Column: South Bend Cubs baseball is special on the field and in the stands

SOUTH BEND — Section 116, row B, seat 17.

That’s where I watched most of the South Bend Cubs’ home opener against the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers Tuesday. There weren’t many others around me for the game, but the ones that were covered just about every spectrum of a minor league baseball fan.

One was a gentlemen named Glenn. He was with his two children, an older daughter and younger son, occupied section 116, row A, seats 20-22. Glenn has been going to Cubs games for decades, back when they were still called the Silver Hawks.

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Glenn loves the South Bend Cubs, yet refuses to wear the team gear. As a Chicago White Sox fan, he can’t bring himself to wear anything with “Cubs” on it. For Glenn, it was easier when South Bend was affiliated with the Sox in the early days of the franchise back in the 1980s and '90s. Now, he tolerates the team being the High-A affiliate for the Chicago Cubs.

Glenn also doesn't want Swoop the mascot to retire, but that's a story for another day.

End of an era: Swoop heads back to the nest, retiring as South Bend Cubs mascot

Glenn estimated he and his children go to 10-12 games a season. They’re typically sitting down the third base line like we were Tuesday, but usually a little closer to home plate. The seats this night were by the Rattlers’ bullpen, which had a huge supporter sitting nearby.

Jessica Wehrle lives in Ohio and works in Fort Wayne. That’s less than a two-hour drive from South Bend, which is well worth it to watch her son, Tyler, play professional baseball.

Prior to the game, Jessica texted Tyler to if he thought he would play. Wehrle is a pitcher for the Timber Rattlers, an affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers, primarily working out of the bullpen as a reliever. He had yet to appear in the first three of the season. He felt confident he’d pitch against the Cubs.

That was enough incentive for Jessica to make the trek and sit in section 116, row C, seat 22 Tuesday night.

Sure enough, Tyler Wehrle came into the game in the sixth inning. By this point, Glenn’s children had left. The son’s bedtime is typically 7:30 p.m., but given the game didn’t start until 7:05 p.m., that curfew was pushed back. But even dad had a line he wouldn’t cross, and so the older daughter with a driver’s license drove her younger brother home by 8:30.

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As Tyler started his first at-bat, Glenn turned to Jessica and asked how she’s feeling.

“The emotions never change,” she noted. “I’m usually walking around because I’m so nervous.”

The 6-foot-3, 220-pound right-hander pitched a scoreless sixth, working around a leadoff walk and a deep flyout from the Cubs’ Jonathon Long that looked like it might leave the park when it came off his bat. An anxious mother exhaled deeply when the ball fell into the mitt of Wisconsin’s Eduarqi Fernandez five feet short of the wall.

The Timber Rattlers breakthrough for a run in the top of the seventh, the first of the game. This puts Tyler Wehrle in line for the win should Wisconsin not lose the lead the rest of the way. Whether Wehrle would be the winner was debated amongst the group, though, leading to a couple Google searches about it.

Our searches were rendered useless in the bottom of the eighth when Casey Opitz hit a homer that might have landed in Mishawaka had it not bounced off the 1st Source Bank Performance Center beyond the right field wall, tying the game for the Cubs.

A potential go-ahead rally for South Bend was thwarted, and Wisconsin countered with two runs in the top of the ninth inning to win, 3-1. Outside of the players celebrating on the field, about the only other one happy with the result in the stadium was Jessica Wehrle.

The banter between myself, Glenn and Jessica made a fast game move even faster. There was one other person that sat in the section near us Tuesday, though, that made the night special for me: my mother, Jessica (Yes, this column has two mother’s named Jessica).

My mom recently became a resident of South Bend. Part of a cool moving package of gifts she received because of it was four free tickets to Cubs games. With the weather a picture-perfect 75 degrees and sunny, she decided the home opener would be a great way to have her first Four Winds Field experience.

Just about every inning, she noted how great it was. The park, the weather, the Ben’s Soft Pretzel, everything. It was cool to see her enjoy what has become a gem of a minor league baseball park.

It was also cool for me because my parents don’t ever get to see me work. That’s normal for a lot of people, but since I’ve lived a few hours away from them my entire adult life, I only usually see them for family functions. While Tuesday might not have been as cool as covering an event with World Series MVP Ben Zobrist with my dad last summer, this was still a rewarding experience for me.

So, in case you’re wondering what I was going to write about from the game mom, here it is. Hope you liked it.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Column: Watching the Cubs home opener from section 116, row B, seat 17