Wrigley
Field, is a baseball stadium in Chicago, Illinois,
United States that has served as the home ballpark of the Chicago Cubs
since 1916. It was built in 1914 as Weeghman Park for the Chicago
Federal League baseball team, the Chicago Whales. It was called Cubs
Park between 1920 and 1926 before being renamed for then Cubs team owner
and chewing gum magnate, William Wrigley, Jr.. Between 1921 and 1970,
it was also the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football
League. In addition, it hosted the second annual National Hockey League
Winter Classic on January 1, 2009.
Located
in the community area of Lakeview, Wrigley Field sits on an irregular
block bounded by Clark (west) and Addison (south) Streets and Waveland
(north) and Sheffield (east) Avenues. The area surrounding the ballpark
contains residential streets, in addition to bars, restaurants and other
establishments and is called Wrigleyville. The ballpark's mailing
address is 1060 W. Addison Street.
Wrigley
Field is nicknamed The Friendly Confines, a phrase popularized by "Mr.
Cub", Hall of Famer Ernie Banks. The current capacity is 41,160, making
Wrigley Field the 10th-smallest actively used ballpark. It is the oldest
National League ballpark and the second oldest active major league
ballpark (after Fenway Park on April 20, 1912), and the only remaining
Federal League park. Wrigley is known for its ivy covered brick outfield
wall, the unusual wind patterns off Lake Michigan, the iconic red
marquee over the main entrance, and the hand turned scoreboard.
History of Wrigley Field
The
park was built in six weeks in 1914 at a cost of about $250,000 ($5.3
million in 2008 dollars) by the Chicago lunchroom magnate Charles
Weeghman, who owned the Federal League Whales. (The club signed a
55-year lease to use the park for approximately $18,000 per year.) It
was designed by the architect Zachary Taylor Davis (who four years
earlier had designed Comiskey Park for the Chicago White Sox),
incorporating the new "fireproof" building codes recently enacted by the
city. According to some sources, when it opened for the 1914 Federal
League season, Weeghman Park had a seating capacity of 14,000. According
to another source, the original seating capacity was 20,000.
In
late 1915 the Federal League folded. The resourceful Weeghman formed a
syndicate including the chewing gum manufacturer William Wrigley Jr. to
buy the Chicago Cubs from Charles P. Taft for about $500,000. Weeghman
immediately moved the Cubs from the dilapidated West Side Grounds to his
two-year-old park. In 1918 Wrigley acquired the controlling interest in
the club. In November 1926, he renamed the park "Wrigley Field."
In
1927 an upper deck was added, and in 1937, Bill Veeck, the son of the
club president, planted ivy vines against the outfield walls.
Although
Wrigley Field has been the home of the Cubs since 1916, it has yet to
see the Cubs win a World Series, even though it has hosted several
(1923, 1929, 1932, 1936, 1938, and 1945, the last time the Cubs appeared
in a World Series), the last World Series win by the Cubs (1908)
happened while the Cubs called West Side Park home.
Features
Wrigley
Field follows the jewel box design of ballparks that was popular in the
early part of the 20th century. The two recessed wall areas, or
"wells," located both in left, and right field, give those areas a
little more length than if the wall were to follow the contour from
center field, it is also in those wells, when cross winds are blowing,
that balls have a habit of bouncing in all sorts of interesting
directions, there is also a long net running the entire length of the
outfield wall, about two foot from the top, the primary use is to keep
fans from falling out of the bleacher area, and onto the field of play,
which is about seven, to ten feet below the top of the wall. Called "The
basket," by players, and fans alike, the rules of the field state that
any ball landing within the netting is ruled a home run, making the
distance to hit a home run in Wrigley Field actually shorter than the
location of the outfield wall.
Ivy-covered outfield walls
 |
| Wrigley Field is known for its distinctive ivy-covered outfield walls. |
The
ballpark is famous for its outfield walls which are covered by ivy. In
the first weeks of the baseball season, the ivy has not leafed out, and
all that is visible are the vines on which it grows. However, as the
baseball season progresses further into spring, the ivy grows thick and
green, disguising the hard brick surface of the outfield wall.
Many
times a ball has been lost in the ivy when hit towards the outfield
fences. An outfielder will signal that a ball is lost by raising his
hands. When this occurs, the umpires will call time and rule the play a
ground-rule double. Although the ivy appears to "pad" the bricks, it is
of little practical use as padding. There have been occasions of
fielders being injured when slamming into the wall while pursuing a fly
ball.
The
ivy that covers the outfield wall is Boston Ivy, which can endure the
harsh Chicago winters better than its English cousin. The ivy was
planted in 1937 by the Cubs General Manager Bill Veeck, as part of Cubs
owner P.K. Wrigley's beautification plan for the bleachers, which had
been rebuilt during the 1937 season. Veeck reportedly got the idea of
ivy on the walls from Donnie Bush Stadium in Indianapolis.
Wrigley
is now the only professional ballpark with an ivy covered outfield
wall. Several now-demolished ballparks featured ivy in the playing area,
including Forbes Field, Wrigley Field's namesake in Los Angeles, and
Bush Stadium in Indianapolis. Omaha's Rosenblatt Stadium, the former
home of the College World Series as well as minor league baseball, had
an ivy-covered brick wall that was replaced with a padded wall. Some
ballparks feature ivy on out-of-play walls, especially as a covering for
the batter's eye behind the center field fence.
Dimensions
The
distances from home plate to various points in the outfield have
remained essentially unchanged since the bleachers were remodeled during
the 1937 season. They were originally marked by wooden numbers cut from
plywood, painted white, and placed in gaps where the ivy was not
allowed to grow. Since the early 1980s, the numbers have been painted
directly on the bricks, in yellow. Although the power-alley dimensions
are relatively cozy, the foul lines are currently the deepest in the
major leagues.
It
is 355 feet (108.2 m) to the notch in the wall just beyond the left
field foul pole. The point where the bleacher wall begins to curve
inward in left-center field, one of the two "wells", is an unmarked 357
feet (108.8 m). The front part of the left-center "well" is the closest
point in the outfield, about 350 feet. The marked left-center field
distance is 368 feet (112.2 m). It is closer to true center field than
its right-center counterpart is. True center field is unmarked and is
about 390 feet. The center field marker, which is to the right of true
center field and in the middle of the quarter-circle defining the center
field area, is 400 feet (121.9 m). That is the deepest point in the
outfield. Right-center field is 368 feet (112.2 m). The notch of the
right-center "well" is an unmarked 363 feet (110.6 m). The right field
foul line is 353 feet (107.6 m). The backstop is listed in media sources
as 60.5 feet (18.4 m) behind home plate. Although that distance is
standard, the relatively small foul ground area in general gives an
advantage to batters.
Rooftop seats
See also: Wrigley Roof
Old-time
ballparks were often surrounded by buildings that afforded a "freebie"
look at the game for enterprising souls. In most venues, the clubs took
steps to either extend the stands around, or to build spite fences to
block the view. Perhaps the most notorious of these was the one at Shibe
Park in Philadelphia, which caused a rift between the residents and the
team that never healed. The Cubs themselves had built a high fence
along the outfield at West Side Park, to hide the field from flats whose
back porches were right next to the outer fence of the ballpark.
But
at Wrigley it was different. The flat rooftops of the apartment
buildings across Waveland and Sheffield, which pre-date the ballpark,
were often populated with a reasonable number of fans having cookouts
while enjoying the game for free. The Cubs tolerated it quietly until
the 1990s, when some owners of those apartments began building little
bleacher sections, and charging people to watch the games. That was a
whole different ball game, and the Cubs management became very vocal in
expressing their displeasure, threatening legal action. In 2003 they
went so far as to line the screens that top the outer walls with opaque
strips, to block the best exterior sight lines. That was the closest
thing to a spite fence that Wrigley had seen. Therefore the bleachers
are sometimes called "The Spiteless Fence" as well as "The Ivy Wall".
This
led to meetings and to a peaceful settlement among the various parties.
The building owners agreed to share a portion of their proceeds with
the Cubs, and the Cubs obtained permission from the city to expand the
ballpark's own bleachers out over the sidewalks and do some additional
construction on the open area of the property to the west, bordered by
Clark and Waveland, and to close the remnant of Seminary Avenue that
also existed on the property. The rooftop seats are now effectively part
of the ballpark's seating area, although they are not included in the
seating capacity figure.
Some
of the rooftops have become legendary in their own right. The Lakeview
Baseball Club, which sits across Sheffield Avenue (right-field) from the
stadium displays a sign that reads, "Eamus Catuli!" (roughly Latin for
"Let's Go Cubs!"—catuli translating to "whelps", the nearest Latin
equivalent), flanked by a counter indicating the Cubs' long legacy of
futility. The counter is labeled "AC," for "Anno Catuli," or "In the
Year of the Cubs." The first two digits indicate the number of years
since the Cubs' last division championship as of the end of the previous
season (2008), the next two digits indicate the number of years since
the Cubs' last trip to the World Series (1945), and the last three
digits indicate the number of years since their last World Series win
(1908).
Today,
Wrigley rooftops have become a unique alternative venue to watch
baseball games. Many rooftop venues feature bleachers, open bar,
specialty food items, and a unique game-day atmosphere, although the
quality of the view can vary depending on the specific rooftop location.
Unusual wind patterns
 |
| The main scoreboard at Wrigley Field. This photo was taken on the August 27, 2005 Cubs-Marlins game. Note the video board below the scoreboard, as it was added in 2004. |
In
April and May the wind often comes off Lake Michigan (less than a mile
to the east), which means a northeast wind "blowing in" to knock down
potential home runs and turn them into outs. In the summer, however, or
on any warm and breezy day, the wind often comes from the south and the
southwest, which means the wind is "blowing out" and has the potential
to turn normally harmless fly balls into home runs. A third variety is
the cross-wind, which typically runs from the left field corner to the
right field corner and causes all sorts of interesting havoc. Depending
on the direction of the wind, Wrigley can either be one of the
friendliest parks in the major leagues for pitchers or among the worst.
This makes Wrigley one of the most unpredictable parks in the Major
Leagues.
Many
Cubs fans check their nearest flag before heading to the park on game
days for an indication of what the game might be like; this is less of a
factor for night games, however, because the wind does not blow as hard
after the sun goes down.
With
the wind blowing in, pitchers can dominate, and no-hitters have been
tossed from time to time, though none recently; the last two occurred
near the beginning and the end of the 1972 season, by Burt Hooton and
Milt Pappas respectively. In the seventh inning of Ken Holtzman's first
no-hitter, on August 19, 1969, Hank Aaron of the Atlanta Braves hammered
one that looked like it was headed for Waveland, but the wind caught it
just enough for left fielder Billy Williams to leap up and snare it in
"the basket".
With
the wind blowing out, some true tape-measure home runs have been hit by
well-muscled batters. Sammy Sosa and Dave "Kong" Kingman broke windows
in the apartment buildings across Waveland Ave. several times. Glenallen
Hill put one on a rooftop. Batters have occasionally slugged it into,
or to the side of, the first row or two of the "upper deck" of the
center field bleachers. Sosa hit the roof of the center field camera
booth on the fly during the NLCS against the Florida Marlins, some 450
feet away.
But
the longest blast was probably hit by Dave Kingman on a very windy day
in 1976 while with the Mets. According to local legend, that day,
Kingman launched a bomb that landed on the third porch roof on the east
(center field) side of Kenmore Avenue, some 550 feet away.
No
batter has ever hit the center field scoreboard, however it has been
hit by a different kind of ball: a golf ball, hit by Sam Snead, using a
two iron.
No
matter the weather, many fans congregate during batting practice and
games on Waveland Avenue, behind left field, and Sheffield Avenue,
behind right field, for a chance to catch a home run ball.
Hand turned scoreboard
Along
with Fenway Park, Wrigley is one of the last parks to maintain a hand
turned scoreboard. Unlike the home of the Red Sox, the scoreboard at
Wrigley is mounted above the center field bleachers, rather than at
ground level, making it harder to hit during play. No players have hit
the current scoreboard, although several have come close. The scoreboard
was installed in 1937, when Bill Veeck installed the new bleachers. The
scoreboard has remained in place ever since, and has only seen minor
modifications. The clock was added in 1941, a fifth row of scores was
added to each side in 1961 and later a sixth. A set of light stands
facing onto the scoreboard was added in 1988 with the introduction of
night games. An electronic message board was also added below the
scoreboard.
The
scoreboard is still manually operated, with scores coming in through a
computer (a ticker tape machine was used in the past); a number turner
watches the score changes closely, and updates scores by manually
replacing the numbers from within the scoreboard. The scoreboard is made
out of sheet steel. The numbers that are placed into the inning windows
are steel, painted forest green, and numbered with white numerals. The
box for the game playing at Wrigley uses yellow numerals for the current
inning. The clock, which sits at the top center of the scoreboard, has
never lost time in its 69-year existence. The doors to enter the
scoreboard are located at either end. On the reverse of the scoreboard,
visible from the CTA elevated trains is a blue pennant, with the words
"Chicago Cubs", in white outlined in red neon. The scoreboard was
extensively rehabilitated for the 2010 season.
In
2010, the Cubs toyed with the idea of adding a Jumbotron to the
stadium, but the presence of the hand turned scoreboard (which cannot be
moved due to the park's landmark status, which also prohibits even
simple facelifts such as adding two more games on the National and one
more on the American side to reflect 16 and 14 teams, respectively, in
the leagues; the 12-game, 24-team scoreboard reflects MLB from 1969–76,
so up to three games (2 NL, 1 AL) each day cannot be posted) has
hampered efforts to do so. Most Cubs players support the addition of a
Jumbotron, but it is unknown whether the team will proceed with plans to
add one.
Main entry marquee
Directly
over the main entrance to the stadium stands the most familiar icon of
the exterior of the ballpark, a large red, art deco style marquee,
painted in white letters to read "Wrigley Field, Home of Chicago Cubs".
The marquee was installed circa 1934. The sign was blue until the 1960s,
and originally used changeable letters similar to the scoreboard to
announce upcoming games. It originally read "Home of "The Cubs" but was
changed to "Home of Chicago Cubs" by 1939. This was also changed during
football season to reflect the Chicago Bears. In 1982, the two line
announcement board was replaced with an electronic message board and a
backlit advertising panel was added below (this is now solid red). The
marquee utilizes red neon lights at night, showing the familiar "Wrigley
Field" in red, as the rest of the sign is in darkness. The marquee is
so iconic with the park, that the owners of the park, both past, and
present, have used the marquee in some way as the park's trademark of
sorts, even the CTA platform that services Wrigley Field (the CTA
Addison St. station,) has an image of the marquee painted on a wall
announcing the destination, rather than simply marking it with black
block letters.
Lights
Wrigley
Field was a hold-out against night games, not installing lights until
1988 after baseball officials refused to allow Wrigley to host any
post-season games without lights. Before then, all games at Wrigley were
played during the day. Night games are still limited in number by
agreement with the city council. In 1942, then-owner P.K. Wrigley had
planned to install lights, but instead, the lights and stands were
scrapped for the war effort. The first night game was scheduled for
August 8, 1988, against the Philadelphia Phillies, however, the game was
rained out after 3 1/2 innings. The first official night game at
Wrigley was held the following day, August 9. The All-American Girls
Professional Baseball League's first All-Star Game during the 1943
midseason, was played under temporary lights at Wrigley Field, between
two teams composed of South Bend Blue Sox and Rockford Peaches players
versus Kenosha Comets and Racine Belles players. It was also the first
night game ever played in the historic ballpark (July 1, 1943).
Stadium usage
Baseball
Chicago Cubs franchise history
Weeghman Park's first tenant was the Federal League team, the Chicago Whales, from 1914 to 1916.
Weeghman
Park / Cubs Park / Wrigley Field has served as the home baseball park
for Major League Baseball's Chicago Cubs franchise since 1916.
Football
The
Chicago Bears of the National Football League played at Wrigley Field
from 1921 to 1970 before relocating to Soldier Field. The team had
transferred from Decatur, and retained the name "Staleys" for the 1921
season. They renamed themselves the "Bears" in order to identify with
the baseball team, a common practice in the NFL in those days. Wrigley
Field once held the record for the most NFL games played in a single
stadium with 365 regular season NFL games, but this record was surpassed
in September 2003 by Giants Stadium in New Jersey, thanks to its
dual-occupancy by the New York Giants and New York Jets.The game played
between the Jets and Miami Dolphins on September 14, 2003 was the 366th
regular season NFL game at Giants Stadium breaking Wrigley's regular
season record. The 50 seasons the Bears spent at Wrigley Field had been
an NFL record until 2006 when Lambeau Field duplicated this feat by
hosting the Packers for the 50th season, and broke it in 2007.
Initially
the Bears worked with the stands that were there. Eventually they
acquired a large, portable bleacher section that spanned the right and
center field areas and covered most of the existing bleacher seating and
part of the right field corner seating. This "East Stand" raised
Wrigley's football capacity to about 46,000, or a net gain of perhaps
9,000 seats over normal capacity. After the Bears left, this structure
would live on for several years as the "North Stand" at Soldier Field,
until it was replaced by permanent seating.
The
football field ran north-to-south, i.e. from left field to the foul
side of first base. The remodeling of the bleachers made for a very
tight fit for the gridiron. In fact, the corner of the south end zone
was literally in the visiting baseball team's dugout, which was filled
with pads for safety, and required a special ground rule that sliced off
that corner of the end zone. One corner of the north end line ran just
inches short of the left field wall. There is a legend that Bronko
Nagurski, the great Bears fullback, steamrolled through the line, head
down, and ran all the way through that end zone, smacking his
leather-helmeted head on the bricks. He went back to the bench and told
Coach "Papa Bear" George Halas, "That last guy gave me quite a lick!"
That kind of incident prompted the Bears to hang some padding in front
of the wall.
The
Bears are second only to the Green Bay Packers in total NFL
championships, and all but one of those (their only Super Bowl
championship) came during their tenure at Wrigley. After a half-century,
they found themselves compelled to move, because the NFL wanted every
one of its stadiums to seat at least 50,000. The Bears had one
experimental game at Dyche Stadium (now Ryan Field) on the Northwestern
University campus in 1970, but otherwise continued at Wrigley until
their transfer to the lakefront ended their five-decades run on the
north side. One remnant of the Bears' time at Wrigley was uncovered
during the off-season 2007–2008 rebuilding of the playing field: the
foundations for the goal posts.
The
Northwestern Wildcats and the Illinois Fighting Illini played a
collegiate football game at Wrigley Field on November 20, 2010. It was
the first football game at Wrigley Field since 1970 and the first
collegiate football game at Wrigley Field since 1938 when DePaul
University played its regular games at Wrigley. The field used an
east-west field configuration (home plate to right field). In order to
keep the playing field at regulation size, the safety clearances for
each end zone to the walls in the field were considerably less than
normal. In particular, the east (right field) end zone came under
scrutiny as its end zone was wedged extremely close to the right field
wall (as close as one foot in some areas), forcing the goal posts to be
hung from the right field wall in order to fit. Despite extra padding
provided in these locations, it was decided that all offensive plays for
both teams play to the west end zone, where there was more safety
clearance. (The east end zone could still have been used on defensive
and special teams touchdowns, as well as defensive safeties; and in fact
there was one interception run back for an eastbound touchdown.)
Other events
The
Chicago Sting of the North American Soccer League (NASL) used Wrigley,
along with Comiskey Park, for their home matches during the late 1970s
and early 1980s. The Sting hosted the San Diego Sockers on August 25,
1979 at Wrigley when the Bears were using Soldier Field. Unlike the
Bears' football gridiron layout, the soccer pitch ran east-to-west, from
right field to the foul territory on the third-base side.
On
January 1, 2009, the National Hockey League played its 2009 Winter
Classic in The Friendly Confines pitting two "Original Six" teams - the
host Chicago Blackhawks and the visiting Detroit Red Wings - in an
outdoor ice hockey game. The rink ran across the field from first base
to third base with second base being covered by roughly the center of
the rink. According to espn.com, the attendance for this game was
40,818. The Red Wings won 6–4.
In
recent years Wrigley Field has been opened on a limited basis to
popular concerts, not without some controversy. Artists and groups to
play Wrigley Field have included Jimmy Buffett (2005), The Police
(2007), Elton John and Billy Joel (2009), Rascal Flatts (2009) and Dave
Matthews Band (2010). Local neighborhood groups have expressed concerns
about the impact of concert crowds and noise on the surrounding
residential neighborhood, particularly in 2009 when three concerts were
added to the schedule, one conflicting with an annual neighborhood
festival.
Traditions and mainstays
Corporate sponsorship
Wrigley
Field shares its name with the Wrigley Company, as the park was named
for its then-owner, William Wrigley Jr., the CEO of the Wrigley Company.
As early as the 1920s, before the park became officially known as
Wrigley Field, the scoreboard was topped by the elf-like "Doublemint
Twins", posed as a pitcher and a batter. There were also ads painted on
the bare right field wall early in the ballpark's history, prior to the
1923 remodeling which put bleachers there. After that, the Doublemint
elves were the only visible in-park advertising. The elves were removed
permanently in 1937 when the bleachers and scoreboard were rebuilt. It
would be about 45 years before in-park advertising would reappear.
Wrigley
Field has been a notable exception to the recent trend of selling
corporate naming rights to sporting venues. The Tribune Company, who
owned the park from 1981 to 2009, chose not to rename the ballpark,
utilizing other ways to bring corporate sponsorship into the ballpark.
During
the mid-1980s, Anheuser-Busch placed Budweiser and Bud Light
advertisements beneath the center field scoreboard. Bud Light became the
sponsor of the rebuilt bleachers in 2006.
In
the early 2000s, following the trend of many ballparks, a green-screen
chroma key board was installed behind home plate, in the line of sight
of the center field TV camera, to allow electronic "rotating"
advertisements visible only to the TV audiences. By 2006, the board was
set-up to allow advertisements to be both physical and electronic (thus
they can be seen in both live and replay shots).
In
2007, the first on-field advertising appeared since the park's early
days. Sporting goods firm Under Armour placed its logo on the
double-doors between the ivy on the outfield wall, in left-center and
right-center fields. Advertisements were also placed in the dugouts,
originally for Sears department stores, then Walter E. Smithe furniture
and now State Farm insurance.
Corporate
sponsorship has not been limited to the park itself. Wrigley Field is
famous for its view of the neighborhood buildings across Waveland and
Sheffield Avenues. In addition to spectators standing or sitting on the
apartment roofs, corporate sponsors have frequently taken advantage of
those locations as well. In the earliest days of Weeghman Park, one
building across Sheffield Avenue advertised a local hangout known as
Bismarck Gardens (later called the Marigold Gardens after World War I).
That same building has since advertised for the Torco Oil Company,
Southwest Airlines, and the Miller Brewing Company.
A
building across from deep right-center field was topped by a neon sign
for Baby Ruth candy beginning in the mid-1930s and running for some 40
years. That placement by the Chicago-based Curtiss Candy Company,
coincidentally positioned in the line of sight of "Babe Ruth's called
shot", proved fortuitous when games began to be televised in the
1940s—the sign was also in the line of sight of the ground level camera
behind and to the left of home plate. The aging sign was eventually
removed in the early 1970s.
Another
long-standing venue for a sign is the sloping roof of a building behind
left-center field. Unsuitable for the bleachers that now decorate many
of those buildings, that building's angling roof has been painted in the
form of a large billboard since at least the 1940s. In recent years it
has borne a bright-red Budweiser sign and, beginning in 2009, an
advertisement for Horseshoe Casino. Other buildings have carried signs
sponsoring beers, such as Old Style (when it was a Cubs broadcasting
sponsor) and Miller; and also WGN-TV, which has telecast Cubs games
since April 1948.
For
2008 and 2009, the Cubs worked out an agreement with the Chicago Board
Options Exchange to allow the CBOE to auction some 70 box seat season
tickets and award naming rights to them.
For
the 2009 season, The Chicago Cubs announced that the renovated
restaurant space in the southeast corner of Wrigley Field, formerly
known as the Friendly Confines Cafe, will now be known as the Captain
Morgan Club.
On
October 27, 2009, Thomas S. Ricketts officially took over 95% ownership
of the Chicago Cubs, Wrigley Field and 20% ownership of Comcast
SportsNet Chicago. The Tribune will retain 5% ownership. Ricketts,
however, has expressed no interest in selling the naming rights to
Wrigley Field, preferring that it retain the name it has used since
1926.
"White flag time at Wrigley!"
Cubs Win flag
The
term "White flag time at Wrigley!" means the Cubs have won. The ritual
of raising flags after a game is decades-old, but the saying itself only
began in the 1990s, as coined by Chip Caray.
Beginning
in the days of P.K. Wrigley and the 1937 bleacher/scoreboard
reconstruction, a flag with either a "W" or an "L" has flown from atop
the scoreboard masthead, indicating the day's result. In case of a
doubleheader that is split, both flags are flown.
Past
Cubs media guides show that the original flags were blue with a white
"W" and white with a blue "L", the latter coincidentally suggesting
"surrender". In 1978, blue and white lights were mounted atop the
scoreboard, to further denote wins and losses.
The
flags were replaced in the early 1980s, and the color schemes were
reversed with the "win flag" being white with a blue W, and the "loss
flag" the opposite. In 1982, the retired number of Ernie Banks was
flying on a foul pole, as white with blue numbers, in 1987, the retired
number of Billy Williams joined Banks, the two flags were positioned
from the foul poles, Banks from left field, and Williams from right
field. Later on, other numbers joined: Ron Santo, Ryne Sandberg,
Ferguson Jenkins and Greg Maddux, with Jenkins and Maddux both using the
same number (31).
Keeping
with tradition, fans are known to bring win flags to home and away
games, and displaying them after a Cubs win. Flags are also sold at the
ballpark. On April 24, 2008 the Cubs flew an extra white flag displaying
"10,000" in blue, along with the win flag, as the 10,000th win in team
history was achieved on the road the previous night. Along side the
tradition of the "W" and "L" flags, the song "Go Cubs Go" is sung after
each home win.
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
The
traditional singing of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at Wrigley Field
began when Hall of Fame announcer Harry Caray arrived in 1982 (he had
sung it the preceding 7 years when he was the Chicago White Sox
announcer), and has remained a staple at Wrigley Field during the
Seventh Inning Stretch ever since. Today, former players, other sports
stars, actors, and other famous people are invited to come and sing
during the Seventh Inning Stretch in place of Caray, who passed away in
1998, among some of the most well-known, are former Cubs secondbaseman
Ryne Sandberg, former pitcher Mike Krukow, former longtime Cubs
firstbaseman Mark Grace, former Houston Rockets star Tracy McGrady,
actor/comedians Bill Murray and Jay Leno, NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon,
singers Ozzy Osbourne and Eddie Vedder, and actors Tom Arnold, and James
Belushi.
References in popular culture
Wrigley
Field had a brief cameo in the movie The Blues Brothers (1980),
starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as Jake and Elwood Blues. Elwood
listed 1060 W. Addison as his fake home address on his Illinois driver's
license, tricking the police and later the Nazis listening on police
radio into heading for Wrigley Field. The Natural (1984), starring
Robert Redford, had a scene set at Wrigley but was actually filmed at
All-High Stadium in Buffalo, New York. All other baseball action scenes
in that movie were shot in Buffalo, at the since-demolished War Memorial
Stadium.
During
Cubs games, fans will often stand outside the park on Waveland Avenue,
waiting for home run balls hit over the wall and out of the park.
However, as a tradition, Cubs fans inside and sometimes even outside the
park will promptly throw any home run ball hit by an opposing player
back onto the field of play, a ritual depicted in the 1977 stage play,
Bleacher Bums, and in the 1993 film, Rookie of the Year.
The
ballpark was featured in a scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where the
outside marquee read "Save Ferris". Many scenes from Rookie of the Year
were filmed at Wrigley Field. Later, the film The Break-Up would use
Wrigley Field as the setting for its opening scene. An early 1990s film
about Babe Ruth had the obligatory scene in Wrigley Field about the
"called shot" (the ballpark also doubled as Yankee Stadium for the
film). A scoreboard similar to the one existing in 1932 was used, atop
an ivy wall (though that did not exist until later in the decade).
The
ballpark was used for the establishing tryouts scene in A League of
Their Own (1992). This film was a Hollywood account of the 1940s women's
baseball league which Cubs owner P.K. Wrigley championed during World
War II. Garry Marshall (older brother of the film's director Penny
Marshall) has a cameo as "Walter Harvey," Wrigley's fictional alter ego.
The sign behind the scoreboard was temporarily redone to read "Harvey
Field", and filming was split between Wrigley and Cantigny Park near
Wheaton, IL.
Many
television series have made featured scenes set in Wrigley Field,
including ER, Crime Story, Chicago Hope, Prison Break, Perfect
Strangers, and My Boys. Also, the animated comedy, Family Guy featured a
scene at Wrigley Field, which parodied the Steve Bartman incident. In
an episode of The Simpsons titled "He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs", upon
arriving in Chicago, Homer walks past a number of famous Chicago
landmarks, including Wrigley Field, followed by a generic looking
stadium bearing the name "Wherever the White Sox play." In 2007, the
band Nine Inch Nails created a promotional audio skit, which involved
Wrigley Field being the target of disgruntled war veteran's terrorist
attack.
The
late-1970s comedy stage play, Bleacher Bums, was set in the right field
bleachers at Wrigley. The video of the play was also set on a stage,
with bleachers suggesting Wrigley's layout, rather than in the actual
ballpark's bleachers. The tradition of throwing opposition home run
balls back was explained by Dennis Franz's character: "If someone hands
you some garbage, you have to throw it back at them!"
The
stadium was also featured on the popular Travel Channel television
show, Great Hotels, starring Samantha Brown. She attended a game during a
visit to Chicago.
Chicago
folk singer Steve Goodman featured Wrigley Field as the setting for his
popular Cubs lament "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request," extolling both
the trials of the Cubs and the place Wrigley Field holds in Cub fans'
hearts. After his untimely death from leukemia, Goodman's ashes were in
fact scattered at Wrigley Field as described in the lyrics.
The
Statler Brothers' 1981 song "Don't Wait On Me" referred to a
then-implausible situation: "When the lights go on at Wrigley Field."
However, after lights were installed, the line was changed to "When they
put a dome on Wrigley Field" for their 1989 Live-Sold Out album.
A
few brief shots of Wrigley Field appear in the 1949 movie It Happens
Every Spring. It is also seen on the History Channel's show Life After
People.
The
stadium made a brief appearance in the open for the first episode of
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, with Conan rushing through the
turnstiles while running from New York (where his previous show, Late
Night with Conan O'Brien, was taped) to Los Angeles (where his new show
was taped, until his role as host ended on January 22, 2010) and then
running onto the field while being chased by Cubs security. The route
O'Brien takes is somewhat misleading, as he is shown running south on
Michigan Avenue past the Tribune Tower before arriving at Wrigley Field,
which is well north of the Tribune Tower.
In
the movie Category 6: Day of Destruction, a terrorist turns off all the
electricity at the stadium for a few minutes to demonstrate how hackers
could penetrate city electrical systems.
Permanent short link for Go Daddy.com Just ez2.me
Remember nick name for Godaddy.com www.ez2.me Tell your friends about Easy To Me, Go Daddy,s Approved affiliate
No comments:
Post a Comment