Chicago Cubs’ Wrigley Field: A Dream-Fulfilling Journey

When I was 20 years old, I hopped on a motorcycle and rode from Seattle to Chicago to see the Pirates play the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

Growing up a diehard baseball fan in the 1980s, there were two ballparks I wanted to visit more than all the others—Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. Fenway had the Green Monster, which felt bigger than life even on the 20” TV set in our living room. I knew Fenway had been built in 1912, the same year the Titanic sunk. I knew Babe Ruth, primarily a pitcher back then, had played for three World Series-winning Red Sox teams when Fenway was in its infancy. I knew the Reds Sox had enjoyed five decades of greatness standing in left field in front of the Green Monster, from Ted Williams to Carl Yastrzemski to Jim Rice.

As much as I dreamed about seeing a game at Fenway Park, Wrigley Field was the Major League ballpark on the top of my list. I was a National League fan, back when that meant something. This was long before interleague play, which happened nearly every day in 2016. I had become a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates because of the Willie Stargell “We Are Fam-A-Lee” team that won the 1979 World Series. I lived in Florida at the time and we didn’t have a team. The closest team to where I lived was the Atlanta Braves and as much as they pushed the “America’s Team” label at me and had so many of their games on TBS, they were not my favorite team. I watched them because I loved baseball, but I didn’t root for them.

My family moved to a suburb of Seattle in the early 1980s, so I finally lived near a city with a Major League team. Of course, that team was the woeful Seattle Mariners, who were quite awful for much of the 1980s. Despite living in the Pacific Northwest, I remained loyal to my Pirates. They were my favorite team when I fell in love with baseball and always will be, even if Jerry Seinfeld makes a good point about sports fans basically rooting for laundry.

I watched many games at the Kingdome during the 80s. It was a big, concrete, utilitarian, multi-purpose stadium, made to accommodate baseball and football. Because it was in a dome it wasn’t one of the cookie-cutter stadiums built in the 60s and 70s, but the rationale was the same. Unfortunately for baseball fans, the Kingdome was designed as a football stadium that could be converted into a baseball stadium. The seating area was set back from the playing field and portions of the outfield were not visible from some of the 300 level seats in the outfield. There were upper level seats that were more than 600 feet from home plate. On the outside, the concrete rounded dome would have been perfect for naming rights, if only McDonald’s would have thought to paint it to look like a Big Mac.

The Kingdome was not on anyone’s list of top baseball parks in the 80s, but it was the only place I could see a Major League game, so I grew to appreciate it. Still, it was no Fenway Park or Wrigley Field. There was no ivy on the walls, no rooftop seats beyond the outfield bleachers, and no Harry Caray at the microphone, although Dave Niehaus wasn’t bad.

As the 80s turned into the 90s, a series of events occurred that would eventually lead me to Wrigley Field. It all started with a girl. We had gone to high school together. She was a grade below me. We started dating after she graduated from high school and we had a passionate relationship for about a year-and-a-half. I was going to college at the time; she was working as a waitress. The good times were amazing, but there were occasional bumps along the way. In the winter of 1990, one of those bumps became a roadblock and we broke up.

I was devastated. I listened to every 1980s breakup song I could find. I read sad poetry and wrote really sad poetry which, unfortunately and to my lifelong embarrassment, I mailed to her. I was a wreck and I wallowed in my self-misery for months. In June, I bought a motorcycle because I liked the idea of being a callous, brooding motorcycle rider, not caring about her anymore. That didn’t work either. The solution came to me in August. To get over this relationship, I would ride my motorcycle to Chicago to see a game at Wrigley Field. I could get away from it all and fulfill a lifelong dream at the same time.

In early September of 1991, I took off from a Seattle suburb heading to Chicago on a motorcycle. Well, technically it was a motorcycle, but it was more of a motorcycle-for-dummies. It was a Hondamatic 400. There was no clutch. It had two speeds, low and high. After buying it from a buddy in June for $300, I had only ridden it a few times and my longest trip on it had been about 5 miles. I also didn’t have a license to ride a motorcycle. I was at the age where I was old enough to know better but young enough to do it anyway, so off I went.

About 20 miles out of Seattle, I had a little mishap when the visor on my motorcycle helmet detached and flew off, never to be seen again. Over the next few days, I rode through Washington, Idaho, Montana… Montana… Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota. I didn’t know much about motorcycles, so I had a few issues along the way. At one stop, I switched the on/off switch to off. When I got back to the Hondamatic 400, I had forgotten I switched it off and couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t starting. It took me about 10 minutes to remember the on/off switch.

That on/off switch caused me problems more than once. While driving down the freeway at 60 mph one afternoon, I went to check my watch to see what time it was and accidentally and unknowingly flipped the switch to off. The engine died and I started to coast and eventually pulled over. Standing on the shoulder of I-90, I looked at the Hondamatic 400 trying to figure out what had happened. Then I remembered that on/off switch, which had become the bane of my existence.

Another time, I stopped for lunch and flipped the switch to the gas tank before I went in to get some food. Again, forgetting I had done that, I got back on the Hondamatic 400 and started to ride, but I could only go a short distance before it stopped running because it wasn’t getting any gas. Yes, I was pretty much clueless, but even with all the mistakes I was making I was getting ever closer to the lush, green grass of Wrigley Field.

Surprisingly, riding the Hondamatic 400 gave me entry into a secret club I never knew existed. Early on, when I saw a motorcycle coming the opposite direction on the other side of the freeway, I noticed the rider would put out his hand with a wave in acknowledgement. I didn’t understand it at first, but after this happened repeatedly I figured out they were accepting me as one of them, a motorcycle rider on the open road. It didn’t matter that I was on a Hondamatic 400 that I bought from a buddy for $300 and he was on a majestic Honda Goldwing 1500 that cost thousands, we had something in common. That was a very good feeling.

The Hondamatic 400 didn’t have much gumption, so I generally topped out around 65 mph. One exception happened in Wyoming. I had pushed the Hondamatic 400 to its limit on a long, fairly steep climb, but then got to enjoy the wonders of gravity as I came back down the hill with a wind blowing at my back. I got that sucker up close to 80 mph. I had grown up hearing that Wyoming did not have a speed limit, but a police siren and flashing lights behind me determined that was a lie. The cop who pulled me over was a pleasant man. He took my license and went back to his vehicle. When he returned, he said, “This license doesn’t have an endorsement to operate a motorcycle.” I acted surprised, as if I had never heard of such a thing as a motorcycle endorsement.

Seeing that I had a Washington license, he asked where I was headed. I told him I was riding to Chicago to see my favorite team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, play the Cubs at Wrigley Field. He smiled and said, “Well, ain’t that something. You must be quite a baseball fan. Listen, you need to slow down coming over a hill. If you run into a cow out here, it won’t be pretty. A cow will blow that thing to smithereens.” And he pointed a thumb at the Hondamatic 400. “Be safe,” he cautioned. I thanked him and was once again on my way.

There were a few times when I wanted to turn back. I was a long way from home, didn’t know anybody, and felt alone in the world. As much as I dreamed about seeing a game at Wrigley Field, I didn’t know if I could make it. The first few nights, I pulled off I-90 and found a spot off the main road and slept in a sleeping bag on the side of a random dirt road in the middle of nowhere. This ended after I was roused from slumber early one morning by a pickup truck flying past me, missing my head by a couple feet. In fact, that experience caused me to change my mind about the whole trip. It really shook me up, so I decided I would find the nearest town and get a good breakfast, then head back to Seattle.

Even 25 years later, I remember what I had for breakfast that morning (French toast, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and bacon), but I don’t remember the name of the town. I also remember that it was the first time in my life that I ate at a restaurant by myself, which was an odd feeling. Throughout breakfast, I was still wrestling with the idea of heading back to Seattle or continuing to Chicago. After my last bite of bacon, I had decided to head back.

I paid my bill and headed out to the Hondamatic 400, my trusted sidekick. There was a middle-aged couple just walking past as I grabbed my helmet. The man noticed the Seattle license plate. He was a friendly guy and asked what I was doing so far from home. Not wanting to admit I was heading back home without reaching my goal, I lied and told him I was heading to Chicago to see my favorite team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, play the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. He looked at me and said, “Wow. That’s great. Man, I envy you. I wish I had done something like that when I was your age.”

Well, after hearing that I couldn’t possibly head back to Seattle. I would have died from shame for having let that man down. I pointed the Hondamatic 400 east and continued on my way.

In South Dakota, I stopped at Wall Drug, as required by law. I had seen the signs for hundreds of miles and was really looking forward to the free ice water and I figured I would try my first bison burger.

The water was very refreshing, but my favorite thing from Wall Drug was a set of steer antlers that I affixed to the front of my Hondamatic 400. It was pretty badass and looked great with my mullet, the official hairstyle of the early 90s.

With South Dakota in my rearview mirror, I headed into Minnesota, but a detour bumped me off of I-90 and sent me through foul-smelling Iowa, the smelliest state I have ever been in. Iowa had more cornfields than I ever knew existed. All I could see for hundreds of miles was corn. Smelly, smelly corn. The stench was overwhelming and it was difficult to breathe. It was like riding through a sewer.

At this point, I started to worry about the schedule. The Pirates were only playing a two-game series against the Cubs and I was worried that I wouldn’t get there in time. I somehow convinced myself that I needed to drive all through the night or I would miss the Pirates series’ and have to watch the Cubs play the Mets. That wasn’t the dream.

So there I was at five o’clock in the morning, driving through Iowa, getting more and more tired as the minutes went by. It started to rain. I stopped at a mini-mart and bought some Jolt Cola, which had the slogan, “All the sugar and twice the caffeine.” It was the Red Bull of its time.

I also bought some Vivarin pills to go with the Jolt Cola. This may have been the single dumbest moment of my adult life. Not everyone can pinpoint that exact moment when they did the dumbest thing they would ever do, but this was my moment.

Ten minutes later, I’m riding my Hondamatic 400 through a smelly Iowa rainstorm. I’m singing “Born to Be Wild”, “U Can’t Touch This”, and “Feelings”, as my mood quickly shifted with each drop of rain that was pelting my unprotected face because my visor had flown off five states ago. I never felt so alive, so very, very alive. I was yelling at Iowa cows, asking them why their state was so stinky. The rain seemed to come down harder by the minute. I thought of my ex and alternated between confessing my undying love to her and cursing her very existence. Eventually, the detour I was on re-connected me with I-90 in Wisconsin and foul-smelling Iowa was forever behind me. Good riddance.

I didn’t spend much time in Wisconsin, but it seemed like a nice enough place. If I had more time, I would have eaten some cheese. I didn’t have time, though, so I kept on riding. Soon enough, I was crossing into Illinois.