Went to Wrigley this past Tuesday with Mrs GF for the first time in a lot of years. She's never been and it has been a long time since I was there... very long. Sat in section 129 and had a great time.

Thought it might be informative if we post a few things to maybe help out somebody in the same boat. Yes, I know there is Yelp, etc. but you guys know more than any of those other places hands down.

I'll start the ball rolling... some obvious some not. I'm sure there will be some very colorful additions.

Yes, you are definitely going to pay for beer, concessions and pop. Bud & Bud Light was $8.75, Goose Island was $9.50. Water $4.50, Pop $5.50. A souvenir cup of fountain pop was $7, the Maddon Hoagie was $10, the huge batting helmet nacho experience was $18. Regular nachos was about $6.50.

We got there at about 4:00 for the 7 pm game. Plenty of time to walk around and enjoy The Wrigleyville experience. Lots of construction and barriers to navigate outside the ballpark but very manageable.

We hung out a bit around the player's parking arrival area but nobody stopped to sign anything. Chapman & entourage walked by everybody silent, Rizzo did the walk fast phone glued to ear thing and I yelled a "Hello, Ron!" to Coomer. He stopped, smiled and asked how everybody was doing but nobody even hinted for an autograph so he just kept going.

Went to Murphy's Bleachers for a pregame bite. Great atmosphere, memorabilia and vibe. Free water and the burgers & fries ran us about $21. Only issue there was the burgers could have been cooked a bit longer. All in all, good time at Murphy's.

I'll add some more stuff later. What say you guys?

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

I can't handle Murphy's Bleachers. I got food poisoning there from an under cooked hamburger about 10 years ago. I hang out at Bernie's before the game and Moran's after.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Wrigley sucks.

/thread

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Here's some advice for those who don't go to many games. When you go into the bathroom below 114/115 there's always a line snaking a block along the concourse. But when you actually get inside there is no one in the pisser. That's because the restroom is divided into two separate rooms and many guys simply don't know the second room is there. Go all the way into the motherfucker and we can all piss a little faster.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

We went through the front gates under the red marquee to get in. They started letting people in around 5:15 or so. Metal detector, etc. Be advised that a bag/purse or backpack cannot be bigger than 18 X 18 X 8. However, it does not have to be see- through like at Soldier Field. They do look through all bags. Went fairly quick - no issues there.

Got a game program and Cubs pencil for $2 - probably the least I paid for anything that day.

I found the Wrigley Staff very friendly, helpful and professional. Got in on the 50/50 Raffle for Cubs Charities. Getting there that early inside the park, you are pretty much given free run (within reason) to roam and pose for pics with anything in background. A staff photographer will take your pic if you want and later in game bring you out a package of pics for $40 - we passed. No obligation. There is a booth for "Wrigley first timers"... you get an 8 X 10 full color certificate with your name, date of game and who the opponent is written on the card.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

In two weeks, I'll be taking my kid to her first game at Wrigley and my first since 2008. I guess I'm just getting old, but I'm really not looking forward to pissing in troughs and paying a million bucks for a hot dog and a drink to get "the Wrigley Experience". $5 says my seats will be behind a post, unless they fixed that problem.

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I'll still take my 65 inch Mitsubishi TV over that hassle.

(sidenote:TV is now about 15 years old,not one problem in all that time!)

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Murphy's sucks and is too crowded. With all of the bar/food options in Wrigleyville there are better and easier choices. Would rather go sit up on the roof at Sports Corner if the weather is decent. It's like Yakzies. I never set out on a trip to Wrigley to go to Yakzies, but I have ended up there many times.

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I go to Vines. Less crowded, open air, and outside patio.

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@audioidkid

Vines is good too. Had a buddy in from the sticks come to Vines and there was a bartender there that was pretty openly gay and like kind of just halfway flirting with my buddy and he totally didn't pick up on it at all. and was like wow the service here in Chicago is great everyone is so friendly...

This is the same guy that later moved to Chicago and took a bike to work and then left it out front of his office without a lock on it and was surprised when it was stolen by the end of the day...

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that hurt my brane. other than the concessions prices, sounds as awesome as ever. good write-up

Agree!!! Last game I was there they had some dude in there yelling at people in line to come all the way in the the mf'n bathroom. Recently though...I had my 6yr old who had to go...and the line was a "mile" long...I told some wrigley employee how crazy this was and what is a 6 yr old who REALLY has to go supposed to do? She pulled us out of line and walked us over to a "private" family bathroom. Awesome. So I made my 6 yr old go with me from then on....and no lines!!!

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Proud to be UNVERIFIED.

Admittedly, we went to Murphy's because of the hype surrounding it as "The Go To" place on all those food/travel shows. If we had more time I would have liked to hit some other places. I was trying to be nice but to be honest, the undercooked burger was a deal breaker for my wife. I'll never get her back there again which is okay because we can try another great place mentioned above.

IIRC, the hot dogs were $7?

The guy we sat next to had his 5 year old daughter. It was their first game at Wrigley and this guy pulled out all the stops for her experience. He even sprung the $40 for the Wrigley photographer pics. Not sure exactly where they went but they came back with some more souvenirs and a bunch of pics with Clark The Mascot. They flew in from NC just for the game. He said he grew up watching Cubs on WGN Super Station. That little girl was on cloud nine.

I had an aisle seat and the only obstructed view I had was the countless vendors up & down and back & forth.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

Thanks, Hussra.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

For us the usual stop had been either rooftop at Sportscorner or sidewalk seating at Sluggers. Last time though we changed it up and tried Deuces Diamond Club. It was great. Outdoor patio with cabanas, a pool containing three bikini-clad "hostesses", a friendly server, and decent food.

From there we eyeballed a place across the street with a rooftop which we had never noticed before. We will probably give that a go when we are back on August 14. With so many options in that neighborhood there really is no reason to get stuck in a rut.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

Wow,never realised these two crossed path's.

1947 at Wrigley.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

hey chucklehead that aint wrigley

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Who is the guy on Brickhouse's left?

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

Walt Williams Double-Breasted Suit.

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Sex isn't dirty, sex isn't a crime. It's a loving act between two or more consenting adults.

-Hank Kingsley

Jimmy has never seen Wrigley.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Don't be such a curmudgeon...that black cloud will follow you around.


If your daughter is still fairly young, take her to the first aid station, which is near the main entrance behind home plate. They will happily let you in and you can use their very spacious handicapped accessible bathroom. That's where I took my 4yo when he had to take a dump. It was awesome.

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maybe JORR knows

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

The guy on the left of Brickhouse sold him his first glass coffee table.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

a couple tips for the casual wrigley attendee:

1) you're allowed to bring in factory-sealed bottles of water. idk if there's a limit as to how much, but with 2 people we've brought in 4-5 bottles of water no problem. i heartily recommend freezing a couple/few of them into solid blocks of ice so that way when you get to the park and the bottles sit out in the heat for awhile you'll end up with giant ice cubes surrounded by ice cold water that are easily replenished during the game (especially if you also brought a couple'a non-frozen water bottles). you can also bring in food from the outside so if you stopped off and got a gyro or something else there will be no problem/s bringing that in.

yeah i know it might seem low-rent/tacky/cheap to bring in outside stuff, but remember that all's fair in love and baseball when they want $5+ for a bottle of water at the ballpark. soda tends to be $5/7, and of course as godfella mentioned beer is like $8.50/+ with mixed drinks likely being around $10, tho idk for sure because... [drum roll / segue]

2) when you first enter the park if you go to the fan services area (lower concourse roughly behind home plate) you can sign up for their designated driver program (only need to give them name/address/e-mail) and you get a free soda. it used to be that the free soda was the $7 collector's cup, but now it's usually the $5 "medium" soda. however some of the cool concession workers will still give you the $7 larger/collectible cup, and typically if you offer to pay the $2 difference between the free one you're getting and the collectible cup they'll pretty much always just give you the XL collectible cup for free.

just be slick about mixing in the hard liquor that you brought in via a plastic flask (don't forget that they have metal detectors now; but unless you still set off the thing when you walk through sans all of your possessions they're not gonna start manually waving you down and perhaps searching your person so you theoretically should be able to casually walk in with a plastic flask)

it used to be that you could, say, go to the 7-11 across the street and get a double gulp of gatorade on ice and bring that in. obviously that'd allow you to mix a nice stiff drink and casually walk in like you owned the place (provided you didn't look hammered and compel them to check your cup and one whiff of that = "whoa buddy holy mother of no!") --- but i'm pretty sure in the last year or 2 they scuppered the ability to bring in fountain drinks, so for "more affordably priced mixed drinks" your best bet is to try some sort of slick little mixjob with the free DD soda.

oh yeah, and especially at night games your arche/typical post/fratboy cubs fans are extra obnoxious and all WOO CUBBIES!!!! aka CUBBIE PRIDE!!!! and whatnot, and if you're not jumping up and down high fiving everyone in a 360 degree radius some buzzin-to-drunk normie (the type of people who spend upwards of 1/3 to 1/2 of the game calling up everyone they know to tell them what a real fan they are cuz they're at the game) might end up giving you shit because THIS IS THE YEAR!!!! CUBPACALYPSE NOW!!!! IT'S GONNA HAPPEN!!!!! indeed, the cubbie police are out there in full force making sure that their cubbies are receiving the proper support that they deserve. try your best to not (inadvertantly?) rustle their jimmies and remember that their drunkenness will build up to a crescendo around the 7th inning, so if you're getting shit around the 3rd-4th inning it's not going to get any better in the mmediate future.

seriously if the bartman shit happened in these upcoming 2016 playoffs i reckon the dude might end up beheaded/lynched live on the internet. i bet you that if it was on youtube the people would try to monetize the video too; c'est la vie, no?

good luck, godspeed, and remember: for any and all day games only fools pay to park @/around wrigley field. school st is your friend. for night games there's a nice little free shuttle right off of irving park right b4.... damen i wanna say? it's off to the right from irving park and there will be signs. night game parking is seriously waaaayyyyy trickier than day games, so if you don't fancy using the CTA i recommend using that free schoolbus-shuttle-service off of irving park.

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could just watch the game on tv at home or at a bar and you'd not have to mule in any liquor? if it'd help, i could stop by wherever you're drinking and be a dick to your for a couple innings, to get that authentic wrigley feel. buy my drinks/smoke me out and i'll go the extra mile and puke on your shoes during the 7th inning stretch.

i'm with you on this one dude; 95% of the time i go to baseball games i go to watch baseball, not to drink. however there are times where you gotta do your thing, and $10/drink is pretty damn stiff (unlike the actual drink), you know?

honestly if you take the CTA/L in and you had a properly loaded big/double-gulp for the ride there you'll usually be pretty damn milwaukee bucks style SOLID by the time you get there. i was just offering up my "acumen" in case anyone wanted to make use of the free beverage that you'd be stupid to not take =D

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I haven't been to Wrigley all year. Too many fucking people. To me, a perfect Wrigley crowd is about 27,000. So i went a lot when they sucked, off of cheap stubhub tickets. I go to one Sunday game at Milwaukee with family, and I usually go to two road series a year. I was supposed to go to the Oakland games this weekend, but I had a work conflict, and I may still go to the last series against the Reds but I don't know if I need to see Trevor Cahill and a bunch of minor leaguers play.

For day games, I park in the Loop or in Chinatown, take the L up to Irving Park, get lunch at Byron's (jumbo dog and a polish, no fries), and walk back. If the weather is good, I just walk back downtown after an afternoon game, it's 5 miles mostly downhill down Clark Street to Madison and even if I'm just strolling, I can do that in less than two hours.

The new team-sponsored parking on Irving Park and Rockwell is horrible for night games. It just takes way too damn long after the game, i swear i could walk there faster. I miss the CTA route to DeVry.

To me, Wrigley's food is some of the worst in MLB. I bring in a few snacks and a bottle of water. If it's hot out, I may bring in a mini of vodka and buy a Lemon Ice and dump it in there.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

You're miserable.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Never understood the desire to eat food at any professional stadium. "Good" food is considered such because it's not horrible. Served at any restaurant and it'd be considered garbage. I guess when you're going to the game from work on a weekday then time is tight. But what's the difference between stopping by a fast food place and a stadium food if you're not in premium seating?

I especially don't understand wanting to eat food at Wrigley when there are MANY decent places around the ballpark to eat. Also you can bring in your own food if you want. I usually bring my drawstring backpack with a bottle of water and bag of peanuts and a bag of seeds.

There a lot of good bars away from the Clark/Sheffied/Grace triangle of shitheadedness.

For all you young general admission bleacher fans out there, there are TWO, yes TWOOOOOOOO lines. You can enter from Sheffield OR Waveland. Cracks me up when there is a ridiculous line along Sheffield and 10 people waiting on Waveland.

I've bought VIP bleacher tix off craiglist so I guess there's the VIP Bleacher entrance but fugg showing up 2 hours and 15 minutes early to get front row seats.

People hopping on the red line post game at Addison crack me up when they all enter from the south entrance on Addison instead of the north alley entrance. You won't die entering an alley! I promise!!!

Has anyone taken the Pace Schaumburg Wrigley Express? I've always thought about it but never pulled the trigger.

I enjoy eating some dogs at the game. The bun is the iffy part, but when you get a nice fresh, steamed bun it is delicious. Nachos are good, peanuts are good.

And then after the game...DMK for sure.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.