Home Care In Waveland, IN

Saturday, visitors in Waveland shared the beach with an unusual visitor: a six-to-seven-foot alligator.

LOUISIANA, USA — This time of year, beaches along the Mississippi Gulf Coast are filled with people enjoying the sun, sand and surf.

Saturday, visitors in Waveland shared the beach with an unusual visitor: a six-to-seven-foot alligator.

Chef Kevin Belton from WWL-TV spotted the gator while walking his dogs along the water.

“Saturday morning, we were walking on the beach in Waveland and all of a sudden, I’m like, wait is that a trash bag, is that a log,” Belton said. “As we got a little closer, I realized it was an alligator, sunning itself.”

Just last week, a picture of a large alligator on the west end of Dauphin Island beach in Alabama went viral.

Andrew Arnett from the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks says seeing a gator on state beaches is pretty common.

“They live in the Mississippi Sound and sometimes they like to get on the beach just like we do,” Arnett said. “It’s highly likely that there’s going to be more sightings on the beach, being that we’re in breeding season and males are traveling.”

Tuesday, we didn’t see any alligators on the beach, but we did run into a group of Tulane University students celebrating the end of finals.

“This is my first time here and I wouldn’t have guessed that there would be an alligator on the beach but when you have that Mississippi brackish water, they are bound to come around I guess,” one student said.

“Kind of scary. I’m very happy there isn’t one today. I think we would have turned immediately around and went back home,” another student commented.

Chef Kevin says his gator sighting in Waveland is a reminder we’re not the only ones that enjoy the beach.

When you’re walking along the beach, if you’re walking in the water, kind of keep an eye out, pay attention, look at the shadows to see what you’re walking up on or maybe see what’s swimming up to you.

And, if come across a gator, let it be.

Wildlife experts urge beachgoers not to feed alligators.

They say if you do, the animals tend to associate food with humans and that’s not a good thing.

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If you want a taste of Wrigley history, stop at the corner of Waveland and Kenmore Avenues, beyond the left-field bleachers. There you'll find the ballhawks, a group of Cubs fans who hang out with their baseball gloves on -- from before batting practice until after the final out -- hoping to snag a home run ball from beyond the ivy.

I spoke with a couple of them before a recent game: Rich Buhrke, who's been chasing glory for 57 years, and Dave Davison, with a mere three decades on the job.

I watch them scan the skies; the stiff north-by-northwest winds suggest slim pickings during the night's game, and with no batting practice scheduled, it'll be slow. So they have time to chat.

My first question: Why? What's the purpose of spending so many days outside Wrigley, all for a ball?

Buhrke's answer is as pure and simple as a game of catch: "I've had so much fun -- since I was 12 years old."

When you get a homer -- on the fly or after it bounces around the crowd -- he says, "For that instant, you're part of the game, and it's a big thrill. I still get an adrenaline rush."

While back surgery has slowed Buhrke's running game, it's now all about predictions, positioning and playing the angles.

It takes deep baseball knowledge to be a ball hawk. They monitor pitchers who tend to give up lots of homers, as well as hitters' tendencies. They can read the reactions of the crowd along the back wall of the bleachers to tell if a ball is indeed headed out of the park.

They also monitor their own statistics. Buhrke has snagged 179 in-game home runs over the years, including Ron Santo's 299th and 300th career blasts. He has homers both given up by, and hit by, Cubs pitchers Fergie Jenkins and Scott Sanderson. He also has footballs from point-after-touchdown kicks, back when the Bears played at Wrigley. But his first home run ball might be his most memorable.

It was Don Zimmer's first dinger as a Cub, after being traded to Chicago from the Dodgers in 1960. Zimmer hit it off his former Dodgers roommate, Johnny Podres. Buhrke got it signed, but the signature faded over the years. Decades later, he went to an autograph show to get it re-signed. There, Zimmer proceeded to tell the inside story of the home run. It came on a 2-0 pitch, a count where "the book" says a .250 hitter should take a pitch. But Zimmer swung away, and Podres gave him an earful about it all the way around the bases.

"Every time we see each other, it comes up. You gotta show him this sometime!" Zimmer told Buhrke.

So when Podres was in town for another autograph show, Buhrke brought him the ball, and said, "Don Zimmer told me to come over by you." Podres laughed and told the same story Zimmer had.

Then he signed the other side of the ball.

The ballhawks are also famous on their own terms. There's been a documentary film made about them, with Cubs uber-fan Bill Murray narrating, which was screened at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.

And Davison has another sort of modern fame: his own bobblehead doll. At the 2002 All-Star Game in Milwaukee, Davison snagged a ball Sammy Sosa blasted out of Miller Park during the Home Run Derby. The TV announcers discussed his feat, and years later, folks from the Milwaukee-based National Bobblehead Hall of Fame met Davison at a card show and asked him if he'd want to be immortalized. It finally happened this year, and you can buy one from Davison, along with jewelry made from baseballs he has caught.

Other developments this season, however, haven't been as good for Davison, Buhrke and the other ballhawks.

Thanks to bleacher expansion and what Buhrke calls "That Monstrosity" -- the new left-field video board -- many balls that would've gone onto Waveland Ave. stay in the park. The hawks estimate they get 60 percent fewer balls than in past years. Beyond physical changes, manager Joe Maddon's noted disdain for batting practice doesn't help, either. "Maddon's philosophy of batting practice kills us," Buhrke says. The ballhawks know if BP will happen when the Wrigley Field grounds crew climbs up to spread the netting that protects the video board, and if it doesn't, well, then it's time to settle in and tell some stories.

These guys know the geography of the game's history at the Friendly Confines, and they act as unofficial historians and ambassadors for Wrigley's most famous home runs. Out-of-town fans come looking for the spots where famed long shots by Dave Kingman or Sosa landed on Kenmore Ave. This afternoon, some random fan sought a Mike Schmidt landing zone, and was informed that that particular ball went up the alley, not down the street.

You can find ballhawks inside the park as well: During one of the pregame videos the Cubs show on the new board, Buhrke himself appears, holding up a ball as Harry Caray shouts, "Holy Cow!" Buhrke had never seen the film until I captured an image for him, and based on his age, clothes and other clues, he says it's from the late 1980s. He thinks it might've been an Andre Dawson ball, but can't be completely sure.

This season, Davison scored the most historic out-of-the-park ball of the year to date. On May 27, backup catcher David Ross' 100th career home run hit the "NUVEEN" sign and ricocheted into the first front yard on Kenmore. Buhrke had predicted that such caroms would come, but Davison admits he thought the sign was "mostly air" and that it wouldn't cause any crazy bounces. He happily eats his words: "Rich was right, but so far I'm the only guy who benefited from it."

After Davison snagged the ball, for the rest of the game the Cubs had security shadow him to ensure he wouldn't switch the ball out for another. They needn't have worried: Davison happily gave the ball to Ross, asking only for a photo with him. The grateful Ross praised Davison's generosity.

"People don't realize when they do stuff like that, it's the memory," Ross said to MLB.com. "I'll always remember that guy gave me that ball and was kind enough to do that. Now that guy is connected with me for life in my memory."

Another memorable time for the ballhawks was the steroid era, when Sosa, Mark McGwire and other sluggers sent countless balls out of the park. "It was as exciting as hell," Buhrke says, but as a good baseball purist, he continues, "[PED use] never should've got into baseball, and now that it's out, keep it out." He advocates harsher penalties for juicers, who he says are role models, "whether they want to be or not."

The ballhawks are role models of a sort, too, exemplars of passionate fan engagement with the game on their own terms. They attend many games, and sometimes follow the Cubs on the road. They're part of baseball's genuine folk culture, but over the decades they've watched that folk culture transform into corporate culture.

The starkest example of this transformation at Wrigley is the rooftop clubs. Before Jim Murphy put some seats on top of his tavern, you could watch the Cubs from a rooftop only if you knew someone who lived in the building. You'd clamber up a ladder to the roof, hand up a couple of folding lawn chairs, a cooler with a few cold brews and a transistor radio with Lou Boudreau and Vince Lloyd calling the game.

Nobody made a buck off it. Now, the Wrigley rooftops are quintessential corporate America, with $100 tickets that have food and drink and TVs and lawsuits flying around like fungo balls.

But the ballhawks are a living memory, a connection to Cubs fan culture before East Lakeview became Wrigleyville. They may perch beyond its walls, but they are as much a part of Wrigley Field as the ivy.

I grew up in a solid-blue late-primary state, and as such, my diner breakfasts were never once interrupted by Howard Dean.

The same can’t be said for longtime patrons of the Waveland Cafe in Des Moines.

The Waveland and its owner, David “Stoney” Stone, have hosted endless election cycles’ worth of presidential candidates, their surrogates and journalists. But is all the political attention irritating?

I stopped by the Waveland to talk to Stone and see what political lessons for candidates I could learn at this classic pit stop of presidential campaigns.

1. The diner remembers.

At the Iowa State Fair, presidential candidates are introduced at the Des Moines Register’s political soapbox with a stern warning to onlookers that they, Iowan or not, must abide by the terms and conditions of “Iowa Nice.” There will be no jeering or heckling or any such unpleasantness, because, of course, that wouldn’t be Iowa Nice.

But the guarantee of Iowa Niceness isn’t a pass for bad behavior, because of the remarkable length of Iowa Memory.

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Stone didn’t have a bad thing to say about any political visitors to the Waveland. But even so, there was something fearsome in the easy manner with which he could recall minute details of each candidate’s visit. What they said, what they ate, and how they and their entourage conducted themselves — whether it was last month or the last century.

(We heard all about the recent visit from “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” producers. They were perfectly friendly. And good tippers. We checked.)

Of course, if someone was poorly behaved and a reporter came along to ask about that person’s visit, it’s not that the reporter would hear anything less than an Iowa Nice reply. But there might just be a hint of disappointment in Stone’s warm chuckle. And that would be devastating.

2. If you care about being president of these United States, you will eat what you’re given, you will eat it in full, and you will enjoy it.

I asked Stone what would be the worst thing a presidential candidate could order. It was a stupid question, because the owner of a cafe is hardly going to say something on his own menu isn’t worth eating.

So, I next asked what was good on the menu. Unsurprisingly, he said all of it. But like a parent with an obvious favorite, Stone and his staff steered me directly to the accomplishments of the Waveland’s hash browns and French toast. I’m not a French toast girl per se, but I’m also not a fool, so that’s what I ate. And if you want to be president, you, too, will be whatever kind of girl the diner says you are.

Food, unsurprisingly, is an important part of a diner owner’s Iowa Memory. Stone could recite to me everything that hometown-hero-slash-“Aquaman” Jason Momoa once ate during a visit to the Waveland: “a full order of hash browns with a full order of biscuits and gravy on top of that, three sunny-side eggs up on top of that, a side of bacon, toast, and juices.” He’s a growing boy.

Do not only eat, but eat a lot. And eat it with gusto. And finish your plate. I got the sense that if my plate were not completely clean at the end of the sitting, it would be remembered, just as surely as my grandmother remembers the time a decade ago I didn’t want another piece of her fluorescent pink cake.

The good news is: The hash browns and French toast are delicious. A lot more delicious than my grandmother’s fluorescent pink cake.

(Oh, and if you are a candidate whose name rhymes with Floory Snooker, or any future vegan candidate, have your staff call ahead to clarify that even egg whites aren’t vegan, because there may be some confusion on that front.)

3. Moms eating eggs are influencers, too.

Eating my mound of hash browns and chatting to Waveland patrons, I remembered a piece of wisdom from my days riding the viral content waves as a writer at BuzzFeed: If you can reach Midwestern moms, your piece is going viral.

An Iowa diner is a teeming hotbed of Midwestern moms.

And yet, as Stone told me, candidate visits have slowed this election season and the last, as candidates prefer to visit nearby Drake University with its smartphone-wielding youths. “They are reaching a whole lot bigger audience than just a few people in here,” Stone explained. “Although this is a good cross-section of people you’ll find from every walk of life. So it gives them a good platform.”

Not only could you score a flurry of Facebook posts from diner moms, but unlike on social media, people in a diner may actually want to hear what you have to say.

While I had assumed that most people might be irritated at becoming a background character in a political photo op, I left realizing that it’s actually much better to be bothered by a candidate at breakfast than to never be noticed by a politician at all. Stone told me that there is always great interest in a candidate visit to the Waveland — and patrons are always respectful.

In a very big country, it’s an uncommon thing to talk directly to a person who may become that country’s leader. It’s a thing diner-goers of most other states miss out on.

I left the Waveland thinking campaigning would be more enjoyable for candidates if they spent more time in diners.

Or maybe it was just the hash browns and French toast.

I've written several times about the Ricketts family's continuing effort to acquire more of the rooftop clubs on Waveland and Sheffield, and figured the eventual endgame would be for them to control most or all of them.

Wednesday, that came closer to fruition with the Ricketts family buying three more rooftops:

This week, the Ricketts family — set on increasing its control of an economy that feeds off the team — acquired three rooftop businesses beyond the left-field bleachers. With nine of the 16 rooftop clubs, Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts and his family now control more than half of the iconic industry surrounding the 102-year-old stadium.But the surprise, said Jim Spencer, a Lakeview resident for nearly 20 years who heads the East Lake View Neighbors, is that the deals hadn't been done sooner."The Rickettses are the only ones who have any need for those buildings," he said Wednesday. "The die was cast when they got the go-ahead to put up the scoreboard in right-field."

The announcement Wednesday that the Ricketts had acquired the buildings at 1010 W. Waveland Ave., 1038 W. Waveland Ave. and 1048 W. Waveland Ave. brought the number of Wrigley rooftops that are under Ricketts family control to 10 (though the article says nine, this new website featuring all the Ricketts-owned rooftops together says it's 10), out of the 16 buildings in total that surround Wrigley Field on Waveland and Sheffield Avenues.

Perusing that website, it appears the Ricketts family will continue to operate the clubs the same way as they had before, as venues for groups or individuals (tickets can be bought on that site for groups "from 1 to 200") to watch Cubs games from across the street. According to a press release, the rooftops will be marketed under the Wrigley Rooftops brand umbrella and will be managed and operated by Sheffield-Waveland Rooftops, Inc, a management company with years of experience operating rooftops and other food and beverage venues in the Wrigleyville area.

"Rain or shine, Wrigley Rooftops are the ideal space for groups looking to entertain guests, host meetings or simply watch a baseball game," said Stacey Loukas, general manager of Sheffield-Waveland Rooftops, Inc. "We’re excited to offer a selection of 10 unique rooftops that will provide an enjoyable experience for customers with all needs."

The Loukas name should sound familiar to you. George Loukas runs several bars in the area (most prominently, the Cubby Bear) and owned some of the rooftop clubs before selling out to the Ricketts family.

The Ricketts family and the Cubs gain another advantage by running these clubs under a company separate from the baseball team. By doing so, any revenue coming from the rooftops doesn't have to be shared under MLB's usual revenue-sharing policies.

As of now, there are still people living in apartments of various types in every one of these buildings. The Ricketts' company could continue to do that, as rentals in Wrigleyville can be pretty lucrative, or they could eventually have other uses for the rest of the space in the buildings.

In any case, the endgame as I have predicted seems closer. The Ricketts will eventually wind up controlling all the buildings, something Tribune Company could have done decades ago when they first bought the Cubs (and at a much lower cost).

UPDATE: I have learned that the apparent discrepancy between the Tribune article, which says the Ricketts family owns nine rooftops, while their new website says 10, isn't really a discrepancy at all. The Tribune is correct -- the Ricketts family does own nine rooftops. The 10th rooftop on the website is owned by George Loukas, who owns the management company that's running all 10 rooftops. Hope that clears things up.

CHICAGO, July 17 — Thomas Gramatis stood in one of his brick apartment buildings, pondering what he would do with a Barry Bonds home run ball if it happened to smash through his window, roll across the hardwood floor and stop at his feet.

Such an event, while unlikely, is as not as far-fetched as it sounds. On July 30, 2003, Gramatis was standing outside his building at 3643-45 Sheffield Avenue, when he heard the pop of broken glass.

Gramatis turned and noticed that part of his third-story window was missing. He charged up the stairs, into the apartment, and found a baseball under the windowsill, surrounded by shards of glass.

Then Gramatis looked out at Wrigley Field, right across the street, where the San Francisco Giants were taking batting practice. The culprit stood about 500 feet away, name stretched across his back: Bonds.

“I gave that ball to my father,” Gramatis said. “If Bonds hit another one up here right now, during this game, I know that everyone in the bleachers would want me to throw it back. But I would still keep it.”

Here is the decision confronting every roof-dweller, ballhawk and bleacher bum this week: keep a historic home run ball hit by a disliked opposing player, or keep with Wrigley Field tradition and throw it back?

Opinion is divided along the stadium’s back wall. On one side of that wall are the bleacher bums who say they would throw a Bonds home run ball right back in his face. And on the other side are the ballhawks who say they would treasure it for life.

The hawks and the bums make up two different breeds of Cubs fan. The bums are loyal to the team first and the home run balls second. The hawks are just the opposite. They are here for the souvenirs, and if the team wins, it is simply a bonus.

While the bums lounge in the outfield seats, with sunscreen and Budweiser, the hawks camp out on Waveland and Sheffield Avenues, with mitts and transistor radios. They change position based on wind patterns, pitching matchups and hitters’ tendencies.

When the Giants came to town Monday, the ballhawks made out their scouting reports on Bonds. They took into account that he had been stuck on 751 home runs for two weeks and was nursing sore legs, which kept him out of the starting lineup in the first two games of the series.

“I’m playing him to left-center field,” said Dave Davison, one of the lead ballhawks. “He’s been in a slump, so I think he’ll try to go the opposite way a few times.”

Davison said he had caught 109 home run balls, including one from Bonds, and had not thrown any back onto the field. To escape the wrath of the bleacher bums sitting above him, he always carries an extra ball, which he fires back in place of the real one.

“Sometimes they know it’s a fake,” Davison said. “They’ll cuss you out for a few innings. They’ll throw beer at you. But giving away a home run ball is foolish.”

Occasionally, the ballhawks do cross over and actually watch a game inside Wrigley Field. Last season, when the Giants came to town, a noted ballhawk named Wes Wagner scored tickets in the first row of the bleacher boxes in right field.

Wagner did not catch a home run ball from Bonds, but someone in his section did. As the bleacher bum wound up and started to launch the ball back onto the field, Wagner grabbed his throwing arm. “Stop!” Wagner said he yelled. “You can’t do that!”

Wagner pulled another ball out of his pocket and let the bum throw it on the field instead, allowing him to save face in front of his friends. “You’ve always got to have that other ball on you,” Wagner said. “Otherwise, you’ll have a thousand people booing you.”

Of course, to the truly dedicated bleacher bums, throwing back the wrong home run ball is equivalent to treason. Standing at the top row of the left-field bleachers on Monday night, Randy Larson tried to envision catching Bonds’s 752d home run.

“I could not keep that,” Larson said. “I’d throw it right back on the field.”

At the top row of the right-field bleachers, the response was basically the same. “If it was the record home run, 755, it might be different,” Kurt Ahrens said. “But for 752, I’d probably either throw it back or I’d throw it at those Giants fans over there.”

Such is the divide that exists between bums and hawks. The bums, for instance, cannot believe that a hawk kept a home run ball hit last season by A. J. Pierzynski, the Chicago White Sox catcher who is even more hated at Wrigley Field than Bonds.

Likewise, the hawks cannot believe that a bum threw back a home run ball hit by Ken Griffey Jr., the Cincinnati Reds outfielder who is one of the best players of his era.

At last week’s All-Star Game, Bonds practically dared bleacher bums everywhere. After acknowledging that a typical fan may boo his record-breaking 756th home run, Bonds grinned and said, “Yeah, but he ain’t going to throw the ball back.”

Gramatis mulled that challenge. He was standing at 3643-45 Sheffield Avenue, the address that Bonds hit into four years ago. Gramatis has since fixed up the third story of the building and turned it into a bar, with flat-screen televisions on every wall.

The televisions were tuned Monday night to the Cubs-Giants game. And all the windows were swung wide open, awaiting another gift from across the street.

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