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 Snow Pile!

Opening day is in less than four weeks.

The field is covered in snow, massive piles of snow from infield to out. It seems that last week someone in the main office looked out from their window to the snow covered mess below and said "Good Lord, we've got to play baseball out there".  Last week the plows came.

They started digging out, piling mounds of snow onto the sidewalk on Sheffield.

The neighbors complained. Crossing the street proved to be far too difficult for those who chose to live in the immediate shadow of a major league ballpark and so today the piles were being moved, by huge snow moving machine, closer to the wall, so as not to inconvenience anyone for one more day. Given that temperatures around Wrigley are, today, in the upper 40s, I think I would cross the street simply to avoid a small avalanche.

Enormous piles of snow,  taken today from the field, were being dumped into The Snow Melter, that small yellow thing below, which miraculously melted the snow and funneled the resulting water into the drain at the corner of Sheffield and Waveland. The 12 or so men and women hired to direct traffic around this event appeared to be fascinated with the concept of melting snow, as were those walking by, all slowing for a close look before being forced to cross the street (on which side sits the train to take them to work). Such risk, what with that wall of snow precariously placed so close to the sidewalk, to watch snow melt.

In all fairness it's rather a novel idea around here, melting snow.

Six to eight inches forecasted for the city Wednesday, in the winter that will never end.

Thanks Sweet Lou

From 1969 to 1973 Lou Piniella played for the Kansas City Royals, the very years that I learned to love baseball. Either on the front porch, sitting with my great grandmother in her big red chair, or on the ottoman at my grandfather's feet, I spent hours listening to games on the old transistor radio. So long ago did this love begin that I remember falling, and suffering scraped knees, in the gravel of the parking lot at the old Municipal Stadium, torn down years ago after the Royals moved to their current home, Kaufman Stadium. Lou played almost his entire tenure at Municipal Stadium, where, I suspect, he occasionally rewarded himself for a game well played with a brown paper package of burnt ends from Arthur Bryant's, only blocks away.

Lou was my very favorite baseball player, the one whose name I always listened for crackling out of the old radio. In Denny Matthews' so familiar baseball voice, "Piniella with a line drive to second" sent me bouncing, arms outstretched, straight into my grandfather's lap. Clearly the choice of Piniella, rhymes with vanilla, was not a random pick; when Lou defected to the rival Yankees in 1973 I chose Cookie Rojas as my new favorite Royal. Baseball, as influenced by baking, made perfect sense to a six year old.

Four years ago when the Cubs chose Lou as their new manager I was elated. Now in Chicago, Piniella Vanilla and I would be reunited. Two good years, two dismal years, but I loved watching him storm onto the field, red faced and furious, sometimes appearing confused post game, it was good to be back together again. Baseball is not a business to me, it's history and people and sport. And it's this attitude, as I understand, that will keep the Cubs from ringing and offering me Lou's job. Which is just fine, we've had a good run, Lou and I, and I wish him well. Thanks for the wonderful memories, of both then and now, Mr. Piniella.

Maybe Cookie Rojas is available?

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.

The First Day of Next Year

Here's how I fell in love with the Cubs, and Chicago: WGN promotions. They sucked me in, made me want to be a part of it, made me want to spend my summer afternoons at Wrigley Field, amongst all these amazingly happy people enjoying a beautiful day at the ballpark, even when I was miles away at college in Lawrence, Kansas. My friend Laura and I spent our afternoons watching baseball and at the end of the summer I knew I wanted to be a part of that, that ballpark as your neighbor kind of fun. The lights came on at Wrigley that summer and the WGN promo, run over and over and over, was my favorite thing on television "and Ryno rocked the rooftops, and Dawson made them sway...,". I could imagine nothing greater than living near this shrine, "when finally at old Wrigley, the stars come out at night".

Twenty years later I live down the street and I can see those lights from my yard. If only I could find the words to the Stars Come Out at Night poem, what a wonderful bedtime story that would be. Right then, Go Cubs!



My love is here to stay.