Fleecing the Flock

Mark Twain said that when he was a boy of 14, “my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around.  But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”  My father would appreciate that.

He’d also be confounded by what Cub fans are doing, as in giving away their money by the bucket and wheelbarrow.  Parking spots around Wrigley Field have an asking price of upwards of $300; a bleacher ticket for tonight’s game is fetching something like $3,000; tickets for game five, which in Cub Nation will be the clincher, may fetch $10,000; and at least one Wrigleyville bar intends to charge a $250 cover and another $500 for a table.

This isn’t Twain’s old man’s national pastime, or mine.