A beautiful day for a ball game...

Well actually it was cold and the wind was gusting from the north, chilling us, me especially to the bone. You can tell from the sparse crowd at Wrigley Field that conditions weren't perfect the other day. They said the attendance was over 32,000 but I'd guess half of those were no shows, that is unless 16,000 fans spent the game under the stands in the concourse area.

And yet it's special any time you get to experience Wrigley Field. There is nothing like it anymore, anywhere -- well OK, except maybe the old ballpark in Boston. Today Fenway Park and Wrigley are celebrated for their intimacy, for their beauty, and their history. Back in the fifties, you could have said the same for virtually every ballpark, Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, Shibe Park in Philadelphia, Tiger Stadium in Detroit, Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, Griffiths Stadium in Washington, Crosley Field in Cincinnati, Comiskey Park here in Chicago -- in all twelve major league ballparks (both St. Louis and Philadelphia had two teams that played in the same park), and many more minor league ones that shared features with Wrigley and Fenway, some even surpassing them. Forbes was more beautiful, Ebbets and Tiger Stadium more intimate, and it would be hard to match the compendium of baseball history made at Yankee Stadium.

One by one all those palaces of baseball disappeared; only Fenway and Wrigley survive. Plans surfaced several years ago to build a new Fenway across the street from the old one, keeping some of the signature features like the Green Monster and the idiosyncratic dimensions, while introducing 21st century comforts into the joint. But it turned out that old Fenway was as important in the hearts and minds of New Englanders as Wrigley is to Chicagoans, perhaps more so. The plans were scrapped and old Fenway was fixed up and updated, heck they even put up a Jumbotron scoreboard in left field.

Now it's Wrigley Field's turn and things are heating up. The current owners of the Cubs have agreed to raise 300 million dollars of private capital to renovate the 99 year old park. In return they want more night games, more parking, and are asking the city to roll back landmark ordinances that would prevent them from making changes such as, you guessed it, installing a Jumbotron in left field. If they don't get these things, the owners say, they may have to find another place to play ball.

I used to believe that the two entities, Wrigley Field and the Cubs were inseparable, you simply could not have one without the other. I believed the groundswell of public sentiment for the place would be like a title wave, that no owner of the club with half a brain would dare suggest moving the team elsewhere. But I was wrong. From an unscientific survey based upon listening to others in person, and through the media, I'd say sentiment among Cubs fans for keeping the team at Wrigley is maybe 50-50 at best. Besides the obvious lack of modern conveniences, for many fans, Wrigley Field represents 99 years of failure for the team. The last time the Cubs won a World Series was in 1908, when they played at the West Side Grounds, which stood on the current site the College of Medicine of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Not that there weren't great years for the team in Wrigley Field on the north side; the Cubs were perennial contenders in the teens, and between 1929 and 1938, they won the National League Pennant four times like clockwork, every third year. The last time the Cubs won the National League pennant was in 1945; they've been wandering around the desert ever since, 28 years longer than the Israelites under Moses.

Many die hard Cubs fans would have no problem exchanging the Friendly Confines for a championship. Some go so far as to blame the team's one hundred years of ineptitude on the ballpark, others on a curse. But it's not difficult to rationally explain the Cubs' lack of success on the field since 1945.

Wrigley Field was not built for the Cubs but for the Chicago Whales of the short lived Federal League. The park built in 1914 was originally known as Weeghman Field, named after one of the founders of the breakaway league and the owner of the Whales, Charles Weeghman. When the league folded in 1916, Weeghman formed a consortium of investors who bought the Cubs for $500,000. Upon buying the team, he moved them into his new north side park. One of Weeghman's investors was chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. who bought controlling interest in the club in 1918. The park would be known as Cubs Park until 1926 when it officially became Wrigley Field. William died in 1932 and left the team in the hands of his son, Phillip Knight Wrigley.

P.K. Wrigley as his Wikipedia biography states, presided over the "family hobby", the Cubs, until his death in 1977. Where other baseball owners developed money making, game-changing innovations, P.K. preferred to do things his own way. Wrigley the Younger was particularly fond of his namesake ballpark. Unlike every other baseball owner, he steadfastly refused to allow advertising inside the park. The outfield ivy, the bleacher section, and the famous hand operated scoreboard were installed under P.K.'s tenure (all carried out by the way by Bill Veeck under Wrigley's employ). Lights, particularly the standards that supported them were particularly offensive to P.K.; he thought they detracted from the beauty of Wrigley Field. As far as developing major league talent through minor league affiliate teams, the practice known as the "farm system", Wrigley believed that minor league organizations had the right to develop their own talent, free from the influence of major league "masters". Charming and noble as his intransigence may have been, Wrigley's refusal to change with the times worked to the detriment of his team. Some trace the demise the beloved also-ran 1969 Cubs to their erratic schedule, having to play all their home games during the day while most road games were played at night. Others site the lack of depth on the team that forced the starters to play virtually every game that season.

There was one innovation that P.K. Wrigley embraced as far as baseball was concerned. Despite the presumption that televising home games was akin to "giving away the product", Wrigley alone among his peers was steadfast in bringing every Cubs game into people's homes. It could be argued that TV was at least partly responsible for the decrease in attendance at Major League ballparks in the fifties and early sixties. With the combination of night baseball and TV, people stayed home to watch rather than go to the ballpark, especially during work nights. Of course the Cubs playing only in daylight, didn't have that problem. That's why the overwhelming number of fans at Cubs games during my childhood in the sixties and seventies were children and out of work adults. Manager Lee Elia pointed that out in his famous rant (warning, not for the fainthearted). That was back when a couple dollars could get you into the ballpark on the day of the game no less. Kids paid even less.

In the sixties and early seventies, other teams, especially in the National League left their old parks in favor of spiffy new downtown digs built for them by their cities. P.K. was unfazed; for him, it was Wrigley Field that drew the fans, especially when the product on the field could not.

Things began to drastically change for the Cubs in 1978, one year after P.K. Wrigley's death, when WGN, the Chicago television station that broadcast the Cubs went national, and viewers all over the country could pick up Cub games on cable. The team now had fans coast to coast, drawn by the lovable losers who played in that strange, lovely old ivy-covered ballpark on the north side of Chicago.

Harry Caray as pitchman for a beer and
a new lifestyle on the north side of Chicago.

The Wrigley Era officially ended in 1981 when the family sold the Cubs to the Tribune Company, the parent company of both their eponymous newspaper and WGN, (the call letters standing for "World's Greatest Newspaper"). That year, the TV voice of the team for a generation or two, the avuncular Jack Brickhouse retired. Brickhouse's lullaby style of broadcasting, long a staple in Cubs nation, was replaced in the booth by his diametric opposite, Harry Caray. Caray's voice was Big Ben, compared to Brickhouse's dinner bell, a fog horn opposed to a finger snap. Caray was already well known across the States, and was a perfect fit for the team that was now nation-wide. While Brickhouse spent much of his on-air time reading his mail, often silently to himself, Caray was forever engaging his listeners, having fun with them and himself, and especially the team. An inveterate lover of life, as well as baseball, he called it like he saw it, unlike his predecessor who would never make a disparaging remark about the home team, much to the pleasure of his boss, P.K. Wrigley. Caray's demeanor filtered down to the fans in the stands who became a rambunctious, beer guzzling lot, just like Harry, and just like fans of the White Sox, Caray's previous employer. The copy in the ad at the right became more than a catchy advertising slogan. Every year, tickets became harder to come by and every year, the streets around the ballpark became packed with more revelers in a drunken stupor, before, during and after the games. Even though the team had some on-field success in the eighties with two playoff appearances, one in 1984, the other in 1989, the Tribune Company received the same rap as the Wrigley family, they just didn't seem to care about putting a good team on the field as long as they put fans in the stands, and reaped the huge revenue that was now available though TV broadcasting.

The Lakeview neighborhood where Wrigley Field resides, went from being a sleepy residential community, to Partytown, USA, Rush Street north, the bar-hopping area now known as "Wrigleyville." If Caray's joining the Cubs was a catalyst for the change, the coup de gras took place on the evening of August 8, 1988, when the last vestige of day-only baseball fell by the wayside; it was the evening the lights were finally turned on in the old ballpark.

Night baseball had been a long time coming, the neighbors who resisted it must have felt at least a little vindicated when after a few innings, the skies opened up and the first night game at Wrigley Field was rained out. If the baseball gods were displeased, it would be only for one evening. Night baseball became a reality in Wrigleyville.

Wrigley Field was not always held in the highest esteem in the baseball world. The term "Friendly Confines" that is used to describe the place, was coined by the most beloved Cub of all, Ernie Banks. He spent his entire career and the years since espousing the glories of his team and its ballpark. But even Mr. Cub was less than impressed the first time he set foot in the joint. On a recent local radio program, Banks admitted his first impression of Wrigley Field after coming to Chicago from the premier team of the old Negro Leagues, the Kansas City Monarchs, was less than spectacular. He compared the experience to the old Peggy Lee song: "Is That All There Is?" Clearly it grew on him over time as it does for most.

Because the Cubs went so long without playing home games after dark, that first night game was a milestone, an event that drew tremendous national attention to the ballpark. Beautiful as she is at daytime, the old girl is a sight to see as the waning rays of the sun bathe the scoreboard, the ivy, and the buildings to the east in golden light. As day fades into night, the effect is magical, an emerald gem in a sea of indigo sprinkled with flickering lights. I'd say the night they turned on the lights for the first time, Wrigley Field ceased being a dumpy old ballpark and became a national icon.

Four years later, Camden Yards opened in Baltimore. It would be the first of many so called "retro" ballparks, new ballparks built to look like old ballparks, that is, built specifically to look like Wrigley Field and Fenway Park. Today it would be inconceivable to build a major league ballpark that doesn't have eccentric dimensions like Fenway, and a spectacular view of the city, like Wrigley.

Photograph by Anthony Rodriguez

While the fan base and the atmosphere have been drastically altered, physically, Wrigley Field hasn't changed much since I was a kid. Other than the expanded bleacher section and a few discretely placed advertisements, the view of the ballpark above (made by my friend last week), if not the neighborhood behind it, looks exactly as it did fifty years ago. Some of that will change if the Ricketts Family, the owners of the Cubs renovate the ballpark. A huge electronic scoreboard will be built that would obscure view of the building with the blue roof beyond left field, and there will be more ads. From a purist's perspective, Wrigley Field is fine just as it is. But simply put, the ballpark was not built to last one hundred years. Just like the Wells Street Bridge that was recently rebuilt truss by truss, section by section, serious work needs to be done on the old lady at Clark and Addison. Things have gotten so bad, if you look up you can see nets retaining the concrete that supports the upper deck, preventing it from crumbling and falling on the heads of the people below.

Revenue generated from the new bells and whistles will help pay for the restoration. Not everyone mind you is in favor of the restoration, each has his or her own reason. Ironically, the folks who one would think, have the most to lose if the Cubs were to pull up stakes, seem to be the most vociferous in their objections. I've written in this space about the owners of the buildings across the street from the ballpark who object to the team's putting anything up that would block the free view of the field from their rooftop bleacher seats which they sell for a very steep price. It is they, and the alderman they have in their pocket who are at the moment the major roadblocks for the project to move forward.

My hunch is that by hook or by crook, the project will go ahead with or without everyone being on board. As we've seen in the past, the Mayor of Chicago generally gets what he wants in the end and this particular mayor, a Cubs fan, wants it to happen. The talk about building a stadium in the suburbs that would recreate the feeling one gets at Wrigley, is just plain silly. As you can see from Tony Rodriguez's photograph above, you would have to recreate the entire north side of Chicago and throw in the lake to boot to accomplish that. I laughed when I heard the proposal to put a new ballpark in Rosemont, a suburb near the airport, imagining the already ridiculous traffic conditions being exacerbated by the addition of 30,000 or so more cars  in the middle of rush hour carrying fans going to a weekday game with a 7PM start. Then there's the spectacular view of the airport, the Allstate Arena and the Target parking lot. It would make for a dazzling poster.

No, Chicago is not going to let go of the Cubs and probably not Wrigley Field either. The team and the ballpark are significant engines in this city's economy. In addition to the plans for the ballpark, there are additional plans to build a hotel and other amenities outside the park for visitors. It's a deal too good to pass up for the city, especially if it doesn't have to foot the bill, and here I'll say it again, that's something unheard of these days.

Not only is the Ricketts family willing to put their money where their mouth is to keep Wrigley Field around for another 50 or 100 years, they seem equally committed to the success of the team. They have hired a proven management team that finally gets the idea of the importance of developing a farm system, and recognizes the fact that building a winning team does not happen overnight. In my mind, it's a pretty good time to be a Cubs fan, sometimes in fact, I wish I were one, (I am an avowed Cubs liker).

Everyone who like me appreciates the tradition of the Cubs in Wrigley Field has one man to thank for the likelihood of several more years of that tradition. Had old Phil Wrigley not followed the beat of his own drummer back in the thirties, Wrigley Field would not have its most distinctive features, the ivy, the bleachers and the scoreboard. Had he followed the crowd back in the forties and fifties by not taking advantage of the new medium of television and forging the relationship with WGN, the team may never have reaped the benefits of national exposure years later. Had he put lights in the park, there would not have been the transformation (with truly beautiful light standards by the way), and the celebration that went along with it in 1988. Had P.K. Wrigley been in lockstep with his peers in the sixties and seventies, he would have threatened to leave town unless the city built him a new multi-purpose, astroturf clad "cookie cutter" stadium downtown. Of course it's possible that stadium might have had at least a few World Series flags flying in the outfield, but that is merely conjecture.

Yes it's a good time to be a Cubs fan because despite their current record, the organization seems hellbent on having a championship caliber team in a few years. And they seem to be equally committed to keeping the team in Wrigley Field by bringing the park up to current safety standards while throwing in some bells and whistles that please the fans and bring in revenue to pay for it all.

In other words, almost everybody wins. For those of us, yes I'm including myself, who say nothing should change, that Wrigley Field is a historic landmark and it should remain just as it was back when we were kids, please remember this: two dollar admission, ladies days, no ads in the park, day only baseball, and many other perks we took for granted in the good old days, simply are not sustainable today. For those of us who long for the way things used to be, I have three simple words:

The Rosemont Cubs.

The Cubs, and how they got that way...

The Chicago Cubs won the World Series last week, cause for much joy and celebration around this town. Keys to the city have been cut and handed out to the owners of the Cubs, the Ricketts Family, the architect of the championship team, Theo Epstein, the general manager, Jed Hoyer, the field manager, Joe Maddon, and naturally the players who performed magnificently winning 103 games in the regular season before making a thrilling run through the playoffs.

First they disposed of the San Francisco Giants and their string of biennial World Series victories. The next victims were the LA Dodgers and their Cy Young award winning pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, Finally the Cubs faced the Cleveland Indians whose own decimated pitching staff sent chills through the hearts and minds of opposing batters in their own magnificent run through the playoffs. That includes the batters for the Cubs who in their three losses to Cleveland in the World Series, scored a total of one run.

Ultimately, choosing the best team in baseball for 2016 came down to the winner take all game seven of the World Series, a magical phrase for anyone who knows anything about the game of baseball. This game seven to many was an instant classic, a rain delayed extra inning affair filled with so much drama, it left most viewers, including this one, completely spent by game's end, some four and one half hours after the first pitch.

It was a truly great run for the Cubs and better still, it is very likely that the core of this team will be around for a while, helping the team continue to be a serious contender for the game's ultimate prize for years to come. Credit for that certainly has to go to Epstein who recognized when he was hired five years ago, that in order for the Cubs to get anywhere, they'd have to start from scratch at the organizational level. The key element in Epstein's plan was to develop talented young players in the team's minor league affiliates, farm system if you prefer.

The story goes that team president, Tom Ricketts asked Theo Epstein what he needed to make the Cubs a contender. Epstein told him flat out that he'd need five years. That meant for the five years it would take for his young players to bear fruit down on the farm, the team the Cubs would be forced to put on the field would be terrible. 

It takes time and resources to develop players. In order to free up resources, Epstein traded away all the high salaried players on his major league roster. Ah but weren't those his best ballplayers you night ask? Why yes they were. But there would be little point in Epstein's mind to pay star players at the peak of their careers, star salaries to play for a team that had no chance of going anywhere. Now it would be convenient if a baseball team could hang out a sign saying "closed for repairs" for the amount of time it took to harvest this new crop of players. But fans as well as the league expect a franchise to field a team every year.

It was a huge gamble for Ricketts and his organization. Most fans don't like to pay major league prices for parking, tickets, and concessions, if the talent on the field is not of major league caliber. Likewise, TV networks and more importantly their sponsors who pay their bills, are loath to broadcast games played by lousy teams. Simply put, most teams are not in the economic position to take the risk of losing five years worth of competitiveness, and the revenue that goes along with it.

But the Cubs are not like most teams. I've been saying for years they could put chimpanzees in Cub uniforms and the team would still sell out Wrigley Field. In the year 2005, the other Chicago baseball team, the White Sox, won 99 games, two playoff series and swept the Houston Artros to win the World Series. That same year the Cubs had a mediocre season, finishing four games under .500 which was good enough for fourth place out of the six teams in their division. Yet they still outdrew the Sox that year by over 750,000 fans.

With than in mind, it turned out not only was Ricketts on board with what Epstein proposed, but so were many of the fans who were hungry for the first Cubs championship in a very long time. After all, what's five years when you, your Cub fan parents, grandparents, and great grandparents had been waiting over a century for a World Series title?

Epstein signed with the Cubs on October 12, 2011. During his first season at the helm of the organization, he kept the first part of the bargain; the 2012 Cubs lost 101 games, ten more than the previous year, the third worst performance in the team's very long history. For the first time in eight years, attendance at Wrigley Field dropped below three million, but just barely. In fact Wrigley Field attendance in 2012 was still 300,000 better than the league average. The following year, 2013, the Cubs won five more games, but dropped to last place. Attendance dropped too, by about 200,000, but still higher than league average. The 2014 Cubs won seven more games and attendance picked up slightly as well.

Then came the magical 2015 season where everything fell into place. By December, 2014, Cubs fans in the know suspected something was up as for the first time since the new sheriff came to town, the team dug deep into their pockets and went after an upper echelon, free agent pitcher, Jon Lester. They also hired Joe Maddon, the brilliant if slightly idiosyncratic manager who became available in the off season.

Lester lost his opening day start against the Cardinals. A loss on April 10th to the Colorado Rockies put the team at 1-2 and you could already hear grumbles from the sports pundits and grumpy fans saying maybe this Epstein experiment was all smoke and mirrors. But that would be the last time all season when the Cubs record had more losses than wins, in fact they haven't been below .500 since. 

One downer that season was a July 25th no hitter pitched against them in Wrigley field by Cole Hamels of the Phillies. Pitching for the Cubs that day was Jake Arrieta. Arrieta, acquired through trade from Baltimore in 2013, wouldn't lose another game until October, tossing a no hitter of his own in Los Angeles on August 31st. Of the twelve games in the regular season he started after July 25th, nine ended up as shutouts. He finished the year with a phenomenal 1.77 ERA, in those twelve games alone, his ERA was an unspeakable 0.41. His performance was good enough to earn him a Cy Young award, all the more impressive given some very stiff competition.

Another pleasant surprise last year was the performance of the new crop of rookie players brought up from Theo Epsstein's farm system, Kris Bryant, Jorge Soler, Javier Baez, Addison Russell, and Kyle Schwarber. All but Soler, who most likely will end up as trade bait in this off-season, promise to comprise the heart and soul of the Cubs for the forseeable future.

Not much was expected from last year's Cubs but they finished with a 97-65 record. Normally a record like that would earn a team a division championship but in the tremendously competitive NL Central, it was only good enough for a third place finish and a wild card ticket into the playoffs. The Cubs and Arrieta shut out the Pirates in a one game playoff, then the Cubs beat their bitter rivals the Cardinals in a best of five divisonal series, sending them to their first NL championship series since 2003, against the much despised (in this town) New York Mets. The hugely anticipated series was a letdown as the Mets pitching staff, running on all eight cylinders, shut down the young Cubs batters and swept the series.

But something was curiously missing after that series. Hardly anyone talked about curses or goats or bad luck after the Cubs got swept by the Mets. Folks around town finally understood this wasn't a team built to win one championship, but many. For the first time perhaps ever on the north side of Chicago, the words "wait 'till next year" were not spoken in bitter irony.

And for the first time in 108 years, that much anticipated next year finally came.

I'm not sure if anyone fully expected the outpouring of emotion than accompanied the last out of the last game of this year's World Series. Grown men openly wept in front of TV cameras. Tears of joy flowed in my house as well. My Cub fan son fell in love with baseball nine years ago at Wrigley Field, where as fate would have it, during another rain delayed game, the Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians in extra innings. This past Wednesday night as Michael Martinez of the Indians grounded out to Kris Bryant of the Cubs for the last out of the magical 2016 season, my son, crying like a baby hugged me like he hadn't since he pitched his little league team to a championship three years ago.

Perhaps the most moving image of this week was that of the names of Cub fans who lived their whole lives without seeing their team win a championship, written onto the exterior walls of Wrigley Field by their loved ones. Throughout this entire run of the playoffs and World Series, the names of deceased members of the Cubs family have been invoked. At the top of the list were Ernie Banks and Ron Santo, two Hall of Fame players who never got a chance to play in a World Series. In addition to being great players, both men were instrumental in preaching the gospel of the Cubs wherever they went, long after their playing days were over. Also on the list was the broadcaster Harry Caray who presided over the mike during the era when the Cubs transformed themselves from a sleepy team with a loyal local following, to a nationally beloved institution, thanks to the media juggernaut of the WGN cable television network.

I would argue that all three legendary figures played a tremendous role in the phenomenal popularity of the Cubs, which made it possible for the Ricketts family and Theo Epstein to tear down the team and rebuild it from ground up, and ultimately pave the way for a very bright future.

But there is one name of the past which is hardly ever brought up in connection with the Cubs' success, in fact in more cases than not, it is the opposite. I've told you about him before, Phillip Knight Wrigley. Some would say that Wrigley, who owned the team from 1932 until his death in 1977, ran the team into the ground. PK Wrigley inherited the team from his father, the chewing gum magnate, William Wrigley. Despite the century plus drought of championships, the Cubs were one of the best teams in the major leagues in the twenties and thirties. World War II obviously changed the landscape of baseball and while the Cubs did manage to send one more team of mostly 4F players to the World Series in 1945, since that time they languished save for a few seasons as, in the words of the late Steve Goodman, "the doormat of the National League."

Was PK Wrigley responsible for those many years of wandering through the baseball desert?

In one word, yes.

Bill Veeck, who has appeared in this space many times, worked for PK Wrigley in the thirties. According to Veeck in his autobiography Veeck as in Wreck, the younger Wrigley was not, as many suggest, disinterested in the Cubs. According to Veeck, Wrigley was a brilliant tinkerer/inventor. a fiercely private man who prided himself on doing things his own way. As the guy at the helm of two big businesses, the gum company and the Cubs, the bottom line was very important to him. Even in the best of times in the thirties, the Cubs only made it to the World Series once every three years (like clockwork). Wrigley knew that he couldn't produce a winning team every year, as that was out of his control. But he could ensure that the fans who came to his ballpark would be comfortable and have a good time. So he put the lion's share of his efforts into making Wrigley Field as beautiful and as comfortable for the fans as possible. It was Wrigley who entrusted Veeck to build the iconic outfield bleachers complete with ivy and hand-operated scoreboard that we know and love today. Wrigley also banned advertisements inside his ballpark. In that vein, Wrigley was fastidious at keeping the park that bore his name welcoming to the fans in the stands, despite the quality of the team on the field.

As for the team, Wrigley was not as some people assume, unwilling to spend money on good players, rather he was seriously out of step with the rest of baseball in terms of the way teams were built. According to Veeck, Phil Wrigley was dead set in his opposition to the "farm system" where minor league teams are owned and at the mercy of their big league masters. Veeck, who shared that opinion by the way, said Wrigley believed minor league teams should be independent, free to run their teams as they saw fit, able to sell their players to the highest bidder, and should not have to serve as serfs beholden to parent teams who could bring players up and send them back down at will. One could argue that this egalitarian approach is admirable, but in the end it proved untenable as far as competing with the rest of the league, whose teams all to some extent, developed players on their own through their minor league affiliates.

One aspect where Wrigley was way ahead of the curve was his belief in broadcasting his team's games. Where most of his fellow owners saw broadcasting on radio and later TV as giving away their product, Wrigley understood the tremendous potential of the two media. When I was a kid, of the two Chicago teams, only the Cubs broadcast all of their games, home and away. As we saw a moment ago, that commitment to broadcasting their games, and their affiliation with the local station that went national, WGN, contributed greatly to the nationwide popularity of the team.

Then there were the lights. Early on in the thirties, Wrigley tinkered with retractable light standards that would disappear out of sight when the lights weren't needed. That experiment failed and Wrigley became disinterested in the idea when he realized he wouldn't be the first owner to install lights in his ballpark. Another attempt to install lights came in 1941. At the end of that season, Wrigley approved the design and ordered all the equipment. But in December of that year, the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor and Wrigley decided to contribute the hardware to the war effort.

The truth is that Wrigley thought lights were ugly and detracted from the beauty of his ballpark. As everyone knows, the Cubs were the last team in the major leagues to play all their games exclusively during the day. It is not unreasonable to assume that put the team at a disadvantage because they had to adjust to playing night games on the road and day games at home.

Another common practice among MLB clubs that Wrigley refused to partake in was buying up the property surrounding his ballpark and covert it to parking lots. To this day, Wrigley Field remains in the middle of a residential neighborhood and consequently a nightmare for anyone trying to get there by car.

So five factors, the attention to Wrigley Field over the needs of the team, the lack of advertising and parking to bring in extra revenue, the refusal to accept the "farm system", and the lack of lights in the ballpark, contributed in no small way to the Cubs' inability to produce a championship team since World War II. There are probably many more.

OK now consider this, what if the Cubs had been owned by a more conventional owner, say someone like Walter O'Malley who owned the Dodgers? From 1945 until 1957, Dodgers attendance at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn never dipped below one million, although it did decline through the fifties, as it did in all major league ballparks. In that same period, the Cubs' attendance which peaked at 1.3 million in 1946, declined rapidly during the fifties, dropping to 670,000 in 1957. Wrigley Field would not see one million fans pass through its turnstiles again until 1968.

O'Malley, who saw his aging ballpark with hardly any parking in a declining neighborhood as a detriment to business, made overtures to the City of New York to help him build a state of the art facility that included a retractable dome, near Downtown Brooklyn.

That deal never went through (a story for another day), so after three years of negotiations and 73 years in Brooklyn, the Dodgers packed their bags and moved to the west coast. O'Malley convinced Horace Stoneham, the owner of the New York Giants, to join him. With the departure of two of the three New York City teams, only one city would remain (for a while anyway) with two MLB teams, Chicago.

Phil Wrigley was in the same situation in Chicago that O'Malley was in Brooklyn, in fact, it was probably much worse. His ballpark was nearing the end of its life expectancy in a decaying neighborhood (hard to believe that today but it's true), with extremely limited parking. Unlike the Dodgers who were experiencing their greatest success on the field, including a World Series victory in 1955, the 1950s was far and away the worst decade ever for the Cubs. But Wrigley, who had other ties to this city stuck with it. Here's an excerpt from Veeck as in Wreck on Wrigley Field:

We sold "Beautiful Wrigley Field." ... The announcers were instructed to use the phrase "Beautiful Wrigley Field" as often as possible. We sold it so well that when I came back to Chicago in 1959 as president of the White Sox, across town, I found "Beautiful Wrigley Field" my single greatest obstacle. Because "Beautiful Wrigley Field" tacitly implied "that run-down crummy joint on the South Side."

The truth is that Wrigley Field was no more beautiful than Ebbets Field, Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, or for that matter, Comiskey Park on the south side of Chicago, it was just sold as that. According to Veeck:

By 1959, (Phil) Wrigley was no longer keeping the park freshly painted. The neighborhood had deteriorated badly. None of that mattered. People came into Wrigley Field knowing they were comfortable. Just as people who had not been to Comiskey Park in years knew it was a crumbling ruin. 

But that crumbling ruin on the south side was still drawing nearly twice the number of people as Beautiful Wrigley Field in the fifties. Had the Cubs been owned by a more conventional owner, it's very likely that owner would have looked at the numbers and decided, as they did in St. Louis, Boston, Philadelphia and New York, that Chicago could no longer support more than one baseball team, and it was time to find greener pastures. If that had happened, Chicago could very well have become a one baseball team town as well, and the team that remained here most likely would have been the White Sox.

On the other hand, had the Cubs survived the tumultuous fifties and stayed in Chicago, a different owner would very likely have done way with their classic ballpark,  just as every other National League team did in the sixties. That almost happened here in Chicago, as a plan was introduced to build a multi-purpose stadium that would serve both the Cubs and the White Sox as well as the NFL Chicago Bears. The stadium was to have been built on the lakefront to replace Soldier Field and had the full support of Mayor Richard J. Daley and PK Wrigley. It was Art Allyn, the owner of the White Sox who put the kibosh on the plan, objecting to the fact that his team would lose a significant amount of revenue in concessions, parking and rent if it were to move into a publicly owned venue. Phil Wrigley could have stamped his feet and demanded the deal go through or he'd pack his bags, but he didn't.

As it worked out, the era of the multi-purpose, cookie cutter, astro-turf clad stadium passed Chicago by. Call it divine providence or just dumb luck, but we're the better for it as those stadiums proved to be not suitable for baseball or football, and they have all disappeared from the scene.

Wrigley Field remains.

Perhaps it was another bit of dumb luck that PK Wrigley refused to put lights in his ballpark. When he died, baseball was still played only in the sunshine at Wrigley Field. It would remain that way for another 11 years, until it became clear that Major League Baseball and the television networks that pay their bills, simply would not allow that situation to continue. After many years of legal wrangling, in 1988 they finally put up lights in Wrigley Field. The event gained worldwide attention. From that point on, the Cubs, their beautiful, old neighborhood ballpark, their reputation as "lovable losers", and their nationwide audience via WGN, have given them an audience and following unthinkable just a decade earlier.

And none of that would have been possible without the intransigence, the occasional brilliance, and some downright counterintuitive decisions of PK Wrigley.

Cubs fans like to claim their team is special. They are right. When they won game seven of the World Series last Wednesday, the whole world was watching, most of them cheering them on. Their future is bright, thanks to the Rickets Family and Theo Epstein.

#34 Jon Lester and some of his teammates aboard a bus during the parade and rally celebrating the Cubs World Series victory, Friday, November 4, 2016. 

Had someone else owned the Cubs between 1945 (when they won their last pennant) and 1977 when PK Wrigley died, the Cubs may have won a few championships. Heck they could even be as popular and successful today as the Philadelphia Phillies, the Pittsburgh Pirates, or the Cincinnati Reds, all of whom won multiple championships since World War II, but none lately. Of course somewhere along the line they might have become the Minnesota, the Kansas City or the San Diego Cubs.

So if you're a Cubs fan, the next time you're thanking your lucky stars for the likes of messers Maddon, Rizzo, Fowler, Arrieta, Lester, Bryant, Baez, Zobrist, Epstein, Santo, Banks, Caray, and the rest, please raise a glass to PK Wrigley.

Because without him, the Chicago Cubs might today be no different from ahem... the Chicago White Sox.

Happy Birthday Wrigley Field

The morning ride to work on the southbound Red Line becomes really interesting as our train approaches Lawrence Avenue in the heart of Uptown. The faded glory of the commercial district in the vicinity of that stop is most apparent in the enormous Uptown Theater, closed decades ago but still magnificent, awaiting a fate yet to be determined, hopefully in the form of a benefactor with a check in the eight figures. One bright light that shown in the neighborhood until a few years back, the Borders store that occupied the ornate Goldblatts department store building, closed when the company that owned the chain of bookstores went bankrupt in 2011. At this writing the retail space in that building is shuttered but there is still plenty of life in the district. The venerable Green Mill, a former speakeasy often frequented by Al Capone back in the day, is very much alive as an elegant jazz club. The old Aragon Ballroom to our left, and the Riviera Theater to the right, are still in operation as concert venues. Catty-corner to the Green Mill and the Uptown Theater is a beautiful twelve story neo-classical building, now the home of the Bridgeview Bank, which stands in contrast to its neighboring buildings in an area dominated by neo-baroque and renaissance architecture. The new anchor business in the neighborhood is a huge Target store that opened a few blocks south, just beyond the next stop on our commute, Wilson Avenue. Between the Target store and Lawrence Avenue on Broadway, the main business thoroughfare of the district, sit a wide variety of businesses, from discount clothing stores and wig shops to an urban bike store and trendy restaurants, all catering to the varied population of the neighborhood, a testimony to the diversity of a remarkable community.

And so it goes in big cities that are alive and well, people move in, people move out, neighborhoods change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Sometimes it's a tossup. One thing is certain in Uptown: the beautiful buildings, despite their current lack of activity remain standing, remind us of a glorious past, and the potential of a bright future.

One Chicago neighborhood guaranteed not to change for a very long time comes next on our brief tour of the north side. Two blocks south of Wilson Avenue, Graceland Cemetery is the city's best known burial ground, the final resting place for the city's famous and infamous movers and shakers. Like the rest of the city, the cemetery is segregated between the haves and the have-lesses. Graceland's "high rent" district surrounds a lagoon where you will find the magnificent tombs of the Palmers, the Ryersons, and many more of Chicago's prominent citizens of the past. Strolling through this remarkable place, especially on a guided tour or accompanied by a good guidebook, you will find one of the best history lessons on this city available anywhere.

Next we approach the Sheridan Station and here the train makes a short eastbound jog. Looking above the rooftops of the two-flats common to the area, this is when the rider catches the first view of the light standards of Wrigley Field, the exact moment in my morning commute when my heart skips a beat. Wrigley Field was built during the era of the "classic ballparks"; a period of less than a decade when all of the temporary, wooden big league ballparks that were prone to fire and other calamities, were replaced by permanent structures built of steel, brick, and concrete. When Wrigley was built exactly 100 years ago, it was like every other big league ballpark at the time, stuck smack dab in the middle of a city neighborhood upon whatever land was available for purchase by the owners of the team.

In 1914, the year Wrigley Field opened, fans got to the game either on foot, by streetcar, or elevated railway. Nobody thought of parking spaces as land was at too much of a premium to be devoted for the relatively few lucky souls to who owned their own vehicle. That would all change in a few years. By the early twenties as sales of automobiles were measured in the millions for the first time, baseball owners had to take notice. When the Yankees were forced out of the Polo Grounds which they shared with their landlords the New York Giants, they found an available site for their new ballpark about a half mile away, across the Harlem River in the Bronx. That site of a former lumber yard was large enough to accommodate not only a huge ballpark, but also parking for about 1,000 vehicles, still small potatoes considering the stadium could hold nearly 60,000 people.

The original Yankee Stadium, opened in 1923, could be classified as either the last of the classic ballparks, or the paradigm of the modern ballpark. In addition to the parking, it was the first baseball venue to bear the name "stadium." The original plan was to completely enclose the ballpark, much like the Roman Colisseum. Built as such, it could have accommodated about 100,000 fans. However those plans never materialized, the triple deck grandstand seats never made it much beyond the foul poles, leaving most of the fair territory beyond the fences open, giving the fans a view of the world outside, much like Wrigley Field.

The era of the modern ballpark began in earnest with the building of Municipal Stadium in Cleveland in the thirties. With few exceptions, no longer would private capital alone build ballparks. Cleveland's massive ballpark on the shores of Lake Erie was the first stadium to be built by its city to host not only baseball, but other large public events including football. Despite that, no one would ever mistake Municipal Stadium as anything other than a baseball park. Cleveland set the standard for major league ballparks for the next thirty years, that is to say, large, publicly funded multi-purpose sports venues surrounded by highways and parking lots. County Stadium in Milwaukee, Shea Stadium in New York, and Candlestick Park in San Francisco all followed its example. The general consensus among baseball fans was that with the exception of County Stadium, the "modern" ballparks lacked the intimacy of the classic ballparks.

Things were about to get much worse. By the 1960s, professional football rivaled baseball as the nation's most popular spectator sport. The classic ballparks at 50 years of age, were nearing the end of their life expectancy. Most were in bad shape and located in neighborhoods that many fans felt were dangerous. In the sixties, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington all replaced their Wrigley Field era ballparks with Astro-turf clad, multi-purpose stadiums that served baseball and football equally poorly.

With the exception of two highly regarded baseball-only parks, Dodger Stadium, built in the sixties, and Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City from the seventies, the mid-twentieth century was the era of the "cookie-cutter stadium", completely enclosed (Colisseum style) venues that were virtually indistinguishable from one another. At least a dozen major league teams played in them at one time or other. As it turned out, few of these buildings were still standing much beyond their thirtieth birthday.

In the nineties, a new revenue source was discovered for sporting events, the luxury skybox. This new innovation set into motion the largest boom in construction of new ballparks since the era of the classic ballpark. The skybox era brought back parks built exclusively for baseball that would be distinctive and intimate. The new ballparks used as their inspiration the ballparks of old, but ironically their construction spelled the doom of the last of the classic ballparks, that is with the exception of Fenway Park in Boston and of course, Wrigley Field.

There are many reasons why those two ballparks alone lived to celebrate their respective centennials, (Fenway opened in 1912). In Wrigley's case, its longevity can be traced directly to Phillip K. Wrigley, owner of the Cubs from his father's death in 1932, until his own demise in 1977. In a previous post I listed why those of us who love the place have old PK to thank. Conversely, those who want to see the place blown to bits, and there are many of them, have him to blame. In a nutshell, PK Wrigley knew he couldn't always have a good team to draw fans, but he could always make sure his ballpark was a place worth coming to. Much of the effort that should have gone into building up the team some people argue, went into building up and promoting the ballpark instead. Consequently, Cubs fans who blame Wrigley Field on their team's lack of success, (the Cubs haven't won a World Series since they played there), may actually have a point.

Passersby paying homage to the ancient cathedral of baseball

Some call it a baseball cathedral, others call it a dump; both opinions are correct. There's no getting around the fact that Wrigley Field needs a lot of work if its going to be around much longer. Simply put, the building has been around at least fifty years longer than it was originally intended. Its structural integrity is suspect, the training facilities for today's pampered athletes are woefully inadequate, many (not me) believe that the facilities for the fans are also lacking. There are those who wonder why the Cubs just don't build a new ballpark. They site Wrigley's lack of parking, its bad food, the lack of bells and whistles found at new ballparks, uncomfortable seats, unattractive restrooms, the list goes on and on. Several Chicago suburbs have offered sweet deals for the team to move their operations away from Chicago.

Through it all, the Ricketts family who owns the Cubs, remain adamant about keeping their team in WrigleyField despite the fact that they have been getting the runaround with their plans for the renovation of the ballpark from the neighborhood, namely the owners of the rooftop bleachers on the tops of buildings across the street on Waveland and Sheffield Avenues, and the alderman who is in their pocket, a chap by the name of Tom Tunney. I've gone into these issues elsewhere, so I won't bother you with them here.

Some wonder why the family, annoyed by the obstructionism they face, don't just throw up their hands and move to Shaumburg, Rosemont, or a number of other suburbs more than willing to cut them significant tax breaks and other perks to entice the team to pull up stakes and move out to the hinterlands. Could it be a sense of nostalgia that prevents them from building a new state-of-the-art facility?

I hardly think so. The Family Ricketts didn't get to be among the Fortune 400 because of their sentimentality. Tom Ricketts and his family no doubt understand the connection between the financial success of the Cubs, and Wrigley Field. There are people who come to Chicago and who go to Cubs games just to see Wrigley Field. Millions of people around the country became Cubs fans as a result of the local TV station that broadcast their games going national. Now what on earth could be the attraction to the Cubs when people around the country have the option of watching just about any other team? It's certainly unlikely that it is the scintillating baseball played by the men in blue. It could be argued that "The Friendly Confines" is more responsible for the value of the organization, than the team that plays in it. That may be a bitter pill to swallow for many Cub fans who would gladly trade the ballpark for a World Series Championship, but I have no doubt that it is true.

If you don't believe me, consider the case of Chicago's other big league ballpark, US Cellular Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox.

The "Cell" is everything that critics of Wrigley Field want in a ballpark. All the bells and whistles are there, instant replay and stats on the Jumbotron scoreboard, easy in and out access, comfortable seats, a huge selection of good food and drink, an endless array of distractions for those who don't find a baseball game enough of an attraction. The Cell has cleaner, if less efficient bathrooms, I've also gone into that before, you can look it up. And you would be hard pressed to find a sports venue in the United States that is more accessible. Located adjacent to a major Interstate highway, US Cellular Field sits in the middle of acres of parking lots. But not everyone drives to the Cell. In addition to city bus lines, the ballpark is served by two elevated lines, and now is also served by a commuter rail line. While the Cell is the same distance from the Loop as Wrigley Field, the commute from Downtown Chicago is half the time as there are fewer stops in between.

Despite their ballpark being more convenient and comfortable in every aspect, the White Sox draw fewer fans to their home games than do the Cubs, by a longshot.  The introduction to this interactive map proving what we already know, that there are more Cubs fans than Sox fans, says this: "Helped by the charm of their field and by WGN’s national broadcast reach, the Cubs have always been the better-loved of Chicago’s two teams." The first part of that statement is certainly true, but historically, the Cubs have not always been Chicago's better-loved team. As you might expect in a normal world, relative success at the gate is usually reflected by success on the field. For example, in the period between 1951 and 1965 when the Sox were a very good team often contending for the pennant which they actually won in 1959, the team drew well over one million fans every year with the exception of one (1958). In that same period when the Cubs were perpetual doormats, they drew over one million only once (1952). The direct relationship between the two teams' relative success and the number of people in the seats remained fairly predictable until the eighties when several things changed in the Cubs' favor:

•  In 1981, the popular broadcaster Harry Caray jumped from the White Sox to the Cubs. 
• While the Sox decided to televise most of their games on pay TV, the Cubs, besides going national, continued locally to broadcast all their games for free.
•  In 1984 the perennial losers the Cubs made their first appearance in post-season baseball since 1945. In that year the Cubs drew over two million for the first time in their history. 
• And of course in 1988 the first night game was played in Wrigley Field. 

During that time, the neighborhood surrounding Wrigley Field, once a sleepy residential/industrial neighborhood, later edgy and gang ridden, became the Wrigleyville we know today with its frat-like atmosphere helped along by the dozens of bars steps away from the ballpark. When I was a kid in the sixties and seventies, you could walk up to Wrigley Field, buy a ticket for that day, and have your pick of seats anywhere in the stands. Since the eighties, despite the quality of the team at the time, Wrigley Field is almost always a full house.

By contrast "Cell City" (a term I just invented to describe the immediate vicinity of US Cellular Field), is a sea of parking lots, bisected by an expressway and railroad tracks. You can still go there on game day and buy a row of seats just about anywhere in the park. In a series played yesterday and today against Detroit, it was obvious from the crowd's reaction that there were more Tiger fans in the stands than Sox fans.

While die-hard Cubs and Sox fans would disagree, there is nothing inherently different between the two that would merit one team more worthy than the other of our attention. Contrary to conventional wisdom, both teams have had in their histories some taste of success. The Cubs in fact, (back when they were known as the White Stockings among other things) were a bona fide dynasty. That was in the nineteenth century. Some consider the 1906 Cubs one of the greatest baseball teams of all time, but they lost the World Series that year to the White Sox. The Cubs (who at the time played on the west side),  won the Fall Classic the following two years, the first team to win consecutive World Series. From 1929 until 1945, the Cubs were perpetual contenders appearing in five World Series, losing them all.  As for the White Sox, until eight members of the team helped throw the World Series in 1919, the team flirted with becoming a dynasty. Those eight players including the great Joe Jackson, were banned from baseball for life and the team would not appear in another World Series until 1959 when they lost to the Dodgers. US Cellular Field does have one distinction that Wrigley Field does not: it was the home of a World Series champion. That happened in 2005. In that championship year, the White Sox drew 2,342,834 fans to their home games while the fourth place Cubs drew 3,099,992.

So what gives? Could it be that the parks and their settings have something to do with it? Consider this, while it may or may not exactly be your cup of tea, Wrigleyville is a vital community where there are lots of things to do while Cell City is a place to get into your car or train after the game and go someplace else.

That wasn't always the case. On the north side of 35th Street, old Comiskey Park, the Cell's predecessor, was once like Wrigley, in the middle of a neighborhood. Unlike PK Wrigley, the owners of the White Sox bought up much of the property around the ballpark and converted the land to parking. In the mid-fifties, the construction of the Dan Ryan Expressway decimated the community and created a formidable boundary between the park and all points east. Still there was a small strip of businesses on the south side of 35th Street across the park which included the legendary McCuddy's, the bar where Babe Ruth would allegedly sneak into between innings for a quick hot dog and beer. When the owners of the Sox built the Cell on the block where McCuddy's stood, they promised the owners that a site would be provided where they could re-build. Unfortunately they reneged on the deal and McCuddy's, like the rest of the neighborhood surrounding the park is no more.

As you may have guessed by now, this post is as much about cities and their design as it is about baseball and ballparks. On numerous occasions I have sited the urbanologist Jane Jacobs whose book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, went against the grain of its time, arguing that cities as they had been realized for centuries: complicated, idiosyncratic and chaotic as they were, functioned better than the new cities rationally designed around the separation of functions and the dominance of the automobile. Jacobs contended that the new theories on urban planning at the time, however well-intentioned, created dull, lifeless neighborhoods. Her views were discounted at a time when people were leaving American cities in droves for the suburbs. City planners countered that trend by creating cities that resembled suburbs.

Guess what? Fifty years later, we now realize that Jacobs was right after all, suburbs built around the automobile are indeed dull and the cities that were inspired by them are dull as well. People are moving back to traditional cities as this article claims and the suburbs, at least the ones that were designed around the automobile rather than around people, are in trouble. Could it be a coincidence that so many suburban mayors are offering the Rickettses all those concessions? I don't think so.

The story of ballpark construction throughout the twentieth century parallels the history of urban planning. Like most cities, baseball has a long history; by nature the game is complicated, unpredictable and idiosyncratic. The cookie cutter stadiums of the sixties and the seventies turned their backs on the glorious histories written in their respective cities. They were built rationally for comfort, practicality and convenience, everything that baseball isn't. That in my opinion is why they failed.

Wrigley Field by contrast has 100 years of history within its ivy-coved walls. Where else can you go to a ballpark where baseball immortals Honus Wagner patrolled the infield and Christy Mathewson once pitched? One of the most famous legends of the game took place there when Babe Ruth allegedly "called" a home run in the 1932 World Series. You can read about it here. Then there was the 1938 pennant race which culminated in perhaps the most famous single event in Chicago baseball history, Gabby Hartnett's "Homer in the Gloamin'". This year much of that history can be found in the form of murals painted on the wall of the Waveland Avenue side of the ballpark.

But there is so much more to Wrigley Field. In my mind there is simply no better place to watch a ballgame. There is no bad seat in the house. The "unobstructed views" that newer ballparks claim come at the price of being close to the game. While foul pop ups often clear the roof behind home plate at Wrigley Field, some seats at the Cell are so high that you are still looking down at even the highest popup. Unencumbered by the distractions of blaring music and incessant ads over the loudspeakers found at other ballparks, Wrigley Field is a baseball purist's dream. The future of that welcome attraction is in doubt with the proposed addition of a Jumbotron scoreboard in left field. I'm not at all happy about that, however it's a concession I'm willing to except in return for keeping the ballpark otherwise intact.

Perhaps the best part of Wrigley Field is the connection it has with its neighborhood. Whether is was a stroke of genius or merely dumb luck, I'm convinced that PK Wrigley's reticence to build parking has contributed greatly to the success of both the park and the neighborhood. No matter how you get to the ballpark, you are forced to walk through the neighborhood. Of course there are the dozens of bars to explore, but if that's not your bag and you are patient enough to brave through the obligatory gauntlet of drunken post-game louts, you'll find fascinating neighborhoods in every direction, including one of the most charming and beautiful blocks in Chicago, Alta Vista Terrace, just a few blocks north of the ballpark. Wrigley Field is woven seamlessly into its neighborhood, were it not for the light standards, themselves a beautiful work of design, you wouldn't even notice the ballpark until you were right on top of it. That neighborhood is constantly alive, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

By contrast, US Cellular Field resembles a far off castle set off from the rest of city by means of the parking lots, expressway, and massive railroad viaducts. There are indeed interesting neighborhoods to be discovered beyond those formidable barriers, but alas there is little enticement to do so and few take the opportunity. With the exception of 81 regularly scheduled game days per year, there is no life in Cell City, just acre upon acre of concrete, and an empty stadium.

A local radio host in expressing his opinion that the Cubs should move out to the suburbs, unwittingly added fodder to my argument on the day of the 100th anniversary of  Wrigley Field by saying: "This is the 21st Century, we deserve a 21st Century stadium." The irony of his comment is that the idea of tearing down a beloved landmark in the city and relocating to the suburbs is a very 1960s concept. The last time I checked, 1960 was 54 years ago.

The 21st Century concept is that cities are made vibrant through dynamic change along with holding on to the best of the past. History in a great city exists seamlessly with the present and the future. Once you lose a treasure like Wrigley Field, it's gone forever; try as they may, none of the new "retro" ballparks could ever come close to replicating the look, the feel, and the spirit of the old ballpark.

Tear it down and rebuild is a concept whose time came and went.
Build it in the suburbs and they may come, for a while at least, then they'll move on to something else. Wrigley Field as we have seen, has staying power, I wouldn't be surprised if it were around for another hundred years.

My words to the radio guy would be this:

Get with the times dude.

Scapegoats

We fans of professional sports are an odd lot indeed, spending our hard earned time, money, and emotional energy on a team made up of multi-millionaires who are loyal to whomever signs their paycheck and not necessarily to their team, its traditions, or the city the team represents. At least at the collegiate or high school levels there is some real connection and commitment between a school, its players and fans.

There are a few distinct categories of sports fans. There's the fan who's never satisfied. Last night the Bears played a splendid game against the Miami Dolphins, winning 16-0, dominating the game on both sides of the ball as they say in football parlance. But listening to some of the calls coming in on the post-game radio show, you'd think the score had been the other way around. The Bears settled for field goals when they should have gotten into the end zone, our quarterback threw a terrible interception (granted he did do that), and even though the defense "pitched" a shutout, it wasn't all that impressive since Miami's quarterback was a third stringer with little experience. And on it went.

Then there is the fan whose team can do no wrong. I have a friend who told me once in a mildly drunken stupor: "in life there's only one thing I believe in, and that's the Chicago Bears." This is the kind of fan for whom there are only two possible outcomes to a game, either his team wins, or the game was stolen from them.

Finally, there are Cubs fans. There's not much to say about the Cubs and their fans that hasn't been said before. Simply put, they are the fans of a team who has not won a championship in over 100 years. The Cubs have not even appeared in a World Series since, well as the late Steve Goodman once sang: "since we dropped the bomb on Japan."

Yet they cluster to the old ballpark on the north side like moths to a flame every spring when hope springs eternal, only to have their hopes dashed, usually by mid-July. But they keep coming until the bitter end in early fall, just before the ivy on the outfield walls changes color.

On those rare occasions when they are still playing ball at Wrigley Field after the ivy has turned a lovely shade of rust, Cubs fans are dealt the cruelest blow of all. That's when the eternal hope that turned into cautious anticipation in July, which later blossomed into passionate frenzy by September, has been crushed to a pulp in October, when the Cubs find yet another creative way to lose.

Odds alone would say that with all those years and opportunities, the Cubs somehow would have managed to stumble into the World Series. But it has not been meant to be. Surely it must be destiny or some other outside force that is preventing the men in blue from success.

Which is why Cubs fans turn to that old reliable comfort in times of trouble, the scapegoat. The Cubs fans' most enduring scapegoat has in fact been a real goat. It seems that during the 1945 World Series, a local barkeep was banned from the ballpark along with his "lucky" goat. So incensed was he that he placed a curse on the Cubs who didn't win then and they haven't won since. The barkeep's ancestor, Sam Sianis, current proprietor of the subterranean institution known as the Billy Goat Tavern has tried in vain for years to remove the curse but so far, no luck. The "curse of the billy goat" endures to this day.

A couple of winning seasons were laid to rest late in the year and the scapegoats were individual players for their less than sterling play in the field. In 1969 it was outfielder Don Young, and in 1984 it was the normally reliable Leon Durham, doing exactly what Bill Buckner so famously did a few years later in the World Series for the Red Sox, namely letting a routine ground ball trickle between his legs. Of course as the old adage goes, "you win as a team and lose as a team" and those players' gaffs were only the most memorable of many that led to the Cubs' demise in those years.

By far the most unjust scapegoat of all was a twenty-something, lifelong Cub fan who attended a fateful playoff game in 2003. That year the Cubs seemed finally destined for the World Series. They swept the Braves in the first round of the playoffs, then in the League Championship Series, came home to Chicago with a 3 games to 2 lead on the Florida Marlins, their two best pitchers, at the time two of the most dominant pitchers in the majors scheduled to pitch games 6 and 7. With one out in the top of the eighth, the Cubs were coasting with a 3-0 lead in the game, and five outs away from the pennant. Louis Castillo of the Marlins hit a foul pop-up. It was headed for the stands with Cubs left fielder Mioses Alou in pursuit. When he got to the wall, Alou jumped, reached into the stands but couldn't come up with the ball. It would have been just another out of play foul ball except Alou and pitcher Mark Prior made an impassioned plea to the umpires that fans interfered with the ball. The umps immediately dismissed Alou's plea as they should have.

After a ridiculously long to do about the play, the Cubs, especially Prior lost their composure and gave up 8 runs that inning which cost them the game.

During all this, the TV announcers took it upon themselves to determine what kind of "ignoramus" could possibly interfere with such an important play for the home team. Replay and slow motion technology determined which of the many hands going for the ball actually made contact deflecting it away from Alou's glove.

Then with the most abhorrent misuse of their power as broadcasters, for all the world to see, the camera zoomed in on a young man wearing a Cubs hat and headphones, all by himself, sitting sheepishly in his seat. The announcers proclaimed: "That's the guy."

The rest is history. The Cubs went on to lose game seven and the series the following evening. The young man received death threats, was blamed for the Cubs losing the game and the series, and forever more his name will be affixed to that season of Cub fan misery.

Over the last couple of weeks, there's been a new scapegoat in town held responsible for the Cubs' losing ways. It's none other than the Friendly Confines itself, the home of the Cubs since 1914, beautiful Wrigley Field. The new chant around town is: "given the choice between keeping Wrigley Field and a championship for the Cubs. I'd take the championship hands down." Now I'm not sure if this is a hypothetical choice between two unrelated events, like saying "given the choice between me winning the lottery and having peace on earth..." or if there is a real cause and effect relationship, saying that Wrigley Field is somehow preventing the Cubs from success on the field. Some say the facilities are too old, the weight rooms and training areas for the players are decrepit, the locker rooms are uncomfortable and the food is no good.

What is absolutely indisputable is the fact that the Cubs are a tremendously successful franchise at the box office, and the main engine behind that success is none other than Wrigley Field. The team markets the "Wrigley experience" and what an experience it is. It is one of only two places in the world, the other being Fenway Park in Boston, where you can see a major league baseball game in a classic park that has seen nearly 100 years of baseball history. At these ballparks it's all about the game, you are not inundated with the distractions of incessant nonsense on a Jumbotron scoreboard and blasting music over the PA system. Of course ballclubs like all that stuff because it brings in advertising revenue. So does plastering up ads in every available nook and cranny of the park. Somehow much of that has been avoided at Wrigley.

Then there's the shear beauty of the place, I won't go into it here because I've written about it before in this space.

In this article, Steve Chapman of the Tribune points out all reasons he thinks Wrigley Field should be torn down. The article is filled with such nonsense that frankly I'm not sure if it's intended to be serious or just tongue-in cheek. Assuming the former, I'll say that I think he's dead wrong about virtually everything he says in the piece:

Blessed with one of the biggest markets in America, and fans who turn out win or lose, they (the Cubs) are not about to pick up and move to Nashville.

One of the biggest markets, absolutely true.

Why, because of the quality of baseball?

Hardly.

Could it be Wrigley Field?

I'd be willing to bet my firstborn.

No they're not going to Nashville because Wrigley Field is in Chicago.

A new park would rid the Cubs of their maintenance headaches, while providing them better ways to relieve fans of cash — lots of luxury boxes, better dining, new shops and diversions.

There are already significant methods in place at Wrigley Field to relieve fans of their cash, seven dollars for a crappy beer is just a start. And what's better, to have 40,000 people at the park, sitting in the stands, or have 15,000 in the park, half of them in the skyboxes the other half in shops and other diversions?

It would allow the team to hire better players and pamper them in style.

How would it allow the team to hire better players? Do good players NOT come here because of Wrigley Field? I don't think so. The Cubs have one of the top payrolls in the major leagues. Clearly money is not an issue. And what the heck constitutes "pampering" more than paying a single player millions of dollars per year to play baseball? I just don't get it.

The architect could lovingly re-create the treasured features of the existing stadium, while omitting the shortcomings...

Yes like the architects of new baseball parks all over the country are imitating the treasured features of Wrigley Field. We have the real thing here, why replace it?

... the cramped concourses, primitive restrooms, modest kitchen facilities and obstructed views.

• Far be it for me to judge but don't most people go to a ballgame to see the game? Yes I know many like the diversions of stores, places to eat, sideshows, etc. But it's the game, the field and the stands that count isn't it? Or could the 40,000 people who show up to every game at Wrigley Field be wrong?
• Giving up the columns that create the obstructed views means you have to build high and far from the field. It's a tradeoff, go to the nosebleed seats at the Cell if you don't believe me.
• I could write a book on the superiority of the in and out efficiency of the "primitive" troughs found in the johns at Wrigley vs. the modern individual urinals found everywhere else, but I won't. You're welcome.
• I can't comment on the women's rooms at Wrigley Field since I haven't been there, sorry ladies. But let's face it, no one is ever satisfied with women's rooms in any large public venue.

If you own a building that is falling apart, you should either sell it, spend the money to fix it up or admit it's not worth saving — not ask your neighbors to pick up the tab.

With this I agree. Some of the on-line comments to this article questioned the the logic of someone buying a team then not being able to afford maintenance of the stadium. I don't believe that the Ricketts family is being straight with us on this one, and if they are, then they had no business buying the team in the first place.

To even think of replacing the nostalgia-drenched ballpark is heresy to diehard Cubs fans. But Yankee Stadium was even richer in history and tradition — winning tradition, by the way — when the Yankees abandoned it in 2008.

Yes they tore down old Yankee Stadium and there was tremendous opposition to it. One big difference is that the "House that Ruth Built" was remodeled beyond recognition in the seventies. In the end it bore no resemblance to the old ballpark.

They built New Yankee Stadium next door to the old one and made it to resemble the Yankee Stadium of old. Building a new park for the Cubs in Wrigleyville is inconceivable as space there is at a premium. There is no parking lot to build on top of. In fact it's hard to conceive a site, on the north side at least where they could build. One possibility is the former site of US Steel in South Chicago. plenty of land, lots of room for parking, heck they could even build apartment buildings with roof top decks down there to recreate the atmosphere of Wrigley Field. Then Chicago would have two teams, the South Siders being the White Sox, and the really far South Siders, the Cubs. Unlikely to appeal to your average brie and chablis north side Cub fan.

Well there are always the suburbs who would welcome the team with open arms. However it's very likely that a future Mayor Mosley-Brown, Del Valle, or Emmanuel would not take too kindly for the team to use the City of Chicago in their name. So we may end up with the Schaumburg Cubs. Problem is there's already a Schaumburg baseball team, a minor league team called the Flyers.

Chapman points out a huge difference between the Cubs and the Yankees in his argument when he brings up the "winning tradition." Think of the Yankees and what names come to mind? Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle, Roger Marris, Reggie (Mr. October) Jackson just to name a few. Think of the nicknames, the Bronx Bombers, Murderer's Row, the Iron Horse, all the great teams, all those championships.

What makes a winning tradition? Great players and even more important, a great team. The Cubs have had a few great players over the last hundred years. Ernie, Billy, Fergie and Ryno, all hall of famers who played on so so teams. It's a shame for those players as well as for the fans. The bottom line is that management for whatever reason has failed to put together a team that could win it all. Period.

Wrigley Field means more to the Cubs franchise than any other ballpark with the possible exception of Fenway Park. When they tried to replace that venerable ballpark with a new one across the street, with architects "lovingly re-creating the treasured features of the existing stadium, while omitting the shortcomings", the uproar was so great, they bagged the idea.

Tearing down Wrigley Field would not be merely heresy, it would be plain stupid.

Take the Yankees out of Yankee Stadium and you have future hall of famers Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees playing in New Yankee Stadium in the Bronx.

Take the Cubs out of Wrigley Field and what do you have? Overpaid underachievers Alfonso Soriano, Kosuke (Mr. April) Fukudome and Carlos Zambrano of the Illinois Cubs of Schaumburg playing in brand spanking new IKEA Park. I can just hear the vendors now, "Meatballs, get your Swedish Meatballs."

Now there's a team for the ages.

Upping the ante

Responding to Brad Stevens, the mayor of Rosemont, Illinois who just offered the Chicago Cubs a 25 acre site gratis, along with other perks to build a new ballpark in his town, an aide to Mayor Emanuel said this: “The idea that the Cubs would leave Wrigley Field is not something to be taken seriously.”

I wouldn't be so sure. As beloved as the friendly confines of Wrigley Field may be, it has plenty of detractors. Folks claim that it's hard to get to, especially by car, difficult to get in and out of, has terrible food, dirty bathrooms, bad facilities for the players, it's old and falling apart; in short: "it's a dump." There are in fact many voices out there who for years have called for the team to relocate into a new facility either in the city or the suburbs, where much of the fan base resides.

Tom Ricketts who along with his family owns the Cubs and Wrigley Field, seems committed at the moment to keeping the team in the old ballpark. In that vein, the Ricketts family proposes a major overhaul of the 99 year old cathedral of baseball to bring it up as well as possible, to current standards, while preserving its intimate character. The price tag for such a renovation would be in the neighborhood of 300 million dollars, all of which would be funded through private capital. By not demanding the municipality pay for, or even share in the burden of the project, the family Ricketts is doing something almost unheard of in this day and age of public spending on sports arenas. True, AT&T Park in San Francisco was built privately, but in a time and a place, (the Bay Area in the 1990's) that was flush with capital. The same cannot be said of Chicago, 2013. One would think that everyone in the city with the exception of die hard baseball haters (and maybe a handful of disgruntled White Sox fans) would jump at the chance to keep the Cubs in Chicago without costing the taxpayers a dime.

Not so. To help raise capital for the renovation, the family is asking that some zoning restrictions be lifted in regards to advertising, night games, as well as certain landmarks restrictions relating to the design of the ballpark. Community groups with the help of 44th Ward alderman Tom Tunney, are looking to stall the plans siting parking issues, police protection and “aesthetic” issues regarding the ballpark. But it seems the real stumbling block are the owners of the properties across Waveland and Sheffield Avenues from the ballpark who have constructed bleachers on top of their buildings for the expressed purpose of selling tickets (at about 100 bucks a pop) to watch Cubs games. They are afraid that the proposed advertising structures in the outfield would obstruct the views of the field from their "Wrigley Rooftop" seats.

In case you were wondering, no they're not getting that view for nothing. In an agreement brokered by Alderman Tunney, the rooftop owners fork over seventeen percent of their profits to the Cubs in exchange for the club not building a wall obstructing their view. Connie Mack did precisely that in Philadelphia in 1935 when his Athletics lost revenue due to fans watching from the roofs across the street instead of inside his ballpark. Needless to say, the Wrigley rooftop owners have a sweet deal and aren't going to let go of it without a fight, and Tom Tunney is their staunchest advocate. Not surprisingly, the rooftop owners have given Tunney's campaign fund a generous amount of money over the years. Could that be related to Tunney's foot dragging in the Wrigley renovation plans?

You mean a Chicago politician with an ulterior motive...  perish the thought!

Tom Ricketts would like a deal with Tunney and the city finalized by Opening Day if not sooner in order for work on the ballpark to begin by the end of this coming season. For his part Mayor Emanuel understandably wants a deal made, and now. “Yeah, but it’s not going to be on the backs of my community, sorry..." says a defiant Tunney, the man of the people. Adding to his demagoguery, Tunney made this pointless observation about the Rickettses: "You’re talking about one of the wealthiest families in America."

To hear the rooftop owners talk about it, you'd think it was they who are responsible for the Cubs' success and not the other way around. "There's a reason that the Cubs pull (in crowds)," said Beth Murphy, one of the rooftop owners. "I believe it's the synergy between the neighborhood and the ballpark."

Apparently it's inconceivable to them and many other defenders of Wrigley Field, that the Cubs might one day leave the "Friendly Confines."

Here's a brief history lesson:

The late forties and fifties were the golden age of baseball in New York City. There were three teams in the city back in those days when it was rare if the World Series did not feature at least one New York  team. In 1951 all three New York teams finished in first place. Perhaps the greatest year of all was 1955 when the Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Yankees to win their first championship. The same two teams met the following year in the Fall Classic when the team from the Bronx won.

Then the unthinkable happened. Despite their tremendous popularity, despite their success on the field, and despite boasting the names of immortals like Mays, Thompson,  Reese, Snyder, and Robinson, nobody came to the games, at least not in Brooklyn nor up in the Polo Grounds where the Giants played.  Walter O'Malley, then owner of the Dodgers desperately tried to get the city to help build a new ballpark to replace Ebbets Field, the beloved but run down ballpark in a run down neighborhood. The city was unmoved. It so happened that there was a tremendous market out west just waiting to be exploited but O'Malley could only move his team to California if another team relocated to the Golden State. O'Mally had little trouble convincing Horace Stoneham the principal owner of the Giants, to join him. So in 1958, both the Dodgers and the Giants left New York City for greener pastures. The move which was a huge boon to both teams and their new cities, left a tremendous void in New York, especially in Brooklyn.

So far Tom Ricketts has not publicly expressed interest in Rosemont's overtures to the Cubs. He is sticking to his April 1st deadline for the city to work out a deal. Short of that, everything may be up for grabs. Perhaps the Rosemont proposal will be just a bargaining chip. Wrigley Field certainly has a draw that a new facility would not. I've gone on the record and am sticking to my belief that the Cubs would be foolish to leave Wrigley Field. On the other hand, there are unavoidable issues that need to be addressed, first and foremost of them is safety. Wrigley Field has outlasted its life expectancy by at least fifty years; it was not built to last forever and its infrastructure is in desperate need of repair. Secondly, while it's difficult to feel sorry for multi-millionaire ballplayers, the training and workout facilities for them at Wrigley are woefully inadequate and the team needs to face the issue if it expects to compete for elite players in the future. The other issues which involve fan comfort and distractions have no interest to me, but they do for other people and need to be addressed. Plans are in place to address these issues right here in Chicago and at Wrigley Field, the only obstacle appears to be the arrogance, intransigence, and short sightedness of a small group of people, and a politician who appears beholden to them. If the alderman continues his stonewalling, the team may have no alternative other than packing their bags.

Unlike other local institutions such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra or the Art Institute, the Cubs are a privately owned business, not a non-for-profit entity. The Ricketts family does not owe it to Chicago to keep its team in the city; they have the right to look at every option open to them. If they should decide to move the team out of Chicago, to a place where they feel their business has a better chance of thriving, that too is their right, it's their team after all. Chicago has nothing to gain by not working out a deal with the Cubs, and everything to lose.

After the Cubs move on to Rosemont, Arlington Heights, Shaumburg or beyond, we can look forward to the Wrigley Condominiums at the corner of Clark and Addison, surrounding a lovely little park. There will be a plaque marking the former location of home plate where Babe Ruth allegedly called his home run shot in the 1932 World Series, and from where Gabby Hartnett hit his "Homer in the Gloamin'" to help the Cubs win the National League pennant in 1938. Maybe there will be another marker at the pitcher's mound site where Fergie Jenkins once worked, and another at short where Ernie Banks first broke into the big leagues. There'll be a little piece of the outfield wall covered with the ivy that Bill Veeck planted, where Jose Cardinal "lost" several balls hit in his direction. If they're smart, perhaps they'll even build a Little League ballpark on the site of the old diamond for the use of the little tikes who live in the condos.

One thing is for sure, Wrigleyville will be a much quieter place. I'm just curious how much Beth Murphy will be able to charge for a seat on her rooftop overlooking the place where the Cubs used to play.