The Called Shot

Last Friday was the one hundredth anniversary of the day Babe Ruth called his shot (predicting a home run and pointing where he was going to hit it) against the Chicago Cubs way back in 1914. Most of you know I’m not a huge baseball fan, but we happened to be in Chicago and had the tickets. It was ideal weather; the wind was just about 10 miles per hour, a slight rain, and the temperature bouncing between 37 and 39 degrees. We found out later this was the coldest day that a game was played this late in the year in over twenty-five years. Wrigley Field is next to Lake Michigan and the lake water is still 32 degrees so it acts like a huge air conditioning system when the wind is blowing in the right direction. To compound things it was snowing about 20 miles away. We were armed with hot dogs and popcorn and sure we were ready for Mother Nature and you truly couldn’t ask for a better venue. A little side note; I have never been to a stadium that sold blankets during a game, much less where the blankets outsold the beer vendors. When the Cub fans realized we weren’t “cheese heads” (Milwaukee was in town) they talked and kidded with us. They fully expected the Cubs to lose, but were there to support them anyway. They were funny and really nice people. My son Russ and my nephew Chris opted to wear shorts and a light jacket to the game and they received a lot of laughs and some ribbing from them. It really turned out to be a great day, just wish they served hot chocolate. No one opted to call their own shot that day.

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