Padres Scene & Heard: Friar faithful flock to Wrigley Field at last minute

by Ryan Finley

CHICAGO — Zach Montano may be the only Padres fan in Bozeman, Mont.

A Solana Beach native who works as a fly-fishing guide, Montano has never met another fan of the brown and gold in his town — unless you count his three sons.

Montano got to know plenty of them at Wrigley Field on Thursday.

Despite the Padres’ 3-1 loss to the Cubs in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series, Thursday was a day to remember.

Montano and his son, Sage, woke up at dawn in Bozeman and flew to Chicago. They walked through the Wrigley Field gates for the first time two hours before first pitch.

Together, father and son marveled at the stadium’s manual scoreboard and historic brick. Zach Montano wore a mid-2000s sand Padres jersey over a “Slam Diego” T-shirt and Sage sported the team’s current brown jersey and hat.

Zach Montano made the decision to go shortly after the Padres won Wednesday’s Game 2. He bought airline tickets — “I have a lot of points, a lot of miles,” he said — and then secured two seats for the decisive Game 3. The Montanos landed at O’Hare Airport at noon, dropped their bags at a nearby hotel and went off to watch the Padres.

Why travel all this way?

“I don’t take it for granted,” Zach Montano said. “You never know when you’re going to get back.”

Montano knows: The 40-year-old grew up watching the Padres struggle to win half their games. Octobers were for football — or fishing.

“Those years of just hoping to be .500,” he said, “those were brutal.”

Now, Montano shares his love of the team with Sage and his two younger sons. Sage is just getting into baseball. One of his first Little League teams was named the Padres.

Maybe they’re more popular in Bozeman than we think.

Gotta go

Santee’s Josh Pelfrey took a red-eye flight from San Diego airport to Chicago on Wednesday night. Before leaving, he let his work know he wouldn’t be coming in on Thursday.

“I told my boss, ‘Sorry, when is this ever going to happen?” said Pelfrey, a social worker. “Wrigley Field. Padres. Elimination game. Win or lose, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

Pelfrey brought his 15-year-old son Jake, who took a sick day from West Hills High School to make his first visit to Wrigley. They got tickets from a fantasy baseball friend of Josh’s who works with the Cubs.

The Pelfreys were among the first Padres fans in the building on Thursday.

Josh Pelfrey’s brown and gold flannel shirt remained tied around his waist. In an upset bigger than anything happening on the baseball field, the weather was warm again.

Murphy’s Bleachers

Directly across Wrigley Field’s bleachers entrance sits Murphy’s Bleachers, a pre- and post-game haunt famous for its early open times, clientele — Eddie Vedder was there Wednesday — and clever signage, complete with that day’s game time.

Before Game 1, the sign outside Murphy’s read: “Padres fold faster than a beach chair @ 2:08”

Before Game 2: “Happy Cubtober! Padres ‘Cease’ to exist after 2:08

The Game 3 sign mentioned a fictional San Diegan’s profane Teleprompter mistake.

It read: “Ron Burgundy said it best about San Diego. Cubs @ 4:08.”

The place leans hard into its Chicago bona fides: Before Tuesday’s Game 1, celebrity chef and “The Kitchen” co-host Jeff Mauro handed out free Italian beef sandwiches to fans.

(More) good seats still available

An hour before first pitch, the Cubs were still selling tickets on their website. For an all-in price of $94.90, fans could sit in sections 405L, 408L and 431R. The most expensive seat, in the Marker’s Mark Barrel Room 3 just beyond the Padres’ first-base dugout, was $562.81.

Tickets were cheaper on the secondary market, with standing-room-only tickets going for $75 on Stubhub and $76 on Seatgeek and seats in the 200 level starting at $93.

Common threads

The Padres and Cubs have a few common threads, starting with their threads.

Motorola sponsors both teams’ jerseys, meaning the Padres and Cubs have the same stylized ‘M’ patches on their sleeves (albeit in different colors). Both clubs also have ties to Gallagher, the insurance company. Petco’s former Park at the Park was renamed Gallagher Square in 2019. A year earlier, the Cubs unveiled a Gallagher Way pregame party area just outside the stadium.

More threads

The Padres wore their sand pinstriped uniforms for Wednesday’s game, which in itself was a bit of an upset. Starter Yu Darvish traditionally favors the dark brown uniforms for road games — so much so that his uncertain future with the club makes us wonder when they might be worn again.

Consider: The Padres wore their brown tops just six times after the All-Star break. Four of them were Darvish starts.

Football season

It’s October in the Midwest, which means football.

Two hours before Thursday’s game, Padres relievers Jeremiah Estrada, Kyle Hart and Bradgley Rodriguez flung the pigskin back and forth in the outfield grass. The games of football catch are a year-round thing for the Padres and other baseball teams, with the belief that the over-the-top throwing motion is good for building arm strength and promoting good mechanics.

Did you know?

The man who coined the phrase “The Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field” went on to become Trevor Hoffman’s college coach.

Jerry Kindall was a Cubs infielder in the late 1950s. At the end of a tough road trip, Cubs legend Ernie Banks remarked to Kindall that “we’re going home where people are friendly — back to the Friendly Confines.”

Kindall replied, according to The Chicago Tribune: “Ah, the friendly confines of Wrigley Field.”

Kindall played nine years for Chicago, Cleveland and Minnesota before going into coaching, first at the University of Minnesota and then at the University of Arizona.

From 1988 to 1999, Kindall coached a strong-armed Wildcats shortstop named Trevor Hoffman. Hoffman famously converted to pitching in the minor leagues.