CHICAGO — Professional baseball is expensive. This was brought to my attention when I attended the Chicago Cubs vs. Oakland Athletics game Sunday at Wrigley Field. The Cubs won 5-3, no thanks to LaTroy Hawkins who struggled to get ‘er done in the ninth and allowed two runs. But that’s tangential to my point. A breakdown of my ballpark expenditures:

$50 — The initial investment for tickets and parking has skyrocketed with the popularity of the team. For example, tickets for the Cubs/White Sox game on July 4 were already $120 a pop in the middle of March. Face value means diddly when tickets are in demand. Parking consisted of a spot in a gas station lot 10 blocks from the park.

$8 — The first obligatory fan purchase was the Cubs pennant. Before the game, fans congregate behind the dugout in hopes that their favorite players will emerge to sign autographs. Sunday afternoon was no exception, and utility player Jose Macias was a good sport and signed various items (including my pennant) for a good 15 minutes. He also pitch-hit in the eighth for Kyle Farnsworth. What a guy.

$7 — The blue and red foam claw was the second purchase of the day. It’s large, it’s ugly and it’s necessary.

$15 — Moises Alou is disgusting. Recently it became public knowledge that he pees on his hands every game before batting practice to get a better grip. Somehow it works.

He currently owns a .294 average and cranked a two-run home run in the first Sunday. This can be attributed directly to the fact that I dropped 15 bucks on a T-shirt with his name and number on it on my way in the door.

$6 x 2 — Anywhere else you would laugh in the face of someone trying to sell you 16 ounces of Old Style for $6.

$11 — In Chicago, hot dogs are called red hots. I like mine with ketchup only, which apparently makes me inhuman. The Chicago Hot Dog Code explicitly dictates mustard, relish, peppers and onions. I supplemented this with an order of nachos and a giant pretzel.

Add in the cost of gas to get to and from downtown, and it’s hard to be a bandwagon fan without spending at least $100 at the ballpark.

Was it worth it? Hell yes. Wrigley Field is not a venue, it’s an institution. And sometimes you have to pay out the ass to enjoy an institution.

Wrigley is the second-oldest major league park in the country, behind Boston’s Fenway. The ivy-covered brick outfield wall has given special meaning to the term “warning track” since 1914. It was also the site of Babe Ruth’s famous “called shot” when he cranked a home run into the bleachers in the 1932 World Series.

Since the unveiling of the Bears’ new Soldier Field, a monstrosity that looks like a spaceship hatched out of the decadent column-lined outer shell, and the selling out of the White Sox’s Comiskey Park to U.S. Cellular, Wrigley is the only professional sports venue in Chicago that has yet to be dramatically tampered with. It retains all the classic flavor of old-school baseball.

To have the experience of witnessing America’s pasttime without Jumbotrons and gaudy decorations is a relief.

I will forever complain about the price of a movie, the cost of a textbook or the massive sum I pay each semester in campus parking tickets, but unlike a lot of things in a college student’s life, attending a game at Wrigley was worth the price.