Scoreboard Marriage Proposal ‘Didn’t Work Out’
Published at
Greg Altringer(CHICAGO) — Greg Altringer spent the past two months planning an elaborate proposal to his girlfriend of three years, Erica Kresge, with military-like precision.
The devoted Chicago Cubs fan reserved a spot for his proposal on the giant screen at Wrigley Field during the team’s Monday night game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Altringer, 25, arranged for himself and Kresge, 23, to fly to Chicago from their Great Falls, Mont., home and be in the stands for the game.
He knew the scoreboard would read “ERICA, WILL YOU MARRY ME?” in the middle of the fifth inning so as the inning approached on Monday night he sent Kresge to the concession stand for some drinks while he let their seatmates in on his plan.
“Greg had sent me to go get a couple beverages,” Kresge told ABC’s Good Morning America today. “Apparently his plan was to let everyone around us know what was going on while I was away. He was giving the people up behind him his camera and phone to videotape it and take pictures.”
While planning every detail for the future with the love of his life, Altringer forgot to account for the unaccountables in life: long lines at concession stands and unexpectedly short innings in Major League Baseball games.
The result? Kresge missed the proposal.
“It just didn’t work out,” Altringer said on GMA. “I just needed a quick second to give my camera away and let everyone around me know what I was doing. But the lines were long and the inning was short.”
“I was so nervous,” he said. “The inning was quite short. When two outs came I took off out of my seat, sprinting to find her to pull her out of the line.”
Kresge got out of the line and returned to their seats with beverages in hand but by then the proposal was long gone from the scoreboard screen.
After all his planning for a once-in-a-lifetime proposal, Altringer had to propose to Kresge the old-fashioned way, on bended knee, but he got the same result. Once Kresge returned, the cameras at Wrigley Field captured Altringer down on one knee, asking her to marry him and then slipping the ring on her finger when she said yes.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio