Comments (0) BEST PLACE TO SEE A SPRING TRAINING GAME - 2006

Hohokam Stadium

Since 1997, the folks running Hohokam Stadium have kept the price of the lawn seats at five bucks. Five bucks to watch the Cubbies, for God's sake! Five bucks to watch the ebullient Cubs fans before the Cubs have been able to begin losing any real games, when Cubs fans are still happy-go-lucky drunks rather than the sour drunks, like Mike Royko back in the 1960s, like Mark Grace back in the '90s, like Cubs fans for the whole glorious 1918 season, which itself was unusually short because of World War I. Simply, Cubs fans are the best. (No, we're not from Chicago; don't even much like the place.) And while cities throughout the Valley scramble to make these spring training fields look like the best of the major league fields, the only thing that matters are the fans. Great fans in a dump beat, say, Diamondbacks fans in Chase Field. Hohokam has Cubs fans in spring. 'Nuff said. The only downside of Hohokam, though, is quite serious. Old Style is served there, but it is served in plastic cups, as though one were at a country music festival outside Cedar Rapids. At Wrigley Field, the Old Style comes in wax cups, something longtime aficionados of "Dog Style," as we called it in college, say makes the beer the best in the world. We always just bought the crap because of the price. But if Cubs fans say so, we say so. Get some wax cups, and Hohokam truly will be Heaven on Earth, a garden of love and hope, before the snake of each doomed season must arrive in Eden.