Joshua Mellin

With Munetaka Murakami joining the White Sox alongside established Cubs favorites Shota Imanaga and Seiya Suzuki, Chicago is rapidly emerging as a rival to Los Angeles for the title of America’s Japanese baseball epicenter. While the Dodgers naturally command the spotlight—fueled by recent championships and the star power of Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Rōki Sasaki—Chicago offers a compelling alternative with elite talent on both sides of town. Los Angeles has already reaped a massive tourism windfall from its roster; now, Chicago stands on the verge of its own international boom. For any fan making the journey from Japan, the Windy City has become an absolute must-visit destination. To truly understand Chicago baseball, you have to experience both sides of town. Traveling between Rate and Wrigley Fields is famously easy, as the CTA Red Line directly connects the two (via the 35th Street and Addison stops, respectively), but the culture at each park is worlds apart. If you’re packing your bags for the season, you’ll want to know how to navigate the neighborhoods, hit the right dive bars and embrace the local traditions. Here is how to get the most out of your time and fit right in with the diehard fanbases on both the South and North sides. Both Chicago teams are defined by historic droughts and supernatural hexes. The White Sox endured 88 years to move past the 1919 “Black Sox” scandal, finally winning in 2005, while the Cubs waited 108 years to break the “Billy Go

After debuting in Hokkaido in 2021 and touring across Japan over the last several years, the Pokémon Fossil Museum is finally making its North American debut right here in Chicago. Cocreated by the Field Museum, the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo, and the Pokémon Company International, the sprawling exhibition seamlessly bridges the gap between pop culture and hard science. By comparing real-life prehistoric creatures directly with their fictional Pokémon inspirations, the exhibit makes complex concepts like comparative anatomy highly accessible. Here is exactly what to expect when you hit the exhibition floor. Fact meets fiction The core of the exhibit features life-size, conceptual skeleton models of fossil Pokémon displayed side-by-side with the real-world prehistoric fossils that inspired them. To keep things clear for visitors, the museum uses a clever color-coded system: Real-world paleontology and dinosaur facts are strictly printed in red text, while Pokémon stats and fictional lore are printed in blue. Photograph: Joshua Mellin for Time OutAurorus with a real-life Amargasaurus fossil in the background at the Pokémon Fossil Museum Photograph: Joshua Mellin for Time OutPokémon Fossil Museum at the Field Museum You’ll find Aerodactyl positioned next to pterosaurs, Omanyte compared to spiral-shelled ammonites, Aurorus matched with the sail-necked Amargasaurus, and Bastiodon juxtaposed with ceratopsian dinosaurs like the Triceratops. They even highligh