After a summer spent slinging soggy hot dogs and overpriced ice cream products in Chicago, I have come to two realizations: I love Wrigley Field and I hate Sammy Sosa. Sound hypocritical? Let me explain.

First off, I do not hate Sammy Sosa, that was mostly for effect. He is a charitable, fan-friendly, home run-hitting machine. The city of Chicago is understandably enamored with the Latino Lumberman. This is where the problem lay for the common vendor.

It may sound trivial, but every time Sosa came to the plate, my vending ceased. This was not due to my laziness (although I am very lazy), but to the fact that 40,000 potential customers unite in unison every time Sosa strides to the plate. Usually, a plate appearance by Sosa lasts for five long minutes while he fouls away pitches and then either strikes out or homers. But, if he homers, then the vendor can make up his sales in frenzied euphoria.

Now on to Wrigley. I have seen the majority of my baseball games in the soulless cement circle known as Three Rivers Stadium. On the other end of the spectrum is the joyful monument to summertime that is Wrigley Field.

For those that haven't been there, Wrigley is located smack dab in Wrigleyville, a collection of condos, bars and restaurants renowned throughout Chicago as a party Mecca. The field itself is aged in a way that is not rendering on being obsolete. Ivy covers the brick walls in the outfield, where the Bleacher Bums rise only feet above the field, peppering the outfielders with praise or scorn.

When I tell people where I worked this summer, I usually get the token response "That's so cool, you got to watch baseball games for free." True, on occasion when I wasn't racing up and down the aisles yelling "I got your nuts here," I did get to watch snippets of games. But, the best part of my job was definitely the co-workers. There is "Nick The Crazy Vendor" who refused to use deodorant, noting that "people didn't wear deodorant for thousands of years." Simons, who on slow days for Strawberry Chills decided to take out a double-load, promising to "shove it down their (insert expletive here) throats."

There was Rickey Henderson, named so because he believed Henderson was deserving to be on the All-Century team that Major League Baseball is compiling.

The king of all vendors, though, is appropriately named Big Daddy. A Wrigley vet of 30-odd years, Big Daddy would ramble incoherent nuggets of wisdom like, "Big Daddy, malt cups, yesssss!" Occasionally, he would blurt out,"Kicking in the back door, yessss!" What that means I have no idea.

I learned a lot about myself this summer. I found newfound resolve as I struggled to haul around ridiculously overpriced items. I know now that I want to be the reporter sitting in the plush press box eating free food rather than working on the bottom rung of the sports industry. And most of all, I learned never to trust a beer vendor. Here's an example:

My friend and Wrigley co-worker Rob Bressler was leaving the field after a hard day's work pouring Olde Style to the drunken masses when a fellow vendor, much older and grizzled, asked him how his day was and how much he made in tips. "I did pretty well," Bressler said. "How was yours?" "Good," the vendor said. "Y'know why? Some guy gave me a fifty but he thought it was five. Forget him (not in those words, use your imagination), right?"

All in all, I learned Wrigley Field is worth its lofty reputation. When I get the token response I mentioned earlier, I don't mind it because Wrigley Field represents a slice of Americana that is quickly fading in today's multi-media computerized world. For every slimy vendor there is a five-year old kid who just took in his first baseball game with his dad, a guy who probably just paid fifty dollars for a beer.

Greenberg, a junior journalism major specializing in b.s., can be reached at jg371997.