wrigley

So this weekend I had the pleasure of making my first trip to the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field and I gotta say, I was thoroughly impressed with the park.  It’s a great park in the middle of a great neighborhood with a ton of stuff to do.  What else can you ask for in a ballpark, right?  But since it’s one of the last, old ballparks remaining it often gets compared to the other great remaining ballpark, Fenway.  And while I agree that Wrigley is a great park to catch a game, it doesn’t hold a candle to that beautiful baseball sanctuary in Boston.

First off, let me say a few nice things about Wrigley.  For starters, it’s a beautiful view.  We were on the third base line looking East at Lake Michigan with the wind blowing in.  The place was packed and yet it still felt comfortable during the game (more on that later).  There seemed to be more arm room than at Fenway (then again I wasn’t sitting next to two other big dudes like myself).  I didn’t feel squished and I didn’t feel like I was interfering if I had to get up to get a beer.  I enjoyed the game immensely.  I went with family and friends including my sister’s boyfriend who was in from London and had never even watched a baseball game before.  I had fun explaining baseball to him as pointed out how it differed from Cricket.  The people around us kept looking at us funny because they couldn’t believe there was a human being who had never seen a baseball game before.  I’m not kidding I went through the basics of outs and runs to slightly more complicated stuff like sac flys.  It was funny to hear myself describe the game the same way I would to a child.

And that’s the extent to which Wrigley is better than Fenway.  Since Wrigley is bigger there’s more walking to your seats which wouldn’t be bad if there wasn’t only one entrance and exit.  Seriously, if you’re going to put 40,000+ people into a single stadium it might be smarter/safer to have a couple of spots where people can get out of the building.  Leaving the park would cause anyone to go crazy as they trudged down the ramps and out of the park at 1/2 a mile per hour, especially because the Cubs won that day and they kept playing that ridiculously stupid Go Cubs Go song.  I’m not kidding, there are AAA teams in the Deep South with better victory songs than the Cubs.  Here, if you haven’t heard it, take a listen and then feel free to curse me in the comments for getting that song stuck in your head.

And while we’re tearing into Wrigley traditons, the Seventh Inning Stretch thing would be better if they could find someone who could sing.  Sure it’s funny when really famous people fuck up Take Me Out to the Ballgame, but when some schmo comes in and sings off key and really slow (Sunday’s rendition had the tempo of a funeral dirge) it’s painful to listen to and even harder to get excited about.

denise_richards_cubs

See? Look how awful she looks right here.

And by the way, having famous people come in and fuck up the Seventh Inning Stretch isn’t that awesome either.  Remember when Denise Richards did it a few weeks back?  Well guess what, she looked like shit and sounded like shit.  We get it, there are a lot of famous people who are Cubs fans.  You know why?  Because Chicago’s a big place and the only cool city in the Midwest.  Any famous person born East of Denver and West of the Mississippi claims the Cubs as their team of choice.

Oh and let’s talk about the obstructed view seats.  Do you know how hard it is to explain baseball to someone who’s never seen it when they can’t see home plate from their seat because there’s a giant fucking beam right in front of them?

Another thing about Wrigley, it’s the least diverse crowd I’ve ever seen at a ballpark and at least one great internet source agrees with me.

My segue in place, let’s talk about the fans.

The fans are what make a ballgame great.  Listening to the roar of the crowd in a close game can cause even the biggest Cubs hater to cheer for them.  Was there a lot of roaring going on in this game?  Hell.  No.  And not because it wasn’t a close game.  The Twins took a 1-0 lead early, fell back to 2-1, and then tied it late on a Carlos Gomez home run.  You know when the crowd finally seemed to get into it?  In the bottom of the ninth.  How is it possible for a crowd of 40,000 people to sit on their hands in a close ball game with a ton of great defensive plays for 3 hours?  How is it possible to only seem to notice the action on the field when the game’s almost over?

One possible explanation is that a large portion of the fans only came to the game to drink with their friends.  Do I oppose such behavior?  Hell no.  I love getting drunk with my friends.  But if you’re going to ignore the game and get blackout drunk then I it is my right duty to call you a crowd full of bad baseball fans.  I saw dozens of shirts bearing a similar theme/logo: a big beer mug with the phrase “Wait…who won?  I got drunk at Wrigley.”

I know this is nothing new to most of you seeing as Wrigley has always had the reputation of being a big frat party.  But experiencing it for the first time, I was stunned by how little attention people were paying to the game.

So yeah, Wrigley is a hell of a park, but the mecca of baseball it most certainly is not.

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