended up opting to watch most of the game at Hi-Tops and later Goose Island Wrigleyville.  One of the highlights of Saturday's game may have been Will Ferrell singing the National Anthem in his phenomenal Harry Carey voice.  Ditka was also there.

Random Phillies notes: no one likes Jose Offerman, also Ryan Howard has been pitiful.

The Phillies won Saturday's game and Billy Wagner made everyone happy by showing his stuff.

Following the game we decided to go all out Chicago style and hit up the great steakhouse Gene & Georgetti's on Franklin Street.  I went with the filet mignon, garlic mashed, and shared some creamed spinach.  We also downed a few bottles of a nice shiraz.  After dinner we went to see a show at The Second City which is a comedy club famous for producing SNL stars.  The show didn't disappoint, at least it didn't disappoint those who got to see all of it.  The show was actually really long and very funny.  A great guest appearance in the third set included Jim Belushi and his son as well as two other former SNL guys, but they were older so I didn't recognize them.  Following this we hit up Dublins where the beers are cold and the drinks don't stay down to well.

Sunday we headed to the ball park earlier than usual because most of us just wanted to watch a baseball game.  We had bleacher seats and we couldn't have asked for better weather.


Bobby Abreu was the only Phillie to get anything on the board for the Fightins and we had to leave the brooms at home.  We sat in right center, right behind Bobby Abreu, who much to the dismay (or was it the opposite) of our crew butchered a fly ball he could have caught.  Brett Myers pitched very well, with the exception of two dingers he allowed.  The fans in the bleachers were great, we made a few cubbie friends.

It was an awesome weekend of basball in the windy city.  Who's booking the trip to San Diego?

For the complete photo album of the weekend click here.

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