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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 also the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League from 1921-1970.It also hosted the second annual NHL Winter Classic on January 1, 2009. It was also called Cubs Park from 1920 to 1926 before finally being renamed for then Cubs team owner and chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr.
Located in the residential neighborhood of Lakeview, Wrigley Field sits on an irregular block bounded by Clark (west) and Addison (south) Streets and Waveland (north) and Sheffield (east) Avenues.
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Encyclopedia
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 also the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League from 1921-1970.It also hosted the second annual NHL Winter Classic on January 1, 2009. It was also called Cubs Park from 1920 to 1926 before finally being renamed for then Cubs team owner and chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr.
Located in the residential neighborhood 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 bars, restaurants and other establishments and is typically referred to as 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. Since 2006, its capacity has been 41,118, making Wrigley Field the fourth-smallest and most actively used ballpark in 2006. 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. When opened in 1914, Wrigley Field had a seating capacity of 14,000 and cost $250,000 to build.
History
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.
Owned by the Tribune Company since 1981, Wrigley Field has been a notable exception to the recent trend of selling corporate naming rights to sporting venues. The Tribune Company 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 audience. 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 and Southwest Airlines.
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. However, the aging sign was 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. 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.
"White flag time at Wrigley!"
The term "White flag time at Wrigley!" means the Cubs have won. This exclamation was started by former Cubs TV broadcaster Chip Caray in the late 1990s despite the fact that the ritual had been practiced for decades.
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. It is believed the win flag was switched to match that scheme.
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.
Unusual wind patterns
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.
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 well".
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 Avenue 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, one 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 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.
Other Sports at Wrigley Field
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, 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 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. 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.
Rooftop seats
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 somehow. The flat rooftops of the apartment buildings across Waveland and Sheffield, which actually 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 got carried away: they 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 (2007), the next two digits indicate the number of years since the Cubs' last trip to the World Series (1945), and the last two digits indicate the number of years since their last World Series win (1908). It is not currently known what the LBC will do since the Cubs have reached 100 years without a World Series title.
Today, Wrigley rooftops have become a fun and affordable way to watch the games. Rooftops such as Wrigley Done Right feature bleachers, a bar, food, drinks and great game-day atmosphere.
Pop culture references
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. 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. 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, 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 entitled "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.
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 for their 1989 Live-Sold Out album. was changed to: "When they put a dome on Wrigley Field."
A few brief shots of Wrigley Field appear in the 1949 movie It Happens Every Spring
Travel and accessibility
The Red Line stop at Addison is less than one block east of Wrigley Field. The stadium was originally built for proximity to the train tracks. At the conclusion of games, the scoreboard operator raises to the top of the centerfield scoreboard either a white flag with a blue "W" to signify a Cubs victory or a blue flag with a white "L" for a loss. This is done not only to allow passengers on the nearby "El" trains to see the outcome of the game, but also anyone passing by the park can now know the results of that day's game. Interestingly, the basic flag color was once the exact opposite of the colors used today (the rationale being that white is the traditional color for surrender). In addition to rail service, the CTA provides several bus routes which service Wrigley. The Addison 152, Clark 22, and Halsted 8 routes all provide access to the ballpark. Biking to the field is also a popular alternative. As Halsted, Addison, and Clark streets all have designated biking lanes, getting to the field via bicycle is a great way to avoid hectic traffic before and after games. Bikers need not worry about their bike during the game, because Wrigley Field offers a complimentary bike check program. Cyclists may check their bikes up to 2 hours before games at the bike racks off of Waveland Ave, and may pick up their bikes up to one hour after games end.
Parking in the area remains scarce, but that does not seem to bother fans who want to come to this baseball Mecca, which has drawn more than 3 million fans every year since 2004, averaging to a near-sellout every day of the season, even with those many weekday afternoon games. The little parking that is available around the park can go for as much as $25 or $30 per space.
Commemorative stamps
In 2001, a series of commemorative postage stamps on the subject of baseball parks was issued by the U.S. Postal Service. Most of them were engravings taken from old colorized postcards, including the illustration of Wrigley Field. In the case of Wrigley, the famous scoreboard was sliced off, presumably to hide the original postcard's banner containing the park's name. It may also be observed that the original black-and-white aerial photo, presumably from the 1945 World Series, was taken from nearly the identical spot as the photo of the 1935 Series, allowing a comparison before and after the 1937 alterations to the bleachers. The stamp and its sources also provide a rare look at the center field bleachers filled with spectators, a practice which was later discontinued due to the risk to batters, who might lose the flight of a pitch amidst the white shirts.
Historic moments
1910s
- April 23, 1914: The Federal League Chifeds play the first game at the brand new Weeghman Park. After parades and ceremonies, the Chifeds defeat the visiting Kansas City Packers, 9–1.
- October 3, 1915: The renamed Chicago Whales clinch what would turn out to be the final Federal League pennant in perhaps the closest pennant race in history. Going into the last day of the season, Chicago was four percentage points ahead of the Pittsburgh Rebels and five ahead of the St. Louis Terriers. St. Louis won its game against Kansas City, putting them just two points behind Chicago and two ahead of Pittsburgh. The Whales were scheduled to play a doubleheader against Pittsburgh at Weeghman Park. The Whales lost the first game, 5–4, in the eleventh inning after having led 4–1 with two outs in the ninth inning. A loss or tie in the second game would give Pittsburgh the FL pennant, while a win would give the Whales the pennant. As the sun drew low during the second game, the game remained scorless. Finally, in the sixth inning, the Whales scored three runs, two of them from a Max Flack double. The game was called due to darkness after Pittsburgh failed to score in the top of the seventh inning. The Whales ended up winners of the pennant by .001 over St. Louis, and Pittsburgh ended up third, one-half game back.
- April 20, 1916: The Cubs play their first game in Weeghman Park, as the franchise had merged with the Whales after the 1915 season. The Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7–6 in eleven innings.
- May 2, 1917: Jim "Hippo" Vaughn and the Cincinnati Reds's Fred Toney both pitch nine-inning no-hitters before Jim Thorpe drives in a run in the 10th inning for a Reds victory.
- August 29, 1918: With the season ending early due to war restrictions, the Chicago Cubs clinch the National League pennant with a 1–0 win over the Cincinnati Reds at Weeghman Park. The Cubs would play their home games of that year's World Series in Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox. Weeghman Park would not see its first World Series game until 1929, when it had become known as Wrigley Field.
1920s
- June 26, 1920: In a high-school "inter-state championship" game between New York City's Commerce High and Chicago's Lane Tech, just-turned-17 New York player Lou Gehrig slugs a grand slam to lead his team to a comeback victory.
- August 25, 1922: The Cubs defeat the Philadelphia Phillies 26-23 in what remains (through 2009) the highest-scoring game in major league history (49 runs total). After spotting the Phils an early 2-1 lead, the Cubs score 10 in the second and 14 in the fourth, leading 25-6 at that point. The Phillies outscore the Cubs 17-1 during the last five innings, but the Cubs hang on to win in the ninth (with the potential lead run at the plate), avoiding what would have been the most lopsided comeback in history (the Phillies will save that effort for a game here in 1976). The winds apparently shift the next day, as the Cubs lose to the Phils 3-0.
- September 18, 1929: The Cubs clinch the National League pennant, losing their game, but the second place team also loses and is eliminated on the same day.
1930s
- September 20, 1932: The Cubs clinch the pennant, defeating the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-2.
- October 1, 1932: Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees hits his famous "called shot" in the 5th inning of Game 3 of the World Series.
- December 17, 1933: The Chicago Bears win the first-ever NFL East-vs.-West Championship Game, over the New York Giants, 23-21.
- December 12, 1937: The Washington Redskins defeat the Chicago Bears at Wrigley, 28-21 in the NFL championship game.
- September 28, 1938: Gabby Hartnett hits the "Homer in the Gloamin'" to lift the Cubs past in the standings, and deal a fatal blow to, the Pittsburgh Pirates, who had led the National League for much of the summer. The Cubs' actual pennant clinching comes in St. Louis three days later.
1940s
- December 21, 1941: Two weeks after Pearl Harbor, the Bears win the NFL Championship Game, over the New York Giants, 37-9.
- December 26, 1943: The Bears win the NFL Championship Game, over the Washington Redskins, 41-21.
- October 6, 1945: The most commonly accepted date of the (possibly apocryphal) Curse of the Billy Goat incident.
- July 8, 1947: MLB All-Star Game. Americans 2, Nationals 1.
- May 31, 1948: The Cubs set a paid attendance record when 46‚965 pass through the turnstiles for a doubleheader with the Pirates. The Cubs take the opener‚ 4-3 behind reliever Bob Rush‚ then drop the nitecap‚ 4–2 to Elmer Riddle. Andy Pafko is the hitting star‚ pounding out five hits‚ including a homer in each game.
1950s
- August 21, 1954: Under portable lights and in front of a crowd of over 14,000, the Harlem Globetrotters defeat George Mikan's U.S. All-Stars by a score of 57-51.
- May 12, 1955: Sam Jones pitches a 4–0 no-hitter over the Pittsburgh Pirates, the hard way: he walks the bases full in the 9th inning, and then strikes out the side.
- May 13, 1958: Stan "The Man" Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals achieves his 3000th career hit, in a pinch-hitting role. This deprives Cardinals fans of the chance to see him reach this milestone at home, but Harry Caray's ecstatic voice describes the action for listeners of the Cardinals radio network - Caray's future status as a Cubs icon unsuspected by anyone.
- June 30, 1959: In one of the wackier moments in baseball history, an umpire's mistake results in two baseballs being in play at the same time. The visiting St. Louis Cardinals file a protest, but withdraw the protest after winning the game. Thus the two-baseball play is allowed to stand.
1960s
- May 15, 1960: Don Cardwell, making his debut with the Cubs following a trade, pitches a 4-0 no-hitter over the St. Louis Cardinals. With 2 outs in the 9th and two strikes on him, the Cards' Joe Cunningham nearly breaks it up with a line drive to left field, but Moose Moryn makes a running, shoetop catch for the final out.
- May 28, 1961: A literal case of a "fireman" garnering a "save" for the Cubs. During a contest with the San Francisco Giants, a hot dog stand near the right field corner catches fire, and Wrigleyville's Fire Engine House #78 (built in 1915) is called in from its "bullpen" across Waveland to extinguish the blaze.
- July 23, 1962: Wrigley Field goes international, as Telstar transmits images from the Phillies-Cubs game (patched into the WGN-TV coverage) to overseas receiving stations.
- July 30, 1962: Second 1962 Major League Baseball All-Star Game (two were played each year 1959-1962). Americans 9, Nationals 4. The last time the center field bleachers are open to fans, in the park's baseball configuration.
- December 29, 1963: The Bears win the NFL Championship over the New York Giants, 14-10, on a bright, clear and frigid Sunday afternoon (it was 9 °F. at kickoff).
- December 12, 1965: Gale Sayers of the Bears runs for a record-tying six touchdowns, as the Bears rout the San Francisco 49ers 61-20.
- September 21, 1966: A paid attendance of only 530 fans, the smallest crowd in the history of Wrigley Field, watches the Cubs defeat the Cincinnati Reds 9-3 on a Wednesday afternoon, near the end of a season that saw the Cubs lose 103 games and finish in 10th place.
- June 29, 1969: The Cubs hold a "Day" for Billy Williams at Wrigley, in a doubleheader against the Cardinals before 41,060 fans, some dressed in red and some in blue. In a happy scheduling coincidence, Williams will tie and pass Cardinals icon Stan Musial for the National League consecutive games record (895 and 896). Williams contributes 5 hits as the Cubs edge out the Cardinals in the opener, 3-1, and then thump the Redbirds in the late-afternoon-cap, 12-1.
- August 19, 1969: Ken Holtzman no-hits the powerful-hitting Atlanta Braves, 3-0, in what proves to be the high watermark of the ill-fated 1969 season, aided by a strong northerly wind. In the 7th inning, Henry Aaron socks one that appears to be headed for Waveland Avenue, but the wind smacks it down and into the glove of the leaping Billy Williams. Aaron also makes the final out, a ground ball from Beckert to Banks.
1970s
*May 12, 1970: Ernie Banks hits his 500th career home run against Pat Jarvis of the Atlanta Braves.
- April 16, 1972: Burt Hooton throws a no-hitter, a 4-0 win over the Phillies. The season had started late due to a players' strike, and this one came on the second day of the season.
- September 2, 1972: Milt Pappas pitches an 8-0 no-hitter over the San Diego Padres. He comes within one strike of a perfect game, but walks the batter. The pitched called as a ball was highly controversial in Chicagoland, for Milt Pappas and Cubs fans alike believe the pitch was a strike, and not a ball. He then retires the final batter. After a relative rash of Wrigley and Cubs no-hitters, this was the last by a Cub until Carlos Zambrano did so against the Astros in Milwaukee due to Hurricane Ike.
- April 17, 1976: With a strong prevailing southerly breeze, the Cubs take a 13-2 lead over the Phillies through 4 innings, only to finally lose 18-16 in 10 innings, as the Phils tie the NL record for the largest lead overcome. Tied at 15-15, the Phils score three in the 10th, partly on the strength of Mike Schmidt's 4th home run of the game, and the Cubs are only able to come back with one in their half of the 10th. This allows the Phils to tie the National League record for largest deficit overcome (11 runs), as some compensation for having barely failed to accomplish a 19-run comeback here in 1922.
- May 17, 1979: In another windblown game with the Phillies, echoing the high-scoring Cubs-Phillies games of 1922 and 1976, the Phils take a large lead only to have the Cubs catch them in the late innings. However, Schmidt does the Cubs in again, hitting a homer (his second of the day) in the 10th (off Bruce Sutter) to give the Phillies a 23-22 win. Dave Kingman hits three homers that day in a losing cause. In a curious mix of nostalgia and masochism, the following winter WGN-TV will replay the entire game videotape, as a "snow day" special.
1980s
- August 18, 1982: The Cubs lose to the Los Angeles Dodgers 2–1 in a 21-inning contest, the longest game ever played at Wrigley Field. The game had been suspended due to darkness at the end of the 17th inning the previous afternoon. Dusty Baker drove in the winning run on a sacrifice fly in the top of the 21st.
- April 29, 1983: Following a loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cubs manager Lee Elia unleashes a verbal tirade against Cub fans, suggesting they were unemployed losers (in 1983, home games were still played exclusively during the day). At the time the Cubs were 5–14 on the season, and the team was the subject of frequent booing and heckling. Elia was fired in August, partly due to the bad blood resulting from his comments.
- June 10, 1983: Ferguson Jenkins pitches a four-hit complete game shutout against the reigning World Champion St. Louis Cardinals. Jenkins' 281st career win was witnessed by 37,024 fans -- the largest crowd at Wrigley in nearly two years. The game would turn out to be the last hurrah for the 39-year-old pitcher. Toward the end of the season, Jenkins was demoted to a relief pitching role, and was released the following spring with 284 lifetime victories.
- August 24, 1983: Cubs pitcher Chuck Rainey comes within one out of pitching a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds' Eddie Milner singled with two outs in the ninth inning to break up Rainey's gem. Rainey wound up with a one-hit victory over the Reds, 3–0.
- June 23, 1984: "The Sandberg Game" - The nationally televised Saturday game against the Cardinals that puts Ryne Sandberg "on the map" and comes to symbolize the season for the Cubs, who will go on to win their first title of any kind since 1945. The Cubs overcome deficits of 7–1, 9–3, and 11–9 as Sandberg hits a pair of game-tying home runs in late inning action, both off ex-Cubs ace Bruce Sutter, a wild one eventually won by the Cubs 12–11 in 11 innings. ESPN replayed significant portions of the game prior to Sandberg's Hall of Fame induction in 2005, which show Sutter turning and shouting "Damn!" to himself when Sandberg hits the second one. However, Sutter later credited that replaying with helping him achieve his own Hall of Fame election the following year.
- October 2, 1984: The Cubs clobber the San Diego Padres 13–0 in the first game of the National League Championship Series. It is the Cubs' first postseason appearance since 1945. The Cubs combine for five home runs, including one by pitcher Rick Sutcliffe.
- September 8, 1985: Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds collects his 4,190th and 4,191st career hits, in the first and fifth innings respectively, and has a chance at 4,192 in the top of the ninth; but with dark clouds closing in, fireballing reliever Lee Smith strikes Rose out. The game will be called on account of darkness after another half inning - fittingly, a tie. At the time, Rose's fifth-inning hit was believed to have tied Ty Cobb's career record (WGN-TV flashed "Tied with Ty" on-screen), and 4,191 is still recognized by Major League Baseball as Cobb's official hit total. Independent researchers now believe Cobb's hit total to be 4,189, which if true would mean that Rose actually broke the record in the first inning. Rose was only in the lineup due to a last-minute pitching change. Rose normally batted only against right-handers. With lefty Steve Trout on the mound, Rose was due to be on the bench, and likely to tie and break Cobb's record in an upcoming 10-game homestand. But Trout's left arm had been injured in a fall while bicycling with his family the previous evening, and right-hander Reggie Patterson was announced as the starter. Rose, putting discipline ahead of sentiment, inserted himself in the lineup for the game and made some history.
- 1987: Wrigley Field is placed on the National Register of Historic Places
- August 27, 1987: Entering the 8th inning with an 8–6 lead over the Atlanta Braves in the second game of a doubleheader, darkness sets in and the game is called off, resulting in a Cubs victory. A routine occurrence in the pre-light years, the installation of lights the following season makes such suspensions less likely in the future.
- August 8, 1988: The Cubs play their first game under newly installed lights at Wrigley Field. Mother Nature apparently does not approve, however, as rain forces the postponement of the game in the fourth inning, with the Cubs leading the Philadelphia Phillies, 3–1.
- August 9, 1988: The Chicago Cubs host the New York Mets in their first official night game at Wrigley Field. The Cubs beat the Mets 6–4.
1990s
2000s
- September 27, 2003: The Cubs clinch the National League Central division title, with a 7–2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
- October 14, 2003: In the top of the eighth inning of NLCS Game 6 with the Cubs leading 3–0 and five outs away from their first World Series in 58 years, a fan named Steve Bartman attempts to catch a foul ball, thwarting left fielder Moisés Alou's attempt to catch it. This incident is soon followed by walks, hits, a wild pitch and shortstop Alex S. Gonzalez's crucial error on a potential, inning-ending double play. The 8-run inning results in a Cubs loss. The Cubs would also lose Game 7 to the eventual World Series Champion Florida Marlins.
- September 25, 2004: Security footage shows Sammy Sosa leaving Wrigley Field 15 minutes after the start of the last game of the 2004 season, which Sosa denied, claiming that he left much later. Sosa would later be traded to the Baltimore Orioles, ending a 12-year stint with the ballclub.
- July 26, 2005: Cubs pitcher Greg Maddux strikes out Omar Vizquel to become the thirteenth member of the 3000 strikeout club.
- September 4 & 5, 2005: Jimmy Buffett becomes first musician to use Wrigley Field as a concert venue.
- June 13, 2006: The Cubs become the first team to use cell phones to call to the bullpen. Manager Phil Garner of the Houston Astros makes the first call to pitching coach Jim Hickey to "test" the line.
- July 30–August 2, 2007: The Cubs set a home attendance record for a four-game series with the Philadelphia Phillies, which draws 163,727.
- August 5, 2007: New York Mets pitcher Tom Glavine wins the 300th game of his career, defeating the Cubs 8–3.
- October 6, 2007: The Cubs are eliminated from the NLDS when they go down 3–0 to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
- March 31, 2008: The Cubs welcome opening day of the 2008 season against the Milwaukee Brewers by unveiling a life-size sculpture of Ernie Banks outside Wrigley Field. The statue originally includes a typo, "Lets Play Two," a phrase Banks was known for saying. An apostrophe was added two days later to correctly read "Let's Play Two."
- May 16, 2008: In only its 25th game of the season, Wrigley Field season attendance passes the million mark, the fastest in team history.
- June 12, 2008: To celebrate the 60th anniversary of WGN TV broadcasting, the Cubs host a "throw-back" game, in which the first two innings are broadcast in black and white as they were in 1948. The Cubs and the Atlanta Braves both wear period uniforms, and for the day the Atlanta Braves revert to the Boston Braves. The Cubs win 3-2 in the 13th inning.
- July 29, 2008: Wrigley Field hosted, for the first time in its storied history, a minor league game when the Single-A Peoria Chiefs, coached by Hall of Famer and former Cub Ryne Sandberg, hosted the Kane County Cougars, a very popular Oakland Athletics affiliate based in St. Charles, Illinois. Over 32,000 fans were present for the historic contest. The game was marked by dramatic weather, as well as the first-ever home run hit by a minor leaguer at Wrigley Field which was hit by Greg Dowling of the Kane County Cougars. Dutchie Caray, the widow of legendary Cubs announcer Harry Caray, sang the seventh-inning stretch. The game was called in the 9th due to rain and lightening, tied at 6, and was completed the next day in Peoria with the Chiefs winning 9-8.
- August 4, 2008: The stadium is evacuated after tornado warnings in downtown Chicago. The white civil defense siren behind left field sounds for the surrounding Wrigleyville area and farther east in downtown Chicago. This marks the first time that Wrigley Field is evacuated due to threatening weather.
- August 25, 2008: Wrigley, with a scheduled day game, becomes the first major league ballpark to activate instant replay technology, a few hours ahead of some teams that had night games scheduled.
- September 20, 2008: Cubs clinch the NL Central title with a 5-4 win over St. Louis.
- January 1, 2009: The Detroit Red Wings defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 6-4 in the 2009 NHL Winter Classic. It was the first hockey game played at Wrigley Field. It was also the first non-baseball sporting event since the Chicago Sting played their home games at Wrigley in 1984.
- January, 2009: Tribune Entertainment announced that they had filed Bankrputcy protection in a Cook County Court, and stated that Wrigley Field, and the Chicago Cubs were up for sale.
- January 22, 2009: Tribune Entertainment stated, that pending the agreement of the MLB owners, Wrigley Field, and the Chicago Cubs, the team would be sold to Tom Ricketts and his family, for $900 million.
See also
Sources
- A Day at the Park, by William Hartel
- Ballparks of North America, by Michael Benson
- Cubs Journal, by John Snyder
- Green Cathedrals, by Philip J. Lowry
- Wrigley Field: The Unauthorized Biography, by Stuart Shea
- by Devin Pratt
External links
- Wrigley Field is at coordinates
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