Annie Kinsella: I’m sorry Ray, I’m gonna have to nip this one in the bud. The farm is in foreclosure and that baseball field you built in our cornfield has eaten up all of our savings.
Ray Kinsella: Annie, I have to go. I’ve never felt so strongly about anything in my entire life. I have to take Ron Santo to a game at Fenway Park in Boston.
Annie Kinsella: Is Fenway Park the field that has the big green wall in left field?
Ray Kinsella: Yeah, why?
Annie Kinsella: I had a dream that you and Ron Santo were together watching the Cubs kill the Boston Red Sox’ seven-game winning streak at Fenway Park.
Ray Kinsella: Yeah … I had the same dream.
Annie Kinsella: I’ll pack your bags for you.
Well, okay, maybe that’s not how the real “Field of Dreams” script went, but I am sure that if Ron Santo were still with us, Fenway Park would have been his Field of Dreams on Saturday. The Cubs visited Fenway Park for the first time since 1918 and played the Red Sox (and won) in a very contentious game.
The Cubs were down 3-1 in the eighth inning when the Chicago bats came alive with multiple hits. By the time the inning was over, the Cubs plated eight runs. They went onto win 9-3, snapping the Red Sox’ seven-game winning streak, not to mention that they also seriously shook up the Boston defense during the eighth inning, which resulted in the Red Sox defense making multiple errors.
It was a great win, (to say the least) which makes great print for fans to read. But the win wasn’t the whole story out of Fenway. As the game progressed in the eighth, Pat Hughes and Keith Moreland of WGN radio Chicago called the game with unbridled and sincere enthusiasm as each Cub player came up to the plate and rattled off hit after hit. Hughes and Moreland mentioned that the park was buzzing, and indeed it was.
Hughes made another important observation: He said Fenway was packed full of Cubs fans wearing Cubbie blue. It was apparent that the Red Sox fans were equally into the game by the noise coming from the stands — after all, it was a home game! The fan support for both teams speaks volumes about two of the oldest baseball franchises, with the two oldest stadiums in the nation.
As Hughes began to relax, he waxed philosophical. As he and Moreland talked about baseball movies, Hughes mentioned “The Babe Ruth Story” that starred William Bendix in 1948, and Gary Cooper in his role as Lou Gehrig in “Pride of the Yankees.” It was at that point when anyone could have felt the presence of the Cubs biggest fan ever, Ron Santo. He would have really enjoyed seeing the Cubs win at Fenway Park.
Many of the right-handed hitters hit that big Green Monster in left field with a loud bang. That was a very unusual sound to hear on the radio. We have never heard any sounds coming off the ivy in Wrigley!
It’s early in the season with plenty of games left to play. But one thing is for sure: The Cubs are scrappy this year.
