Open letter to Tom Ricketts, new Cubs owner

Mr. Tom Ricketts
Chicago Cubs
1060 W Addison St
Chicago IL 60613-4305

Dear Mr. Ricketts:

I read about the proposed upgrades to Wrigley Field in the newspaper on Feb. 10. If you take a walk around Wrigley Field and compare it to other ballparks, I’m sure you would come to the same conclusion I did: the entire grandstand needs to be razed and replaced with a new, modern edifice. The new seating areas would include a luxury box level behind home plate; a club level; first-class skyboxes; a spacious upper deck; plentiful concessions stands and wide concourses. The players would enjoy a modern clubhouse and indoor batting/workout area. I hope you will work with an architect that will guide you through these plans and bring them to fruition before the aging structure collapses and hurts someone.

Just as important to the Cubs’ future success is a night-game schedule that resembles those of the Cubs’ league rivals. If you speak to the manager, coaches and players, they would likely tell you how important it is to play 55 home games at night, like their rivals do. Wrigley’s Friday matinees are especially hard on players, as other teams play all 13 Friday home games at night. There are far too many weekday matinees—27 this year, excluding Opening Day and Labor Day—while other clubs play five or fewer. Fans should not be forced to take days off to see the Cubs. Television revenue also suffers.

All that stands between the Cubs and a regular night-game schedule is Ald. Tom Tunney. He helped the Cubs revise their night-game agreement with the city in
2003. If you demonstrate to the alderman your commitment to revitalizing the neighborhood and bringing home a World Series championship, he would surely listen to your scheduling concerns.

Thank you very much for your attention to these important matters. Go Cubs!

Sincerely,

A potential solution lurks in the Wrigley Field night-game saga

I'm disappointed it took me so long to come up with this.

The Cubs need more night games--eventually up to 55 home games at night per season, up from their current limit of 30. The Cubs' neighbors who forced through the city ordinance banning night games at Wrigley Field, with the help of former Ald. Bernie Hansen, want the Cubs to stay in the neighborhood. (The Cubs receive permission from the city to play a limited number of night games per season, but the ordinance does ban night games at Wrigley Field. That limited number stands at 30.) So the Cubs call Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) for a friendly meeting. Then the Cubs, in a respectful, polite way, will tell the alderman: If we don't start playing as many night games as we want, whenever we want (including Fridays and Saturdays), beginning with the 2011 season, we won't play a full schedule in Wrigley Field anymore.

With a little planning, the Cubs could probably implement this plan this season. Owner Tom Ricketts places a call to his crosstown colleague, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf. Would it be all right if we used your ballpark for a few games? Uncle Jerry would be delighted. The decision wouldn't really be up to him; it would be up to the government agency that runs the taxpayer-financed and -owned ballpark. It would also need MLB commissioner Bud Selig's rubber stamp. But I'm sure everyone would be agreeable. Reinsdorf would love to show off his ballpark to a fresh audience of Cubs fans, most of whom would only venture to Bridgeport to see the Cubs anyway. With the current interleague schedule of just three Cubs games per season at U.S. Cellular Field, very few Cubs fans have ever visited the South Side ballpark because those tickets are in such high demand. Reinsdorf and the White Sox would enjoy additional revenue from Cubs games, which they would share with the Cubs.

Happily, several White Sox road trips and Cubs homestands coincide in the heat of the summer this season. Here's a sample itinerary:

Thurs. July 15 - Sun. July 25: the Cubs add another two night games to their schedule.
Tues. Aug. 2 - Mon. Aug. 9: the Cubs add another two night games to their schedule.
Mon. Aug. 16 - Mon. Aug. 23: the Cubs add another three night games to their schedule.

In three stretches, that's an increase of 7 night games--23 percent over the Cubs' permitted limit of just 30 night games in that dump Wrigley Field. But moving these games 8.1 miles south poses serious consequences for Wrigley's Lakeview neighborhood, commonly known as Wrigleyville. Moving so many games in the heat of the summer--which is the whole point, to give the players respite from the brutal sunshine. This is also the most profitable time of year for businesses that depend on Cubs fans spending time and money in the neighborhood. If the Cubs aren't home for this critical period, that would be devastating for numerous bars and restaurants.

And I think the Cubs should go right ahead and do it. The night-game limit is keeping the Cubs from their goal of bringing a World Series championship to Wrigley Field. If the Cubs convince their Wrigley neighbors the night-game limit makes it impossible for them to be competitive, and that they will seriously consider and act upon alternatives, the neighbors will knock down Ald. Tunney's door, demanding that he give the Cubs the night games they want.

Working this out with the fans is really a minor issue. The Cubs could provide bus service to U.S. Cellular Field from Wrigley Field and the Wrigley night parking lot (Lane Technical High School). Fans could convert their Wrigley seats to U.S. Cellular seats at the Cubs' website. Once Cubs fans visit Sox Park for the first time and enjoy the wide concourses, plentiful concessions, plentiful on-site parking, and unobstructed views of the action, they may not want to go back to Wrigley Field.

Then Uncle Jerry would have the last laugh.

No silent defenders of that dump Wrigley Field

A friendly warning to those who might dare criticize that miserable, pathetic, dilapidated, decrepit, sorry excuse for a ballpark Wrigley Field: bring an umbrella. And old clothes. And be ready to duck the tomatoes.

That dump Wrigley Field certainly has its defenders who have made their feelings known to me, quite a few of whom are young Jewish women. "Charming." Of course it is. So is a park bench in a downpour. Nice to look at--not so nice to sit in and take in a game. Around the league, the only ballparks that approach Wrigley Field in terms of "worst ballpark experience" are Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (1966) and Fenway Park (1916). Alameda County's taxpayers built the Coliseum as a bipurpose facility for baseball and football. Apparently the Oakland Raiders' return in 1995 and the Coliseum's subsequent remodeling for football ruined it for baseball. Like that overcrowded bandbox Wrigley Field, Fenway Park looks nice on tv and is full of history, but it's a terrible place to watch a ballgame.

Part of the blame for the sad state of Wrigley Field, which should have been imploded years ago, falls directly on the Cubs' miserable ownership. Decades of neglect from the Wrigley family and then Tribune Co. contributed to the Cubs remaining in a ballpark best suited for baseball in the 1930's and 1940's, when it was just a few decades old and still on the cutting edge of ballpark technology and architecture. If Chicago had followed the lead of major National League cities such as Atlanta, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Cincinnati in the 1960's, it would have built a bipurpose baseball-football facility for the Cubs and Bears. Instead, the Bears moved from Wrigley Field to a college athletic stadium--Soldier Field--and the Cubs stayed put. P.K. Wrigley never bothered to install lights despite all his fellow owners doing so. Why didn't Major League Baseball force the Cubs to start playing home games at night? So sad that they are now stuck in a serious competitive disadvantage due to playing 45 percent fewer night games than their rival clubs.

So neither the Wrigley family nor Tribune Co. followed their fellow owners in friendly blackmail with their civic hosts: threaten to leave if the taxpayers don't come up with a new ballpark. The Wrigleys sat quietly by (never having enough money to run the team well after the 1930's, anyway) while their colleagues built new stadiums in the 1950's and 1960's. The Tribune Co. enjoyed the revenue from the renewed popularity of "retro" Wrigley Field in the 1990's and 2000's (while fielding truly awful Cubs teams) while other cities indulged their baseball teams again with new ballparks.

Now the Cubs are doubly cursed: they aren't allowed to play enough night games in an aging, decrepit ballpark the city is ready to condemn. An urban legend says the Wrigleys bought lighting equipment in 1941, and then the U.S. went to war, so the Wrigleys donated the equipment to the war effort. And they did nothing about lights from 1945 until they sold the club in 1981! To make matters worse, the new owners at that time, the Tribune Co., compromised with the city and the Cubs' neighbors, agreeing to very strict, untenable night game limits: 18 night games per season beginning in 1989, and 30 night games per season beginning in 2004 and continuing today. Other teams play 55 home games at night. The Cubs wear themselves out in the summer sun every season, meaning they need to be much stronger than their rivals to reach the playoffs. It's not a coincidence they haven't won the pennant since 1945, when most teams were still playing no night games or very few night games. It's a severe competitive disadvantage.

New owner Tom Ricketts announced very modest plans to renovate his ballpark, but he isn't even replacing the troughs in the men's restrooms. He wants the Cubs to host the All-Star Game in 2014, but he isn't planning any serious upgrades, and he isn't interested in changing the night-game schedule. I guess he isn't serious about a world championship, either.