We made it to Fort Wayne, but barely. Coming from Richmond, VA the previous night, we were faced with an 11-hour drive starting at 10pm on Friday night. We had to be in Fort Wayne by 3pm the following day. You do the math. We had an abbreviated slumber party at a Maryland Holiday Inn, and then headed out at 5am Saturday morning en route to Fort Wayne, Indiana.

The Peoria Chiefs were in town to play the Fort Wayne Wizards—but the main attraction was the Chiefs manager, former Cubs Hall of Fame 2nd baseman Ryne Sandberg. By the time we arrived at the stadium, a huge line of Cub fans (who had come from near and far) had formed waiting for the gates to open. Before the game Ryne was kind enough to sign autographs for the horde of Cubs fans who had showed up just to see him. Did you know… Ryne was originally drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies. However, the Phillies did not see potential in Ryne so they traded him to the Cubs along with Larry Bowa for… none other than shortstop Ivan DeJesus prior to the 1982 season. At the time, DeJesus had battled just .191 in 1981 for the Cubs. (See his career stats.) What a deal for the Phillies! Moving on…

The weather was a bit overcast with a few spots of rain here and there. It was also not the warmest day in Fort Wayne, so many of the fans were bundled up and had blankets with them in the bleachers. The crowd was also mainly made up of Cubs fans, who at times heckled us for raffling off a Fort Wayne Wizards team signed ball. They will just have to wait until we come to Peoria in late August for Cubs memorabilia. There were even a few fans that sported Harry Caray glasses.

This is an appropriate time to show you a clip of Will Ferrell doing a spot-on imitation of Harry Karay. Ask yourself: if you were a hot dog, and you were starving, would you eat yourself? I know I would…