I have had a pretty magical summer for visiting major league ballparks for the first time. In June, Diane and I hooked up with Trace Wood and his family and we made it out to Yankee Stadium for a spectacular day of wild and woolly baseball in the sun. It was great to visit that storied cathedral in its final season.

This year, as we were wrapping up Tout draft logistics in New York, I decided that since I was going to be in Chicago for Diane's 50th birthday for the week, I may as well try to hook up with Dean Peterson and JP Kastner for the Tout trade deadline bidding extravaganza.

Tout newbie Jed Latkin, who has family in the Windy City, also flew out, and we had a great time Thursday night bidding and joking and hanging out.

As part of the deal, Dean and I copped bleacher seat tickets to Wrigley Field yesterday and a bunch of us went to see the Buccos and Cubbies mix it up the day after the deadline; in fact Brandon Moss was in the starting lineups for Pittsburgh.

I have to say that I have never been to Wrigley (though close once), nor have I ever sat in the bleachers before pretty much anywhere. But Wrigley has a pretty good rep for such things, and we got to the park two hours early and stood in line, stumbled in, and had a blast.

Actually, Jed started the blasting off by looking away for a moment and taking a fungo off the forehead, giving all of us a scare. Also, it was hot and humid. Somehow I managed to pick the hottest days of the year to get acquainted with those old parks that were new to me.

I actually wound up drinking no fewer than five bottles of water as I watched the Pirates and Jeff Karstens blank Chicago, 4-0. Not to mention numerous dips of my hat into the portable cooler belonging to Diane's cousin Cherie and her husband Mike, doffing it, and letting the lovely cold water chill my pate and drip down in a refreshing way.

I watched the game. I soaked in the rays. I talked trade. I did not score the game, and it was a pretty fun and relaxed time. All the crowd yakked and traded wisecracks and opinions with one another. When Jed returned from being checked out by the park doctor--baseball stitch imprints nicely notched into his forehead--he got a rousing ovation.

It was a lovely lazy day spent at the kind of ballpark I love best, the kind with houses and businesses peppering the neighborhood and people parking cars in garages and backyards because of the dearth of parking lots and very little street parking in Wrigleyville.

We arrived for batting practice and hung in there until the bitter end, a good six hot hours later, and then toddled down Addison Street and left on Clark for dinner at a terrific Mexican joint, El Jardin, that my friend Lee turned me onto.

It was, as Diane noted, my "first real Chicago experience". Hours to get into town. Planning to get there early and walking through those neighborhoods and sitting in the bleachers and then through the streets with the Cubs minions to the restaurant; we just had as good a time as I suppose a human being should be allowed to have.

That was all I could think as we left the restaurant and said goodbye until next time I am out, sometime later in the year. As Di and I tooled back through the streets, and then to the expressway west to her home in Algonquin, I looked at the gorgeous orange ball of sun settling behind the horizon and realized for the millionth time what a charmed life I seem to lead.