D'backs beat Cubs

This turned out to be fun. Paul organized a group of 10 (including Patricia and me) to attend Game 2 of the division series between the Cubs and D'backs.

Seats were up high along the right field line. We've never sat up there before and the seats were just fine, actually a really interesting viewing angle. (And baseball is truly a beautiful game - click the top photo to enlarge and get a feel for our perspective.)

The game turned out really well, at least for the D'backs. Cubs hit an early two-run home run to take the lead, but otherwise it was all Arizona.

The D'backs did all sorts of interesting things - three-run home run by Chris Young (leading to the Ted Lilly glove toss); safety squeeze by Doug Davis scoring Justin Upton and discombobulating the Cub infield; two unbelievable plays in the field by Stephen Drew; Augie Ojeda being a general annoyance to the Cubs; Justin Upton tracking down a ball in right center (we actually had a great line on that play from where we were sitting); etc.

Then there was an entertaining element in dealing with Cub fans. Arizona is plagued with these folks (as are various other markets, including Florida cities in particular). There was a decent number of Cub fans in the stadium, with quite a few near us. And there was some big talking going amongst the Cub contingent after the initial home run. After that: complete shut-down. It had to be a miserable game for these folks, some of whom supposedly had traveled from Chicago due to ticket shortages there. Most were gone by the 7th inning.

Two of these folks deserve(?) mention. I'm enjoying that the photo here of a portion of our group also includes the obnoxious - and obviously miserable - Cub fan that sat right behind us. This guy was loud and annoying for about 15 minutes (which is about how long it took for the Cubs to fall behind for good); then he spent three hours in evident agony, very quiet, until finally disappearing in the 7th. Beer didn't seem to help him.

Then there was another clown in a Cubs hat who jumped from section to section blowing a whistle. The guy ostensibly was pumping up Cubs fans (though only a few remained at this point), but it was pretty obvious that his main goal was to draw a response from the Arizona fans. Which he got, including (in addition to some not-so-fond comments) a beer shower and a water bottle in the back of the head before security shuffled him off. This woman sitting beside me (Laurie) was pretty well loosened up at this point and the soon-to-be-incarcerated clown certainly inspired her to run her mouth. Not that it took much.

Huge crowd (48,575) and long concession lines, which led to a tale by Jon Blaha about selling two beers to some fan for $20 each.

Good times.