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Yesterday I continued an annual ritual begun forty years ago; I sat down and watched a Cubs game on TV from the friendly confines. It was a wonder, a wonder that only those of us indoctrinated in the cult of Cubdom can understand. While to those who don’t get it scratch their heads like befuddled sociologists trying to make a diagnosis of the residents. But it can’t be explained or quantified into words enough to make the non-believer understand.
There are on our planet, haloed sacred places vectored by the Gods and ordained that in these places alone, the truths of the world can be revealed to mortal flesh. Jerusalem, Stonehenge and Wrigley Field and maybe two or three other minor sites London, Paris and maybe Rome perhaps. Jerusalem, is the holy site to three of the worlds major religions Stonehenge an ancient druid temple a relic and testament to earliest human beliefs of a higher plain of thought.
But Wrigley Field is the high temple of the baseball the holiest of holies it evokes that higher calling and the oneness we can share with fans from past generations. It is said, War is to important to be trusted to Generals well the Cubs are too important to be trusted to big business. Management opened their checkbook and spent big money to bring in talent, to which I say bless you my son, but they have labeled this season as, “The Season of Hope.” To say that misses the mark is a gross under statement; it is to ask Jerry Lee Lewis, “You play piano don’t you?” It is to go to the Vatican and ask, “So, you think maybe Jesus is coming back?” For hope is a Cub Fans pillar of faith and non-believers cannot understand it and cannot be educated.
But to management it’s all about business it’s money money money, their God is the dollar bill. To them Wrigley Field is just a venue no different than a warehouse or an office building. They own an oil well that pumps out wealth and their only question is how can we make it go faster? If big business owned the world’s religions they would ask, “Couldn’t we put billboards on the wailing wall? After all they only pray at the bottom of it!” The Vatican alter would have a rolling message sign that would change with each step of the Eucharist. Business and management know of no such word as sanctuary.
If the Tribune Company had bought the Boston Red Sox they would have to deal with that huge left field wall, you can’t change it you’re stuck with it so deal with it! But you bought a franchise with a long cherished and admired policy prohibiting advertising inside the park. Like the Sistine Chapel or the Wailing Wall this place is a sanctuary, to place advertisements inside the field is a sacrilege an offensive to the eye. Billy Williams did not play in front of the Under Armour sign.
Management keeps adding more advertisements to the field each season thinking we won’t notice, why not paint the scoreboard Home Depot orange and change the name to Home Depot field? Maybe we won’t notice. Their ignorance and their willingness to strangle the golden goose a little at a time belies their non-believer status even more than their season of hope slogan. It is more than just a sacrilege to the field it is a sacrilege to the city of Chicago, if you were to physically pick up Wrigley Field and place it anywhere else in the world it would cease to be Wrigley Field. Wrigley Field is Chicago and Chicago is Wrigley Field the fans are the embodiment of all that is the best of Chicago. Friendly light hearted but deadly serious about the team, but with a Midwesterners common sense enough to keep it in perspective to remember that after all it’s just a game.
I do understand the constant need for ever more funding in Major league Baseball, with the exception of boxing it’s probably the worst managed sport in the world. But if you want to shove more seats in OK I can deal with that, luxury boxes OK fine. But I can’t understand why someone would want to go to Wrigley Field and not to sit with the crowd, Harry Carey understood that, doing games from the bleachers. But then again Harry was a true believer. Spending over fifty years in baseball Harry had worked almost everywhere but his relatively short stint with the Cubs he became beloved because he loved the game and the fans could see that. It raised him far above just another sportscaster he was ordained as the high priest of baseball holding services in the holy temple of Wrigley singing it’s psalms every seventh inning.
But management doesn’t, won’t or can’t get it. So what’s it going to cost us? If we must pay tribute to keep our sanctuary we will, what kind of revenue are you generating defiling the temple with your signs on walls and in the dugouts? Hell just give us a price and maybe we can top it, I’m not rich but I’ll kick in a couple of bucks and maybe if a few of Chicago’s more affluent Cubs fans kick in we can speak to you in the only language you understand, cold cash. What price would it cost us to have just one place in the entire baseball world not covered with crass commercialism to have just one spot where we the fan can be allowed to just enjoy the game?
It was a great game, everything Wrigley offers in April while the ivy still slumbers. Cold, windy, sunny, cloudy with an iron fisted wind blowing straight in and gusting to ridicules. The Fans were relocating for sunshine rather than a viewing preference. The Cubs look to have pretty good pitching but the hitting is suspect, which is normal with young teams. The game was tied and as it got later the young Cub hitters were chasing high fastballs and swinging for the fences. Someone should have told them, I watched Hank Aaron hit a ball into that wind easily a hundred feet over the outfielders head, he watched with his back in the ivy as it passed over then took two steps in and caught it on the warning track.
But that is it’s power and part of it’s beauty, you don’t just play in Wrigley Field you play with Wrigley Field or against Wrigley Field. It ‘s the third player in the game and you adjust accordingly or she’ll beat you every time. It gives you what it gives you and you take it and don’t complain. Boston has the Green Monster Yankee stadium it’s short right field porch and the air is always going to be thin in Denver but with Wrigley every day is different. She’s almost a hundred years old and yet new stuff happens all the time and most of it is good anyway.
The architects come from far and wide they study and they make their drawings for their cookie cutter homogenized corporate sponsored fields. But by their very attempts at imitation they highlight just how truly special a place she is. For it is by their failed attempts to duplicate in prestressed concrete and fiberglass that they prove just how genuine brick and steel and ivy can become. They’re failures look like exactly what they are; cheap imitations a Roolex watch and Elvis portraits on black velvet.
As the Cubs continue their, “Season of Hope” I continue with my lifetime of hope and my quest to restore Mr. Wrigley’s far sighted vision, of a beautiful place to watch a ball game. So what if we don’t win a hundred games every season, so what if we haven’t been to the World Series since grand pa had hair! This is the greatest place in the world to watch a baseball game and it must be treated like what it is, a Sanctuary. I’m deadly serious to Tribune company gives us the price to restore our temple so that it will always be Beautiful Wrigley Field and not Corporate sponsored Wrigley Field.
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