Do they still play the Blues in Chicago - Part 2

Yet another cool thing about Chicago is that it was the home of late singer, songwriter, musician, and Cubs fan Steve Goodman. He was not only a wonderful performer and composer, but also an interesting human being who left us too soon.

Steve Goodman was a card carrying member of the army of chronically disappointed but inexplicably devoted fans of the Chicago Cubs. During Goodman's, sadly short, lifetime (and at many other times) the Cubbies were almost terminally hopeless. He was so deeply affected by their pathos that he wrote one of my favourite humorous songs: 'A Dying Cubs Fan's Last Request.' You can listen to the song on his myspace page, but it would be far better to buy an album on his website.

In a posthumous twist that I'm sure would have amused Steve Goodman, the Cubs played their first post season game since 1945 only eleven days after his death.

I am totally ignorant about baseball, but I was on a Steve Goodman pilgrimage. Thus it was that I found myself visiting the home of the Chicago Cubs at 7am on a Tuesday morning.

This is the hallowed ground of Wrigley Field, a baseball stadium so famous it is well known even in non-baseballing Australia. What is it about this place that makes fans request that their ashes be scattered here, as some of Goodman's were? It looks, to my uninitiated eye, like any other sporting field, but there is some evidence that the fans take this one unusually seriously.

Look at these custom gateposts on the McDonalds across the road.

Check out the tribute pavers on the footpath outside the field. I can understand that every team has a few die hard followers, but this is ridiculous.

There are hundreds of them, possibly thousands. I walked over row upon row of tributes to a team that, let's face it, has never been very good at winning.

The stadium is surprisingly small considering the magnitude of its fame and the passion of its fans. Novel ways of adding seats have been found by building rooftop boxes on the buildings in surrounding streets.

The surrounding residential streets are affluent and leafy, and many wear their allegiance in banners from the front door. Here they are not flying American flags, but Cubs flags.

There was nobody around to ask about this strange phenomenon, so I simply accepted it as another mystery among the many of this strange land. I pressed my palm against the wall and sent a warm thought for Steve Goodman from Wrigley Field in Chicago out into the universe.