Leaving Wrigleyville

Moving from Wrigleyville to Wicker Park this past month reminds me in many ways of moving to a different part of the country.

Everything is different, fresh, not quite familiar, and there's something adventurous about discovering it all for the first time. People look different, act different, care about different things. This is what makes culture, and the culture felt foreign. Hell, even the stuff in the grocery store is different (even though it's the same chain), such as the frozen ostrich heads.

(Okay, so they don't have frozen ostrich heads, but they do have some crazy shit.)

My apartment is way different. I went from a cramped one-bedroom for around $800 a month to a warehouse with three other guys for about $600 a month. My lifestyle is different now, too. I'm going out a lot more, but drinking less. Meeting people is easier, but I find myself pickier than ever. I'm not bothered by any of these changes, but am just amazed how a hop across town can create so many of them. Chicago is without question a city comprised of unique neighborhoods.

When it comes to following the Cubs, at first it seems that there probably couldn't be anything more different between these two locations. Wrigleyville wouldn't even exist without Cubs baseball, whereas Wicker Park seems completely indifferent to the existence of it. There are no sports bars in Wicker Park, no stands on the street with "Sox Suck" t-shirts, no murals depicting Ryno at El stops. Culture could exist without baseball in Wicker Park, believe it or not.

Or . . . at least that's what Wicker Parkers might want you to think. People in Wicker Park are all about independence. The time and effort it takes to have a relationship (with anything) is lost on people here, sometimes. Everyone is shooting for an extreme sort of self-reliance, the kind that creative people all have.

However, this is really an illusion. Everyone needs support and people here are no exception - even if they don't want to admit it. People like to be a part of "something."

That's why if I walk into the Gold Star (my nearest dive bar) during a night game there's a handful of people there watching it on the TV that sits crookedly on top of the 70s refrigerator behind the bar. Their book or conversation might indicate indifference, but in reality they're there to watch the game. They are there because the American relationship with baseball pulls on everyone in our country who brushes up against it, regardless of who they are, and asks them to take part. Even if you hate baseball, it is in some way a part of your life here because it is a part of where you live.

And Chicago goes back with baseball farther than anyone goes back with Chicago. In Wrigleyville, the culture is far more transparent, but maybe that's why I like places like Wicker Park; the inspiration is not always so easy to figure out.

I think I like watching baseball in Wicker Park more. I don't have cable here (yet) so I am forced to go out if I want to watch, and this lands me in very different situations than if I was in Wrigleyville.

Here, there is usually just a TV or two in the bar at most, and they're not anything eye-catching like the plasma screens in most Wrigleyville bars. The relaxed nature with which people watch baseball here attracts me. People are usually sipping a beer, maybe reading something, and just generally taking it easy. The mood is not aggressive like I've seen in many Wrigleyville establishments. The pace people watch the game actually feels more like the pace of the game itself; slow and reserved until a tense situation develops.

Watching baseball in Wrigleyville is like listening to Metallica - it's about energy and excitement and it's full with testosterone and adrenaline.

The problem is that oftentimes baseball doesn't deserve this level of excitement. A baseball game - and more so, a baseball season - has its own rhythm, and staying fully charged all the time like this can burn you out. In Wicker Park the reflection and mindfulness involved with watching baseball is more important than the constant release of energy, and my personality seems to agree with that, even if I couldn't put my finger on it until recently.

Don't get me wrong though; being in Wrigleyville for Cubs baseball can be spectacular. Sometimes I yearn for the electricity that's in the air as you wait in line for your bleacher seats or you taste your first beer at Sluggers. It's really something. But my favorite part of baseball culture while I was living in Wrigleyville was the part that most reflects what enjoying baseball in Wicker Park is like.

On a lot of evenings, I would get home from work at about 6:15 and pull something out of the fridge to eat as I prepared for the 7:05 start. I'd sit in my grandfather's old leather chair in the corner of my tiny apartment, right beside the west windows, and I'd switch on WGN radio just in time to hear Pat Hughes reading the lineups. I'd usually throw back a beer at this point and just listen, waiting for my favorite part.

Then it would happen: Sosa, Ramirez, Lee, or any number of others would put one onto Waveland Avenue and as I listened to Pat make the call, I could hear the sound of Wrigley erupting through my window.

That was the best part of a lot of days in Wrigleyville. That's the part Wicker Park can understand, but never have. That's the part I will sincerely miss the most.