Chicago, Day 2

With my foot still bothering me a little bit, I passed on walking the 606 trail downtown. Instead, I did 25 minutes on the elliptical before having breakfast.

My custom egg omelet with cheese, bacon, spinach, mushroom, and tomato tasted just about perfect. I also had some sausage links and pineapple. 

So after cleaning up, I boarded the Blue line to the a Damen stop, into Wicker Park. As NY Sports Wicker Media, why wouldn't I? But there's a literal Wicker Park within the neighborhood. Not much to it, basically a playground, a fountain, and a statue of Mr. Charles Wicker, whom the neighborhood was named for. Unfortunately, this is not my kind of neighborhood. It's deteriorated into one of the most liberal hoods in an already liberal city. I thought about getting some pastry at Mindy's Bakery, but the line was about 20 people at the door. I also considered getting a slice of pizza at Dimo's, but there was nothing there that I really wanted. 

So I began walking down Milwaukee Ave to Standard Bar and Grill. Actually, I took a wrong turn somewhere, I was walking east on North instead of southeast. I'm sure that doesn't sound confusing. Anyway, my friend Q and I watched WWE Bash at Berlin. We had the upstairs level reserved while the downstairs patrons watched college football. The show was good, kind of predictable, but I'd give it a slight thumbs up. For food, I had the fried chicken sandwich and sweet potato fries. Not a bad sandwich, crispy outside with some slaw, aioli, and pickles.

Then it was the Blue to the Red southbound to meet up with the 7 Line Army at Cork and Ferry. This bar is designed told maybe 30-40 people. Well, I arrived around 3:45, about 2.5 hours before the game. The bar was already packed, there was barely room to stand. But they played a lot more country music than I expected. Not just Zac Brown Band and Luke Bryan, but also some of the all time great like the Oak Ridge Boys, Ricky Skaggs, and Dwight Yoakam.

Then we walked over to the Cell for Mets vs White Sox. Even with a clear drawstring bag, I got in, no problem. More on that later.

In the first inning, Pete Alonso and Jesse Winker hit back to back homers. I even called the Winker homer before it happened, much to the shock of people around me. On the mound, Jose Quintana bent about as far as a pitcher can without breaking. He threw 90 pitches in 4 innings, ultimately getting through 5, allowing 1 run. Even though Chicago got the winning run to the plate in the month inning, Jose Butto finished off the 5-3 win. 

On the trip back to Rosemont, I had to make a Portillos stop. Same order as always. Big beef sandwich with cheddar cheese, sweet and hot peppers, small fries, large Coke. Fast food just does not get any better.