An Interesting Sports Day

A bit late on this one, but I had an interesting sports day back in May while on a business trip to Chicago.

Saturday, May 21st started at the National Restaurant Association show for me.  I spent the morning and part of the afternoon at the show, then headed to US Cellular Field to see the White Sox take on the Florida Marlins.  We were in an enormous suite along the 3rd base line with a bunch of other people on a beautiful spring day.  US Cellular is a newer, decent-if-not-special stadium.  The White Sox go on to win the game 4-1, and we pour out of the stadium with 28,000 other people and head to the subway.

Making our way back uptown, we have an enjoyable dinner at Carmine’s.  After dinner, we head to Jilly’s, my favorite Chicago Jazz bar.  Every year at the show, one of our vendors secures two tables at the front of Jilly’s, where the windows are usually open.

As we sit down for our first drink, one of the managers of Jilly’s introduces us to a very large man sitting at the table next to us.  It turns out the guy was Daniel “DOC” Nicholson.  He beat John Ruiz in 1994 to earn a share of the heavyweight championship of the world.  He also had notable losses to people like David Tua and Wladimir Klitschko (he only lasted 4 rounds against Wladimir, which is a lot).

Finally, sitting next to Doc was Andy Fletcher, the home plate umpire from the baseball game we attended earlier in the day.  I found Andy to be an affable, easy-going guy.  We talked for about 30 minutes on topics ranging from sports to our kids and too much travel in Hyatt hotels.

All in all, not the sports day I was expecting.  But, a very interesting day all the same.  Pictures below.