The crushing loss in Game 4 of the World Series didn’t wipe the smile off Cub fan Sam Salzeider’s face Saturday night.
Having just watched the game on a giant projector screen from bleachers her parents, John and Robin Salzeider, of Highland, rented, the 23-year-old was still flying high off being at Wrigley Field with her dad for Game 3. Even though her folks’ setup was as sweet as it gets, for her, there was nothing like being in the midst of it all.
“Here, no one’s really cheering after that loss, but look, they’re still cheering,” Sam Salzeider said as she wrapped herself in a blanket to ward off the chill of the night air. “There was nothing better than watching everything right there.”
John Salzeider, on the other hand, was much happier watching the game in his own “Friendly Confines.”
Partygoers entered the back yard through a turnstile and then walked over to a set of bleachers decorated with a “brick” facade and patriotic banners. The screen sat on the other side of the pool, and Robin Salzeider manned the hot dog roaster and popcorn machine inside.
John Salzeider’s love for the team started when he was a young lawyer living in Wrigleyville, and since then, he’s been to six “Cubs Fantasy Camps,” where participants go to Arizona to play with team greats such as Randy Huntley and Fergie Jenkins. Getting tickets to Game 3 was a treat, but the experience was a bit less exciting for him.
“The loss was heartbreaking,” John Salzeider said. “I’ve knocked (going to the World Series) off my bucket list, but I don’t think I’ll ever do it again; it took us an hour and a half to get out of the stadium, and there were just so many people up there to take it all in. We didn’t see anything too bad, though (in terms of behavior).”
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The Salzeiders rented the bleachers for the month, starting when the Cubs made the playoffs, and since then they’ve had as few as six people catch a game with them and as many as 70 ambling in and out of the yard. And Robin Salzeider knows to just go with the flow.
“Anymore, I just roll my eyes when he comes up with the ideas,” Robin Salzeider said as she passed out the hot dogs. “But we have great friends, and they are a lot of fun to do. And hey! No one has to pay $250 for a ticket.”
Robin Salzeider is usually by her husband’s side when he goes to Cubs events and would’ve been there Friday, but she relinquished her ticket to her daughter.
“It was daddy-daughter bonding time,” Robin Salzeider said. “It’s all right.”
Not all the folks watching the game were sad the Cubs lost. Bryan Walsh, 14, said he’s a White Sox fan who’s “just not rooting for the Cubs”; Bob Larson, of Highland, actively chuckled whenever the Cleveland Indians scored.
Larson, a rabid Sox fan, said he didn’t know whether he was rooting for the Cubs even just to root for the Chicago team, which made his wife, Julie Larson, happy.
“This is an improvement over the last two weeks,” she said, laughing. “He’s been miserable ever since the playoffs.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.