Constable: Traveling Cubs fans reach road milestones in Atlanta

By winning all six games on a road trip that ended with Wednesday's 8-2 win over the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago Cubs evened their road record for the year and reignited fans' dreams of postseason glory. Lifelong Cubs fans Fred Allman of Addison and Ted Reineking of Schaumburg reached even more impressive milestones during that road trip.

By watching the Cubs play in Atlanta's new SunTrust Park, Reineking, 72, now has been to games in 30 Major League ballparks. Allman, 54, has seen games in 50 ballparks, including 20 that no longer exist. SunTrust Park is the third ballpark they have visited in Atlanta.

"The park is very nice. We have upper-deck seats and our view is really good," Allman texts from Atlanta on Tuesday. That game was delayed by rain, but Reineking and Allman stayed until 1:10 a.m. to watch the Cubs win.

"Every couple of innings we upgraded our seats," Reineking says, explaining how they moved closer as fair-weather fans departed. "We ended up 12 rows behind the Cubs dugout with a bunch of Cubs fans."

There were so many Cubs fans in Atlanta, you would have thought they were home games for the Cubs. "We walked the concourse … and ran into a family from my school," says Allman, who will start his 30th year of teaching physical education this fall at DuJardin Elementary School in Bloomingdale. For Wednesday's game, the pair stopped by guest services and had their tickets upgraded to the Hank Aaron Terrace, where it's "all you can eat and air conditioning," Allman says.

"They had awesome chicken wings, pulled pork, and awesome cheeseburgers," Reineking adds.

Allman has been to all 30 current MLB ballparks, but his favorites remain the two oldest.

"Fenway and Wrigley are my top two," Allman says, noting he's been to Fenway Park in Boston three times, including a trip to watch the Cubs beat the Red Sox 7-4 in April. "Tiger Stadium (in Detroit) was unique with the overhang in left and right field. County Stadium (in Milwaukee) was one of my favorites."

Reineking, a retired postal worker who will celebrate his 40th season this year as the official scorekeeper for DePaul University basketball, says his favorite ballparks aside from Wrigley are Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore, PNC Park in Pittsburgh, and AT&T Park in San Francisco, where Reineking and his wife, Barbara, watched the Giants' Barry Bonds slug his 700th home run in 2004.

Allman has his own memories from San Francisco's old Candlestick Park. "I got sunburned in the left-field bleachers after freezing my tail off the night before," he says. That 1992 trip allowed him to catch games in five California ballparks in nine days.

Some ballparks visited during Fred and Ted's excellent adventure are memorable for all the wrong reasons.

"Old Municipal Stadium in Cleveland was kind of a dump," Reineking says.

"The three biggest pits I saw were Olympic Stadium in Montreal; Oakland Coliseum, which is nothing to write home about; and the Trop (Tropicana Field) in Tampa Bay," Allman says.

Some of the games they witnessed are memorable for the wrong reasons, too.

"In 1998, I was with Ted when Brant Brown dropped that ball," Allman says, recalling an error by the Cubs left-fielder with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning in Milwaukee that turned a sure Cubs' victory into a defeat so stunning that WGN radio broadcaster Ron Santo wailed an "Oh, nooooo!!!" that has become part of Cubs' lore.

"I've gone to a minimum of one Cubs game every year since 1959, even in my military years," says Reineking, an Army drill sergeant who found a way to get to a Cubs game while he was stationed in Fort Lewis in Washington state. One of his most memorable Cubs games came at Wrigley Field on Mother's Day, May 15, 1960, when he saw Cubs pitcher Don Cardwell toss a no-hitter against the St. Louis Cardinals. The final out was a sinking line drive that was caught by lumbering left fielder Walter "Moose" Moryn,

When Moryn made that catch, "I jumped the fence and ran the bases and then ran out to the outfield," Reineking remembers. "I was a young whippersnapper. In those days, they didn't take you to the hoosegow."

Allman and Reineking became friends in 1982, when Allman was the head groundskeeper at Rec Park in Arlington Heights and Reineking was the official scorer for the American Legion sectional championship tournament on that field. Given the Cubs' newfound momentum, fans are starting to believe the Cubs' excellent adventure could end in a championship this year, too. The next step on that path begins Friday when the St. Louis Cardinals come to town, Reineking notes. "What a weekend that's going to be."