Wilmer Difo's Wrigley Field pop-up mishap comically foreshadowed by ex-Pirate Sean Casey

During a radio appearance on WDVE on Thursday, former Pirate and Upper St. Clair native Sean Casey told a laugh-out-loud story about playing at Wrigley Field.

Little did he know that the punchline would be recreated by his hometown team later that night.

The Pirates are in the middle of a six-game road trip in Chicago. They lost the first two games to the White Sox on the city’s Southside on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday, they lost Game 1 of a four-game series against the Cubs.

On Thursday morning, Casey made his regularly scheduled appearance on the “The ’DVE Morning Show.” He talked about two hazards of playing on the city’s Northside: the unpredictable winds and the “Wrigley flu.”

The wind in the “Windy City” is self-explanatory. Players never know what they are going to get there.

The Wrigley flu is a disease that often affects opposing teams when they visit Chicago and play all those day games. The early starts leave the players with plenty of time to find trouble in what can be one of the better nightlife cities in either league.

Often that leads to some “maladies” that may affect the willingness and ability to perform for the next day’s game.

When I asked Casey if he ever had one of those days when playing against the Cubs, he certainly wasn’t embarrassed to admit that he did.

Casey said in his first full year with the Reds (1998), he and some friends went directly from a game across the street to the apartments in Wrigleyville to meet Bass’ brother for an all-day party that began with beer pong. The group then migrated to Gibson’s Steakhouse for dinner. And the party kept going after that.

Casey paid the price the next morning.

“We’ve got a day game. I wake up in the morning. And I’m like, ‘This is a bad idea.’ I probably should’ve gone to dinner and gone home,” Casey recalled. “That beer pong to get the day started…this isn’t college. I’m facing Kerry Wood today throwing 100 with a 92 mile per hour curveball. I’m in trouble.”

So Casey resorted to the only hangover remedy he had available: a bowl of Fruit Loops.

“That was the Breakfast of Champions in 1998,” Casey remembered. “If I could get these Fruit Loops down, I’ll be able to dominate and get rid of this hangover. But I remember the first bite, (grunts) I couldn’t get it down. So I was like, ‘I really had too many pops.’ But I got it down. I grinded through it.”

However, Casey admitted his play may have been a bit, um, compromised that afternoon.

“Fourth inning, Sammy Sosa comes up and hits the highest pop-up in the history of man,” Casey proclaimed. “It’s going to left field. But the wind was blowing in at Wrigley that day. Michael Tucker looks at the ball. Then Barry Larkin looks at short. Then it’s over the pitcher. And I’m like, ‘Oh my God! This is coming to me,’” the first baseman remembered with horror in his voice.

Casey knew he was going to have a problem at that point.

“I’m in foul territory. I’m going to our dugout. And I look up and I see three balls coming down,” Casey said with a laugh. “I started ducking. It was a cloudy day, (I pretended) like the sun was in my eyes. But really I just saw two balls coming. And I end up clanking it. The ball hits my glove like I’ve got an iron skillet.

“It was a bad day. So, have I been there, in Chicago, and made some bad decisions? Yes. I have. It didn’t go well.”

Well, it’s unclear if Pirates second baseman Wilmer Difo had been playing any beer pong or was fueled by just a bowl of Fruit Loops before Thursday night’s game. But Casey’s story about the Wrigley Field pop-up blues certainly were illustrated for Difo in the 11th inning of the Pirates game against the Cubs.

2021, right?

W. pic.twitter.com/RiaXLBIwBS

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) September 3, 2021

“Instead of getting behind it, he drifted to it,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “You cannot drift to any balls in this ballpark the way the wind plays. It’s a frustrating loss because we battled our butts off the entire game, and he’s just got to get behind that baseball.”

That cost the Pirates a tie-breaking run and their 86th loss of the season by a final score of 6-5.

Although the game-time wind was said to be just five miles per hour, maybe a sudden gust blew the ball away. Or, like Casey, maybe Difo lost the ball in the sun.

At 10:50 p.m. central time.

Ok, how about the lights? Will that work?

The Pirates and Cubs rematch at 2:20 p.m. Friday afternoon. Who is up for some Fruit Loops?