Boy Catches the Wrigley Spirit at the Ol’ Ballgame

CHICAGO —  So here we are in Wrigley Field, one of baseball’s finer sanitariums, on an August night with the Cubs in last place and nearly 40,000 fans in the stands, all holding bratwurst and beer.

“Hey, Sammy, how many outs?” someone screams to Sammy Sosa, who holds up one finger from his post in the outfield, as if testing the wind.

“That’s right, Sammy!” the fan yells. “One out.”

We are in the bleachers, the boy and I, his glove by his side, two regulation National League baseballs nestled inside like quail eggs. Every minute or two, he glances down to make sure the baseballs are still there.

“How they doing?” I ask him.

“Good,” he says proudly. “They’re doing pretty good.”

*

The boy and I arrived two hours early for the game, snagged a couple of baseballs during batting practice, then sat back to watch the lights come on and the bleachers fill with some of baseball’s best fans.

“I’m never washing this shirt,” the boy says when catsup spills from his hot dog.

“I’m never washing these pants,” he says an inning later, when he gets mustard on his knee.

I didn’t prepare him much for his first visit to Wrigley, didn’t burden him in advance with the history or tradition of the place. But after a couple of innings, I can’t hold off any longer.

“Your grandfather used to watch games here as a kid,” I say.

“He did?” the boy asks.

“And your great-grandfather too,” I say.

“Really?” he says.

“Ever see that picture of Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield?” I say. “Happened here.”

“I know, Dad,” he says, so I stop the history lesson and concentrate on my beer.

Next to us, a vendor appears, his neck bent, his shoulders beginning to cave.

“Peanuts!” the vendor yells, and a young urban prince in a $40 T-shirt pulls out three bucks and tells the vendor to keep the change.

“See that?” I tell the boy.

“What?”

“He tipped the peanut vendor,” I say.

“So?” the boy says.

“These bleachers, they’ve gone downhill,” I tell the boy.

Used to be, the bleachers attracted a working-class crowd, sewer workers, bartenders, cops, even the hard-core unemployed. Guys named Mike and Fred and Ziggy. They called themselves the Bleacher Bums. They were interesting to be around.

Now, especially at the night games, the bleachers attract a lot of riffraff: young lawyers, commodities traders, stockbrokers--the sheen of entitlement on their 25-year-old faces, pretty women on their arms, cell phones going off in their pockets before they even manage to sit down.

“We’re in the third row,” a young Gatsby yells into a cell phone. “Near aisle 146. No wait, aisle 147. I don’t know, we’re near the aisle.”

Next to him, his girlfriend slumps, looking bored in the bleachers. Maybe in her mind, there are better places to be.

“We’re near the aisle,” Gatsby says into the phone during the national anthem.

Behind us, a guy discusses his wedding. Off to the right, a frat boy buys a bratwurst. Beer and brats, the opiate of the upper Midwest.

“Keep the change,” he tells the vendor.

Evidently, the city of Chicago has hit the lottery, extra money everywhere, with old neighborhoods being renovated and huge houses--big as airports--going up in the far suburbs.

Now this affluence has even spread to the Wrigley Field bleachers, which attracts an educated, well-bred crowd. A nice crowd, polite and fresh scrubbed. How they got into this place, I’ll never know.

“Hey, Chad!” someone yells to a friend, and three guys in polo shirts turn around.

In the fifth inning, with the Cubs down by six runs, it begins to rain, big teardrops for another lost Chicago season. Below us, one of the young urban princes raises an umbrella.

“See that?” I tell the boy.

“What?”

“An umbrella in the bleachers,” I tell him.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s bad manners,” I say. “In the old days, you’d never use an umbrella.”

Then, like a rainbow, something sort of magic happens. A fan sitting behind the umbrella begins to pour his beer over the umbrella, so that the beer leaks down into the lap of the guy holding the umbrella.

The crowd cheers. The guy with the wet lap closes the umbrella.

“You see that, Dad?” the boy asks.

“Yeah, I saw it,” I say with a smile.

In the sixth inning, the rain continues. It falls pretty steadily. Cell phones get wet. Yet no one leaves. The Cubs look awful. Yet no one leaves. At Wrigley, maybe the best things never change.

“Hey, Sammy, make it stop raining!” someone yells.

Beside me, a young suburban prince soaks up the game and another hot dog. At his side, two batting practice baseballs, safe and warm in his well-oiled glove.

“I’m never washing this hand,” the boy says, sucking catsup from a knuckle. “I’m never, ever washing this hand.”

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.