Palatine native surprises dad with World Series tickets, makes film about it

Palatine native Justin Escalona says he grew up watching sports with his father, Emmanuel Escalona, going to more than 100 different Cubs games with him.

The pair even were at the Cubs' 2003 National League championship series game against the Florida Marlins when the infamous Steve Bartman incident happened.

When the Cubs made it to the World Series this year, the younger Escalona said, he had to find a way to get his father to a game.

So the Palatine High School graduate who's now a film student at the University of Southern California and who makes his own short films on the side, found a sponsor, Seat Geek, to help him procure World Series tickets and make a film about flying back to Palatine from California to surprise his father with them.

Escalona just released the three-minute film on YouTube.

"My dad has helped me with every single thing in my life, and for once I finally had the opportunity to give something back to him," Escalona says on the film.

Emmanuel Escalona grew up in Chicago, attending Lane Tech College Prep High School.

"What did you fly here for?" he asks his son on the video. Then he sees the tickets on his son's smartphone. "Jesus Christ!"

At the game, the younger Escalona says, "the energy is everything I imagined it to be."