Day: February 7, 2011

In the 1986 hit movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Matthew Broderick made us want to be Ferris, if only for a day. It also made at least one guy want to find out what day game of the Chicago Cubs that Ferris, Cameron and Sloane had attended after skipping school. This guy. Larry Granillo of Baseball Prospectus. Granillo worked out the details shown in the TV broadcast that was playing within the movie, dug through the box scores, and came up with a date. June 5, 1985: Cubs vs. Braves. Attendance: 25,557, +/- three Hollywood actors Here's the scene from the movie, with commentary from director John Hughes. Note that he'd rather have gone to Comiskey Park for the White Sox, but only the Cubs played day games to fit the script! Part of the scene to refresh your memory:   First week of June also makes total sense for a day that a high-school student would just want to play hooky and make a day of it with friends in the big city. And as Granillo noted: More interesting than that is the timeline that this presents for Ferris. It's said in the movie that the reservation he stole was for noon, but we can't say with certainty if that's what time they ate. Seeing as how they finished the lunch with no hassles, it's safe to assume either Abe never showed...