The Day After

So...that happened.

Show's over, went well, everyone involved was brilliant.

Sold-out show. Great feedback. I was happy just watching some of the funniest performers in NYC getting to strut their stuff...it was a total collaborative effort and I hope that we get picked up for a regular, ongoing showcase series. I'll write more once I've gotten my head around the fact that our rag-tag crew managed to pull it off. Here's looking to a bright future for the Riot Act.


Meanwhile, in other historic news, the Red Sox play the Cubs for the first time since the 1918 World Series. I am ... conflicted. This is one of the reasons why I don't like inter-league play. A Red Sox-Cubs match-up is the stuff of Baseball legend, and it shouldn't be relegated to just another game in the middle of the season. A World Series game between the two teams had always been my "event-that-brings-on-the-apocalypse" scenario...until the Sox went and saved the World from total chaos and ruin last year, thus avoiding the world-ending cataclysm of a Sox-Cubs Game 7.

I have been to Wrigley Field exactly one time in my life. In the Spring of 2001, while visiting the Chicago Improv Festival, my friend Nicole took me on a Ferris Bueller-esque tour of the Windy City. Walking out of the Sears Building, I mentioned that I would love to have seen the Cubs play at Wrigley. We realized that a game was currently underway, hopped on a train, and got to the field during the eighth inning. To our dismay, they were letting no one in and you could no longer purchase any tickets after the 7th.

Finding a gate staffer, I made my plea. This was my first trip to Chicago and I had always wanted to see Wrigley and the Cubs - even for one inning. And I was from Boston - so, at that time, I felt a certain camaraderie with our National League counterparts. He asked to see my license, verifying that I was, in fact, a native Boston Red Sox fan. He glanced at my MA license, then at me, then very quietly nodded his head toward the gate, allowing me and Nicole into the field. We found two empty seats (it was the bottom of the 8th and the Cubs were leading the Dodgers by quite a few runs) and plopped down to watch the end of the game. I would have been happy to have seen just one or two Cubs' batters at the plate, but as luck would have it, the Cubs were about to have a record inning, as every batter in the Cubs rotation pounded on the hapless Dodgers and soared to an over 20-run score. It was unbelievable. I watched a total of one inning (bottom of the 8th and the top of the 9th) and I saw Sammy Sosa bat twice. And we witnessed an amazing blow-out with the Cubs putting on quite a show. In Wrigley.

And today, I doubt the gate guard would have much sympathy for a poor Boston fan trying to catch a glimpse of those luckless Cubs.

But still, when Boston takes to the field today on that hallowed ground - to face their 1918 rivals - even though it won't carry quite the same weight it once had, it should still be pretty special. And playing in the middle of the season - well, that's not really the end of the world. We'll save that for the post-season.