The Wrigleyville Chronicles, Chapter 1

I'm sitting in my car at a Wendy's just outside of the Wisconsin Dells. My chicken nuggets are quite delicious but I appear to be forced into eating them on the road while driving. You see, I'm racing the sunset. As I mentioned before, I'm in Wisconsin. Since I don't follow every traffic rule to a T, the prospect of driving while it's dark in the Dairy State is less than appealing since their traffic tickets cost somewhere in the range of $126, 234. So I forge on. I-94 is my reality.
The destination? Chicago. Specifically, Wrigley Field for three days of baseball. I'm joined in my car with two other guys. The first oneis Damon, someone that I've been very good friends with for several years. This isn't the first time I've gone on a sports related vacation with this man. We've been to Las Vegas together and traveled to Milwaukee for a Cubs-Brewers series. In fact, just four years ago we sat courtside for a Chicago Bulls-Washington Wizards playoff game (in fact, if you ask Damon, he'll insist that he's the reason Kwame Brown fell apart as a basketball player--but, I'll touch on that later).
The second passenger in my car is pretty much a stranger to me. We were introduced to each other only a few hours ago and although I was a little put off that he asked me to call him by his softball number.
"Call me one-eight," the guy says to me, "everyone who knows me, knows me by that name." Now, as I type this, I am having a problem thinking of any athletes who are known simply by their number. Let alone softball players. Still, I oblige.
Like I said, up until a few hours ago, I had not met One-Eight. He is an old friend of my friend, the other passenger. He is, without question, the wild card of the trip. Unless our plans change, I'll be sharing a queen size bed with One-Eight...which I don't know how to react to since he seems to talk quite extensively about his sexual escapades. I suppose I'll consider it a victory if I am not deterred from my hotel room at night because one of my roommates decides to bring a girl back to the room (something that we've all discussed and agreed on as being "against the rules").
As we pull back onto the highway, I start to make my way through a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger. I begin to contemplate the next few days in my head. Little do I know that in the next three days, someone in our group will nearly be arrested--twice, three of us will find a home away from home at a gay bar, we will panhandle for hot dogs, and I will race through the street of Wrigleyville trying to varify the idenitity of a potential stalker. Then, of course, there are the three baseball games we plan on attending. But we'll get to that later...