A Nice Little Place Down the Street

Once upon a time, when my day started with a quick run or a dog walk around the neighborhood, and every day was sunny but not too hot, I would occasionally stop at the ticket window to see if they had any of those $15 day of game bleacher tickets. And more often than not, certainly more often than I should have, I would buy one and spend my afternoon, not in my broom closet turned office doing work that I actually hated, but in the beautiful bleachers at Wrigley Field, with 3,000 others who also hated their job or were happily unemployed.*

My mornings no longer start with a run, the dog died, my job is not so bad and bleacher tickets cost over $50; I hardly spend anytime at Wrigley, a very nice place just down the street, my favorite place to be on a summer afternoon.

George Will shares my love of Wrigley, which he writes about in A Nice Little Place on the North Side. Will, conservative columnist and Cubs fan, ambles through the history of Wrigley Field with the pace of a lazy summer day. His anecdotal tour of Wrigley, and the Cubs, is a delightful and engaging read, the past easily building the story of modern day Wrigley.

Will, born a Cubs fan, covers not only the history of the ball park but how that history plays a key part in the Cubs consistently dismal summer standings. Only one other team in Major League Baseball is so closely tied to a stadium, and they seem to have figured out how to win, not so the Cubs. Is it true, that the beauty and experience of Wrigley, the friendly confines, contributes in part to the Cubs consistently lackluster performance? Will's writing is engaging and clever, and full of arcane stories that all come together to create a historical portrait of a beloved team playing in an equally beloved ballpark. Will's story is not just a birthday card, it's a delightful romp through one hundred years of baseball, Wrigley, Cubs and heartache.

Through Blogging for Books, I received a review copy of this book.

*See Elia's infamous tirade, "don't these people have jobs?"

Take Me Out to the Amusement Park

My love of baseball was cultivated in a time when baseball was the star of the game. I am so old that my first games were at  Municipal Stadium in Kansas City which was torn down so long ago that a community garden now grows on the site. I am so old, in fact, that my clearest memories of being there are of falling in the gravel parking lot while racing inside, leaving several nice scars on each knee. Municipal Stadium was so old that it was once the home of the KC Monarchs, the Negro League team, and the stadium so bare that there was little else to do but watch the game. It was here I chose Lou Piniella as my favorite player and learned what the numbers 1 through 9 signified. It was here that I developed a passion for a summer day at the ballpark, warm and sticky, with 9 innings and a blank scorecard in front of me, in anxious anticipation for the 7th inning stretch. It was here I sat, between my father and grandfather, topped with a Royal Blue ball cap, Cracker Jack in hand, ideally happy for many a summer day.

Two years ago we took the girls to a game at Kaufman Stadium, the current home of the Royals, which replaced my old Municipal Stadium years ago. It's a beautiful stadium which recently went through a $250 million dollar renovation. Somewhere during the process I think they forgot about baseball, or at least baseball as related to children. In the outfield area you can now find a batting cage, a playground, a carousel, and miniature golf. I don't know but I suspect you might also find a nap room, pony rides, a magician and a place to get your oil changed. There is a "child friendly" food area; as the mother of two children I am wildly curious to know exactly what ballpark food falls outside the definition of child friendly. Wasn't ballpark food created with the child like idea that food should be bad for you and served utensil free, preferably on a stick? It seems that the Royals succumbed to the relatively new notion that children cannot be happy unless they are entertained at every possible level and that a good day out with your family is simply not enough. It's still a beautiful stadium but I worry that this kind of day at the amusement park baseball is doing little to cultivate baseball fans; when the Royals are down 7-2 in the fifth, is that really the time to get in a round of mini-golf?

The beautiful old gal down the street is soon to be having some work done, and it's time.The Cubs recently announced plans to renovate Wrigley, which, given the netting that hangs above, protecting my head from falling concrete, seems reasonable. Included into the agreement, a jumbo screen, twice the size of the beautiful old scoreboard, to be placed in left field, next to the existing one. Doesn't that seem a bit like marrying your young secretary but keeping your middle aged wife around to do the laundry? Is anyone going to wait in anticipation for the scoreboard guy to manually change the numbers when the jumbo screen will have that information up immediately, as well as instant replay, advertisements, wedding proposals and various games intended to embarrass and entertain fans in those 7 second increments, previously so painfully boring, between strike out and new batter.

Thankfully, should you not be entertained by watching two strangers kiss on the 5,000 square foot video screen, you can now spend your baseball watching time in a two story Captain Morgan Club, doubling the size of the previous eyesore on the front of the stadium. Perhaps in making it two stories they might diminish, by perspective, that ridiculous pirate that now stands near the Addison and Sheffield entrance.

The 21 year old quasi Cubs fans are covered, they can spend their nine innings swilling run in the shadow of a pirate, but what about those precious children who come to the ballpark; what are they to do for nine long innings? Surely we cannot have them sitting in their seats with nothing to do but watch baseball for three hours? Having thought of everything, the Cubs have included a kids play zone on the west side of the park, confirming my suspicions that the Cubs now agree, baseball is simply not enough.

Municipal Stadium image courtesy of ballparks.phanfare.com. 
Image of Kate courtesy of me.

Ahoy Cubbies!

The Cubs can't beat the Pirates? Or at least they have a very difficult time trying? 5-1 this year, the only win thus far coming yesterday, a one run salvation. Interesting, overall they lead the series; from 2000 through 2009 the record stood at 95-66, Cubs in front. But now, they just can't win.

Clearly I'm no expert, having managed very few major league baseball teams over the years, but really, maybe putting a statue of a pirate in front of the stadium was just not a great idea.

Harry, The Pirate and Ernie, sounds like a Sesame Street segment, not the lineup outside one of the most revered ball parks in the country. Even my children know, Mary suggested yesterday that we sneak down and steal the pirate, late at night when no one would see us. My five year old understands, there are no pirates in baseball, or at least there shouldn't be, not at Wrigley Field.

Sing Me A Song

The list he put together was painful, lining me up and shooting me straight at middle aged suburban motherhood when I was just barely 30. He started with Michael Bolton, and then it got really bad, Celine Dion, Rod Stewart. We were sitting in his car, listening to his edgy Nebraska music, which caused me angst and occasional pain, whereas Celine and Rod would put me to sleep, the latter preferable as it was late and I was ready to go home. Jack thought he knew me so well, smug so early in our relationship.

Several years ago he bought me a Barry Manilow CD for my birthday. "Barry Manilow, come on", but I loved it, and I knew all the words. There is no such discovery when John Denver sings and no hiding the love, John Denver is the music of my childhood, of summers spent in Colorado listening to him sing of poems and prayers and promises while breathing in the crisp evening air tainted with smoldering logs on the fireplace next door. Perhaps I can hide my Barry love but I'm all out when it comes to John Denver.

But in high school, when everyone else was listening to Prince and Madonna and Michael Jackson, my heart belonged to the Piano Man,

A bottle of red, a bottle of white, perhaps a bottle of rose tonight.

I'll meet you anywhere you want, in our Italian restaurant.

He sang that and an amazing list of others, but of course there was so much more, including my favorite love song, that missed the cut. Elton John was there also, they sang together, they sang apart, and I sang along, every single song, my middle aged housewife self, serenading my husband, and 40,000 others at Wrigley Field last week.

Two years ago I was a purist, music at Wrigley Field? Please no, Wrigley Field is for baseball. No longer do I stand on antiquated baseball principle; bring on the music, it was a magical night.