CHICAGO -- Dressed in dark, furry bear suits from head to toe, Lisa Burton and Brian Robinson stood on Waveland Avenue, waiting to walk up to the rooftop of Beyond the Ivy and watch the first World Series game at Wrigley Field in 71 years.Burton, 39, and Robinson, 43, said they paid a total of $7,500 for a pair of tickets to take in all three games against Cleveland from across the street this weekend. The engaged couple made its way to Chicagos North Side from Birmingham, Alabama.All that money, and theyre not even sitting inside the ballpark.It felt like a bargain, Robinson said before the Cubs 1-0 loss Friday night. Ive been a Cubs fan since I was about 6 years old. I was born and raised in Meridian, Mississippi. You had two choices: You could watch the Braves or the Cubs. But Harry Caray was so much more fun to watch, even when the Cubs stunk, which was most of the time. He was the reason why I became a Cubs fan.When the World Series last came to Wrigley Field, a Game 7 loss to Detroit on Oct. 10, 1945, the major leagues were all-white, the championship was played in the daytime, television had not yet come to the Fall Classic and soldiers were coming home from World War II.Now the Cubbies were home in the Friendly Confines, three victories from their first title since 1908. And on an uncommonly warm 63-degree night with the wind blowing out to left and center at 14 mph, Wrigleyville was the meeting grounds for fans who long imagined a day like this, part hope, part pipe-dream.Only now if was coming true.Back in 1945, Series box seats had a list price of $7.20. This years tickets ranged from $85 to $565, and asking prices on StubHub a few hours before game time ranged from $1,019 to $9,439.Debbie Manfredi, of suburban Algonquin, stood on Kenmore Avenue trying to snag balls off the bat of right-handed hitters during batting practice. The 49-year-old, wearing a Cubs jersey signed by Ron Santo, has had season tickets in the lower deck behind third base for five years -- after 11 years spent on the waiting list. Her late father, Richard, grew up in Wrigleyville and rode his bicycle to games, then had season tickets in the 1970s. Debbie was taking her 15-year-old daughter, Taylor, to the game.I started believing last year, and this year you just felt it from the beginning. You just knew, Debbie Manfredi said.Not far away, fans were being fed hot dogs outside the two-story building that houses Engine Co. 78 and Ambulance Co. 6. Many held white flags with a blue W, a variation of the one that flies from the scoreboard after home wins.With seats painted in a dark Benjamin Moore Wrigley Field Green SC-62 and poles holding up its roof (and creating obstructed views), Wrigley is the focal point of its gentrified neighborhood, about 5 1/2 miles from The Loop downtown. Even the handles of the doors of Starbucks across from the right-field corner are made of baseball bats.Hours before the crowd of 41,703 filed into Wrigley, the line to get into Murphys Bleachers snaked down Sheffield Avenue toward Addison Street, which runs along the first-base side of the ballpark. Statues of Ron Santo and Billy Williams had new jerseys and red roses, and Carays had a yellow apple in one hand.Youre getting to play in a museum -- for work, said 39-year-old Cubs catcher David Ross, who is retiring after the Series. Last year I walked to the park a lot and that was my favorite thing about last year, was just walking to the park and feeling the energy of the fans.Known as Weeghman Park when it opened for Chicagos Federal League club in 1914, Wrigley has been the Cubs home since 1916 and it retains most of its traditional look, even in the midst of a $375 million renovation that created a spacious new Cubs underground clubhouse this season and will lead to the relocation of the bullpens from foul territory to underneath the bleachers next year.The second-oldest ballpark in the major leagues behind Bostons Fenway Park (1912), Wrigley did not even have lights for night games until 1988. A pair of video boards were erected last year, 42-by-95 feet in left and 29-by-71 feet in right, flanking the hand-operated green scoreboard with white lettering and a circular clock atop the center-field bleachers, a focal point like a cherry on a cake.Cramped dugouts are more like World War I trenches than the roomy, comfy benches in more modern venues. The famous ivy along with red brick outfield walls, first installed in 1937, is green during sultry summers and thick enough to gobble up balls ahead of searching outfielders in baseballs version of Little Shop of Horrors, but in the cool of autumn it has dulled and thinned, starting to turn brown in patches.Its how baseball is supposed to be, said Indians manager Terry Francona, who played for the 1986 Cubs. When I was here, they didnt have the new clubhouse, so it was fun being at the ballpark until it was time to shower or go to the bathroom or something.Wrigley hosted Series games in 1929, `32, `35, `38 and `45, with the Cubs losing their first five and 11 of 13 overall entering this year.This is so enveloping. The fact that the bleachers come all the way around, Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. I drive down Clark every day from downtown, and as you get closer, you see all the venues that support all this, and also the people milling around. Anyplace Ive been, I havent seen that with any ballpark to that level. So its enormity in its entirety, its just different. Buy Cheap Falcons Jerseys . -- Brandon Jennings made the most of his first game with the Detroit Pistons on Sunday night. Foyesade Oluokun Jersey . Reassurance came from Paul Tesori, his caddie and close friend whose newborn son is in intensive care in a Florida hospital. "Paul sent me a text this morning, just told me he loved me and wanted to go out and fight as hard as I would any other day," Simpson said Sunday after doing just that. http://www.cheapfalconsjerseyschina.com/ .05 million next season unless Graham and the Saints subsequently agree on a long-term deal. The designation was released Monday after the deadline passed for NFL teams to use franchise or transition tags on players becoming free agents. Calvin Ridley Jersey . Collaros, 25, was solid last season, posting a 5-2 record as the starter while incumbent Ricky Ray was injured. Collaros also started Torontos 23-20 regular-season finale loss to Montreal — Ray didnt dress because the Argos had already clinched first in the East Division — but was one of three quarterbacks to play that day. Deadrin Senat Jersey . In taking its goal tally to 99 in all competitions already this season, City delivered another demonstration of its lethal firepower at Etihad Stadium to set up a fourth-round match at home to another second-tier team -- Watford. Dwyane Wades wife feels betrayed. Her stunned husband, Miamis favorite son, finds himself somewhere between hurting and haunted. And warrior legend Pat Riley is wounded, having morphed with his fan base from The Godfather to Tony Montana in a way that feels reckless and bloody. Something so big and strong exploded at the center of what used to be their basketball family, and now they all limp away from each other with the scars.There was no good way to do any of this without conflict and blame. None. The Miami Heat got the breakup wrong because there was no good way to get it right. Maybe letting Wade go was a good business decision, and maybe it wasnt. Maybe it was a good basketball decision, and maybe it wasnt. But it was, no maybe about it, a terrible emotional decision. And thats where interests clash and people get hurt in this kind of collision, at the intersection of sports as a business and sports as a relationship.Champion Bill Belichick will let players go coldly a year too early. You just saw what happened when the hijacked Lakers let champion Kobe Bryant go a year or two too late. The Heat landed somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, as if there is ever any right place to land when breaking up what used to feel like love, and now everyone involved feels hurt and damaged by the iciness of it all. We dont want to be reminded that these things are literally transactions. We want to keep having our romantic, candlelight dinners on the floor of the bank.It is very easy to have good relationships when interests are aligned, but you dont really find out about love and loyalty until they arent. The Heat-Wade marriage felt like a honeymoon for more than a decade, aligned interests as the winning glue, but this transaction wasnt loving at the end, as evidenced by all the fractured trust and the thudding finality of the heartbreaking exit. Wade and the fan base were considering things that are priceless, such as nostalgia, while the Heat were doing the calculator math on future basketball value that you must do as stars age in a salary-capped ecosystem.It makes LeBron James, power broker and paradigm shifter, all the more breathtaking with the clarity of retrospect. He Pat Rileyd Pat Riley before Pat Riley could Pat Riley him, flying the old warrior across the country for a cold courtesy meeting as a legendary pawn. That has to hurt Wade all the more today, that his mercenary friend cost him $10 million and was right about loyalty in sports largely being a lie disguised as a fairy tale.Ultimately, Miami made enough of an effort to appear like it was making enough of an effort. Riley didnt get where he is doing negotiations with his heart. So the breakup had to kinda, sorta feel like Wades choice when swallowing more pride didnt seem like much of a choice at all to this proud icon, public relations an awkward mask for all the blemishes that had developed in the private relations. Nearly $42 million? A lot of us would like to be insulted like that. But if the Heat really wanted to keep him, they obviously would have found a way to keep him. Instead, they made a fair and reasonable offer, offering even more than they probably would have liked because of the emotion and the public relations and the fan base and the past and goodwill and reputation and that statue that will go up one day. And then they watched other franchises start valuing Wade more than the one that should have valued him the most. And watched Tyler Johnson, with all of five career starts, get offered $10 million guaranteed more than Wade.The Heat likely didnt want to deal with two more years of unhappy, disrespected, hurt Wade. They would have, but only at their price. Perhaps a smitten man will tolerate a divas behavior in her prime. But patience might grow thin in a more superficial relationship once the beauty queens age no longer disguises her flaws. And these two sides couldnt agree on much of anything at the end. Not on who put together the Big Three. Not on how much the sacrifices were worth. Not even on how to make a damn phone call.You know how it is sometimes before the worst breakups. The fights arent really about the fights; theyre about all the resentments collected on the way to the fights.Wade thinks he, his talent and his relationships built the Big Three. But he also told people in 2009 that James would never, ever leave Cleveland to come to Miami, and Miami cleared the cap space for the possibility of James anyway. Can they both be right? Wade couldnt figure out why he was always the one making the financiaal sacrifices.dddddddddddd The Heat can counter that those discounts also helped Wade ... and that they never requested those discounts of him ... and that they paid for themselves with winning and endorsements ... and that James, Chris Bosh, Goran Dragic, Udonis Haslem, Shane Battier and Ray Allen also gave back dollars (and even Hassan Whiteside offered up a chunk of contract for the possibility of Kevin Durant). Can they both be right? Wade is reportedly hurt because Riley never once reached out to him by phone during these past few weeks; the Heat are hurt because disgruntled leaks kept springing from his camp for two years and too much of the repairing dialogue had to go through his many agents. Can they both be wrong?Relationships are important, people, Wade tweeted in the middle of negotiations, about the time he realized that this one was no longer what he once thought it was. Wade didnt trust Riley with his money anymore. That is clear now. The Heat would have liked to use his Bird rights to keep working with Wade and compensate with the possibility of a one-year, $37 million max payment as a gold-watch parting gift a few years from now. But Wade obviously didnt believe that was ever coming, or he would have done what discounted Dirk Nowitzki and Tim Duncan have wink-wink done with their employers in exchange for having some control over the roster. When Wade is done being classy and professional in public, maybe well find out where and how this trust broke.Riley coined the phrase the Disease of Me in his best-selling book The Winner Within. He might have discovered the illness, but he is not immune from it. He has an earned ego, too. He is about doing his job, no matter how cutthroat it must be. Ask his protégé Van Gundys. It is Rileys way or the highway, and sometimes loyalty can be a one-way street on that highway. Rileys résumé is bejeweled, but it now has the blemishes of losing James and Wade. The first could be blamed on James; this one wont be. Together, they are damning. And, given how cold this business can be, a messy fight with Bosh over his medical issue and salary-cap space might be next. These past six years, the rise and fall, are going to make for one hell of a 30 for 30 in a decade.Rileys daughter knows her father is hurting today. He has always been a philosopher-poet moved by writing and music. He owns more than 2,000 vinyl records. But she sent him a song he hadnt heard Thursday -- Inner Ninja, a happy tune by Canadian rapper Classified -- to help her father heal. She really knows the old man, and she knows the game that is his lifes work, and she knows that his game is a business, and she knows how that business can wound. Here are some of the lyrics:I read the rules before I broke em I broke the chains before they choked me out Now I pay close attention Really learn the code I learned to read the map before I hit the road Hey, yo, I know you never heard this before But Id rather lose a fight than miss the war I go hard and I aint makin up no excuse Im overdue, I dont do what Im supposed to do Cause you can think about it, man, were supposed to lose It aint all picture perfect, ocean views Hey, yo, Ive been high and Ive been real low Ive been beaten and broken but I healed though So many ups and downs, roughed up and clowned We all got problems, but we deal though Im trying to do better now, find my inner peace Learn my art form, and find my energy When my backs on the wall, I dont freeze up Nah, I find my inner strength and I re-up Never dwell in the dark cause the sun always rises But gotta make it to the next day Its a feeling that you get in your lungs when you run Like youre running outta air and your breath wont come And you wheezing, gotta keep it moving Find that extra (uhn) and push your way through it I climbed the highest mountains I swum the coldest seas There aint a thing Ive faced thats been too much for meIt is a really nice song. The godfather who runs the Heats family business vows to keep fighting. But he read the rules before he broke them, and he learned the code, and he knows the basketball business aint all picture perfect, ocean views, even though he and Wade went from climbing the highest mountains to now swimming the coldest seas. He knows this, too:Letting Wade go might turn out to be a mistake.But it sure as hell cant be considered any kind of accident.This story by Dan Le Batard also appears in the Miami Herald. Youth NFL Jerseys Cheap Cheap Jerseys Online China Jerseys Wholesale Cheap NFL Hoodies Wholesale NFL T-shirts Stitched Jerseys Wholesale Jerseys 2020 ' ' '