Cubs Convention Day 2: Cubs Central

     After the rousing first night of the convention, Cubs fans of all ages were back in their seats for the 2nd day. First thing up was a panel led by the Ricketts family. The topics ran the gamut of all that you would expect to hear, but the real entertaining pieces came when they opened up the floor for questions. One guy came up to the stage where he proceeded to announce that he had a "prepared statement", which elicited many groans from the audience. After that, a young lad came up who had a certain Twitter conversation with Ian Stewart in June 2013(the story is in the link, but long story short, Stewart said some things he shouldn't have about the organization and was let go 2 weeks later). After calculating that dumping Stewart had saved the team roughly $100,000, the guy asked Ricketts where his cut was. Ricketts made a comedic evasion to that question. Finally, a lady walked up who was a self-proclaimed "crazy die-hard Cubs fan":

     Based upon her hat, I'm not willing to dispute her assertion. After the panel was over, there were numerous things going on, but my next item was "A Recent Look Back: The Cubs of 2007-08". This one had Jacque Jones, Mark DeRosa, Ryan Dempster, Kerry Wood, Ted Lilly, and Bob Howry reminiscing and answering questions about those glory days(also the last time the Cubs were any good). By some miracle, I ended up in the front row for that one, so I was able to snag some pretty good pictures. After that session ended, I was on the 4th floor waiting around when I saw a very distinctive uniform:

     Yes folks, that is indeed the one and only Ronnie Woo Woo(because of course he'd be here). After some more scouting of the vendors, I ran into a gentleman on the lower level with a very peculiar pennant from the 1984 World Series that had a Cubs roster on it. The Cubbies made it pretty far in '84, but not that far. So what gives? Apparently the pennant was made up before the NLCS ended, so some backups were made in case the Cubs had made it. It was never supposed to see the light of day, but this guy got his hands on it anyway. After an update on the business operations of the club(which pretty much revolved around contingency plans for the non-completion of the 1060 Project by Opening Night) and a special preview of what lies ahead, I took a break for dinner at the Billy Goat Tavern.

     While I was chowing down at the Billy Goat, I happened to fall in a conversation with an elderly gentleman next to me. Turns out that he remembers hearing about the Cubs when they were playing in the 1945 World Series. No, I'm not making that up. After that chance encounter, I decamped back to the Sheraton where it was time for Cubs Bingo. Hosted by Wayne Messmer, this annual tradition saw hundreds of Cubs fans competing to win prizes, which wrapped up the evening.