Pilgrimage to Wrigley

There are two iconic ballparks remaining in major league baseball: Fenway Park and Wrigley Field.  I have visited Fenway once, in 1987, but had never been to Wrigley...until today!  I've dreamed of attending a game here since the 1960s, when I watched Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, and Ron Santo star for the Cubs.  Even before them, Wrigley had seen many legends.  Rogers Hornsby, Hack Wilson, Grover Cleveland Alexander played here.  The opponents were equally illustrious; Babe Ruth hit his called shot homer in the 1932 World Series here.  Musial, DiMaggio, Ott, Mays, Spahn all came to town opposing the Cubbies.  The ballpark was actually built in 1914 for the Chicago Whales, a team in the upstart Federal League that lasted two years before folding in late 1915.  The Cubs moved in for the 1916 season and have been here ever since.

Ernie Banks..."Mister Cub"  512 home runs and a hall of famer.  At 80, he's still an ambassador of the game. 

Wrigley is an URBAN ballpark.  No tailgating here...there are no parking lots!  Instead, fans party in the neighborhood bars surrounding the park.  And that's the thing about Wrigley...it's in the 'hood.  The ballpark was built around the neighborhood, not the other way around as in most of the new parks.  And it's not surrounded by a vast expanse of concrete, as is the case in many suburban parks.  It just blends into the neighborhood, like Fenway.

The bleachers atop the apartment houses on Sheffield Avenue, beyond Wrigley's right field seats.  You're a long way from the field in those bleachers, but they've become very popular.  These seats were developed in the 1990s.  Previously, only the residents had these views; they'd just go up on the roofs and watch the game for free, in small numbers.  But then, owners of the apartment buildings decided to open up the view to outsiders, charging admission and making money.  This led to a conflict with Cubs' management, which was resolved by giving the Cubs a cut of the out-of-ballpark gate receipts from the rooftop seats.

The scoreboard in center field.  Mostly manually operated, this is not a retro board...it was around waay before retro was cool.  It was installed by Bill Veeck in 1937; he also planted the ivy on the outfield walls that year.  The flags indicate the standings in the three National League divisions.

Alfonso Soriano at the plate, hitting a shot toward third.  Blow up the pic and you'll notice that the Cubs have the bases loaded...The ball is just to the right of the Cubs' runner leading off second.  In fact, Soriano batted four times during this game with a total of ten runners on base...very unusual!  He drove in four of them, but none on this play; the Pirates' third baseman made a good stop and threw home to force the runner coming from third.

Cubs fans sporting their colors...predominantly blue.  They suck down a lot of beer, too...a young couple sitting just to the right of me left eleven empty beer cups when they left!  77 dollars worth of beer.  And they were both slim...at least for now.

The game started in bright sunshine, but by the seventh inning a long awaited cold front arrived, and we had an hour and a half rain delay with a robust thunderstorm.  The ground crew did a fine job racing the tarp over the infield.  Well trained! Rain delays are kind of a novelty to a Californian...it rarely rains in Cali during baseball season.

Eventually the rain let up, and the crew removed the tarp, squeeged away most of the standing water, and sanded the infield.  Play ball!

Well, the Cubs were probably hoping the game would be permanently stopped by the downpour.  When play was halted, Chicago was ahead 5-3 in the bottom of the seventh...if the game had been scrubbed at that point, it would have been official and the Cubs would have had a victory.  But play eventually resumed, and in the top of the ninth, with the bases loaded and two out, Derrick Lee, a well liked ex-Cub, deposited a pitch into the basket atop the left field wall for a grand slam home run and a 7-5 Pirate victory.  Here the blokes D-Lee drove in are congratulating him after he crosses home plate.  Good game!  With the rain delay, the contest lasted five hours and I spent the entire afternoon at Wrigley.  Can''t think of a better place to spend an afternoon!  It was every bit as neat as I anticipated.