Cubbie Doctor's Examiner: Another opening day: Let's get this disaster started

For me, this season's marketing slogan should be "Year One, again".

Anyway, the Cubs started this season in typical Cubs fashion, by blowing a lead in the 8th inning and losing the game in the 9th.

I met up with Julie DiCaro before the game, and another LOHO poster, Bob from Madison, sat in with us for a little while.

It was a little strange watching a game from seats not in the upper deck where I've typically sat for the last 9 years. It was a different type of crowd where I was at in the lower deck, but I had a good time as did everyone around me.

Some of the things that I noted about the day:

Wayne Messmer singing the anthem for a big game (opening day, playoffs...etc) always brings me to near tears. Jim Cornelison is pretty good, but I'm sorry, Wayne Messmer is better.
Joe Mather is tall.
A lot of concrete was again replaced around the ballpark this off-season, but it appears very little of it was replaced in the upper deck, which I think needs it worse than anywhere.
Most of the luxury suites (if you can really call them that) still have old CRT TVs. Come on, Ricketts family...get those people some new TVs.
Beer prices remained steady at $7.50 a can.
More and more little pieces of advertising are appearing all around the ballpark.
More of the concrete slabs on the exterior of Wrigley were removed this off-season.
People love Mark DeRosa.
Nationals fans really don't know very much about baseball.
The people who had tickets in the seats to my left didn't show up for the game until the 5th inning. The promptly left before the sixth inning started. Assholes.
Bill Murray is a really cool guy.

Here are some of the more interesting pictures I took today.

So first, can we just dump all these stupid slogans like "It's gonna happen" and "Next year is here" and so on...like this dork:

Oh, and buddy, you forgot the apostrophe, you dork.

The Eamus Catuli sign is back, but the "AC" sign didn't return. And that's ok with me.

But the building does look a little bare.

The Cubs renovated a building that a previously been used used to stage all the vendors before the game. This building now contains administrative offices...where Jed and Theo play fantasy baseball with real players. The building is at the corner of Clark and Waveland across the street from the new Rockit Burger Bar.

Meh.

The Cubs opened a new gift shop/team store at the corner of Addison and Clark, next to the McDonalds. I had seen some picture of this before, but I was still surprised by the actual size of this place...it was really big.

Again, meh.

Inside the ballpark, I got my first glance at the new scoreboard in right field. Overall, I though it looked pretty good out there. It really didn't change the feel of the park much at all.