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The Cubs are the city’s favorite baseball team, and Wrigley Field, at Clark and Addison, is justifiably renowned as the most beautiful and inviting of big-league ballparks, but the Friendly Confines are considerably less friendly lately. The Cubs almost making the World Series in 2003 (they missed by five outs) raised fans’ expectations: ever since, the laughing flesh in the bleachers is still a debaucher’s paradise, but otherwise Wrigley isn’t as jolly as it used to be. Still, the Cubs continue to pack ’em in. Tickets need to be purchased soon after they go on sale, typically in February, via Web, phone, or box office, where they even run a bracelet lottery. Getting to Wrigley is easy on public transportation (and parking is limited), though the Red Line platform at Addison can get cramped. The bar scene around the park knows no off-season.
White Sox Park—also known as the Cell after its corporate sponsor U.S. Cellular—is no Wrigley Field, but it’s been beautified considerably since they lopped off the top of the upper deck and put a roof on the place. Located on the south side at 35th Street and the Dan Ryan Expressway (I-94), it’s got easy access on the Red Line (35th Street stop) and abundant parking. Sox fans pride themselves, not entirely without justification, on knowing the game better and being harder to please than their north-side counterparts, but they have to talk between innings over a chatty scoreboard TV determined to keep them from thinking their own thoughts. Still, last year’s World Series win has boosted the fan base and packed the stadium almost as tight as Wrigley. The days you could walk up before a game and be assured of a seat are over. With the nearby Jimbo’s (3258 S. Princeton), just north of the park, slated to close at the end of the season, the best local Sox bars are Puffer’s (3356 S. Halsted) and, for better food,
The UC plays host to an annual visit by the University of IllinoisFighting Illini basketball team in December and the Big Ten basketball tournament, and the first two rounds of NCAA Division I will be held there in late winter. It’s also typically the site of the high school basketball Public League championship game. The city’s high school hoops fans are a breed apart—not just students, but real aficionados, students of the game. Some rave about seeing Kevin Garnett in his senior year at Farragut; look for them to be talking about Derrick Rose, a senior at Simeon this year. Games, of course, are played in gyms all over the city, but the Public League semifinals are best for concentrated brilliance, featuring the top four teams in a doubleheader, played the last few years at DePaul University’s Athletic Center at Sheffield and Fullerton.
And in the dead of the Chicago winter, when it gets dark shortly after noon, try the Golden Gloves at the Saint Andrew’s gym (1658 W. Addison). The crowd is warm and boisterous, and there’s no sportsmanship like two boxers embracing after pummeling each other for three rounds.
