Baseball-Related Program Activities

As I'm about to head out into the cold and show to enjoy yet another Opening Day at Wrigley Field, I thought it would be appropriate to point out Michael Barrett's thoughts about the future of the ballpark.

The Tribune asked him, and some other Cubs, about the ballpark because of the uncertainty created by impending new ownership. Barrett, it turns out, thinks the ballpark should stay exactly the same.

The same, that is, except for one little improvement:

"Ideally, especially for this time of year, you'd like to see a dome put on the outside of it," Barrett said. "Don't change anything about Wrigley Field. Just reinforce it and have a dome covering it."

Well, that should be easy enough.

Labels: cubs, Michael Barrett, Opening Day, Tribune, Wrigley Field

Some notes from last night's Cubs-Pirates game, which featured the two worst teams in the league performing a sloppy "After you"/"No, I insist"/"No, no, you first"/"Well, if you insist, I'll muff this bunt" routine to see who would get the privilege of losing:


1) In my shoulder bag was a grocery sack of sage from Stacey's garden for my seatmate, Michelle. The bag inspector at the gate looked at it askance.

BI: "What's that?"
Me: Sage."
BI:"What?"
Me: "Sage. It's from a garden, for my seatmate."
BI: "What?"
Me: "Sage."
BI:"Like you put on food?"
Me:"Yeah. You can smell it."
[BI Smells it. Makes a face.]
BI: "I'm gonna have to ask about this."
Me: [Astonished] "You're kidding. Really. You're not serious."
BI: "I am, too."

She called her manager over, he took one look at it and, presumably deciding that I could neither blow up the stadium with it nor injure anyone by throwing it at them, waved me into the park.

2) During the game, the season ticket holders who sit in my section--those who bothered to attend, that is--had a discussion of whether this is the worst Cubs team we've had to watch. I've been attending games at Wrigley Field since 1993, and I've had season tickets since 1999, and I, like all the rest, weighed in with a resounding "Yes." You could argue that the 1997 team was worse, but it at least had Sammy Sosa doing his strikeout/homer/strikeout routine. This team didn't even have Derrek Lee for most of the year, and Ryan Theriot's remarkable mustache can only go so far towards making up for such bad baseball.

3) The good thing about the Cubs suffering through their third straight disappointing (and second straight flat-out bad) season is that the fair-weather fans are starting to see the storm clouds. The announced attendance for last night's game was only 32,000 or so, way down from the 40,000+ the Cubs were drawing earlier in the year. But I'd be surprised if the actual attendance was half that. In the center field bleachers the night before, the cameramen had shown a guy stretched out flat, sleeping, and he could have easily reprised his nap in any section of the bleachers last night. Meanwhile, there were only about five beer vendors working the whole of the upper deck, and nary a Super Ropes guy in sight.

It's kinda nice to be able to stretch out a little again. It reminds me of the wonderful days of 1997, pre-Kerry Wood and that first wild card run, when you could decide to go to the game day of, with three or four friends, buy upper deck tickets and sit pretty much anywhere.

So for all you folks who love Wrigley Field but have given up on attending in recent years--I'm looking at you, Bob and Luke--this is your warning: the glory days may soon be back. Start practicing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

4) Then, in the 8th of what had been a forgettable ballgame, Matt Capps hung a curve to Derrek Lee, who immediately reminded him of why his pitching coach had advised against such behavior. It was a beautiful night in a beautiful ballpark, and that moment was a good reminder of why we were there.

Labels: cubs, derrek lee, matt capps, pirates, ryan theriot, security theater, Wrigley Field

This is from the 1988 Baseball Abstract, but it's not written by Bill James; it's the work of Mike Kopf (briefly mentioned in this article), and is one of several "book reviews" taking up three pages' worth of space between the National League East and the National League West.

Darkness at Noon (The Battle Over Night Baseball at Wrigley Field)
Mike Royko
University of Chicago Press, 286 pages, $19.95 ($14.95 when purchased during daylight hours)

More interesting, these days, than the Cubs performance on the field is the ongoing battle over installation of lights in the friendly confines. This is a controversy, as Royko points out in his inimitable manner, that has torn close-knit Chicago families asunder, much as the Dreyfus affair is said to have done in France. Indeed, police reports for the past two years note an otherwise inexplicable increase in intrafamily homicides, as well as a seemingly endless array of bar wars, the patrons dividing into vitriolic camps of "suns" and "lights." Even teenage gang warfare in the Windy City, it is rumored, has crossed racial and ethnic lines to become a battle between "days" and "nights."

Not surprisingly, Chicago's notoriously corrupt politics has played a major role in the controversy. At first, skittish aldermanic and mayoral candidates tried to straddle the ivy, so to speak, but inevitably were forced to take sides. An already volatile situation was made worse when both pro- and anti-abortion activists jumped into the fray. The anti-abortionists began holding protest marches and labeled themselves "right to lightsers," while the pro-abortionists, predictably, came out in favor of "choice" and called for a Supreme Court ruling. This moved the "right to lightsers" to contemplate a constitutional amendment mandating the installation of lights.

Against this hysteria, even the remnants of the old Democratic machine felt themselves powerless. The late Mayor Washington, after flip-flopping on the issue at least twice, found himself finally vituperated by all factions, and Royko, in his most shocking disclouse, reveals that not everyone in Chicago is convinced that the Mayor died of natural causes: foul play by right to lightsers, who have long threatened a terrorist campaign, is suspected by many. Into this whirlwind stepped a newly appointed Mayor, and as the book went to press, his promise to appoint Jesse Jackson as head of a mediation committee seems at least temporarily to have calmed the storm. But lights or no lights for Wrigley remains one of the most volatile issues of our time, and readers are Royko's book are sure to come away enlightened and yet disheartened, because, as with Catholic versus Protestant in Ireland, or Arab versus Jew in the Middle East, no solution seems on the horizon.

Also reviewed: Water Under the Bridge: The Mysterious Death of Ed Delahanty; What, Me Worry?: An Insiders' Account of the '87 Twins (by Al Newman); The Secret Diaries of Shoeless Joe Jackson; and Ate Men Out: A Culinary History of Fat Men in Baseball.

Labels: al newman, bill james, ed delahanty, fat pitchers, mike kopf, mike royko, shoeless joe jackson, Wrigley Field

What's sadder than a baseball field covered with snow? Not much.

Labels: james taylor, snow, Wrigley Field

At last night's Cubs/Reds game, two rows in front of me, sitting with a couple of season ticket holders whom I recognize but don't know, was a guy who had neglected to bring his shirt. He had, however, brought--and was displaying in their full glory--his late-seventies porn-star curls and moustache and his oddly incongruous gothic-lettered "Chi Town" tattoo, which was in the spot on the back where a tramp stamp would go on a gal.

His appearance alone, and his obvious joy in it, would have been worthy of note. But then he added to his allure by catching not one but two foul balls. Our section hardly ever gets foul balls hit anywhere near it, but last night Mr. Chi Town No-Shirt got one while strolling the aisle just to the left of us and a second that bounced right up to him in his seat. I had hopes that he would trade one of them to a drunk for a shirt, but it was not to be.

Labels: cubs, reds, Wrigley Field

I believe it is every team's--and every fan's--duty to make a trip to an out-of-town ballpark to watch his team as the visitors an enjoyable experience. I believe it's incumbent upon fans not to shower abuse (or beer) in greater quantity than they would shower same on any hometown fan. I believe the correct response to "Is this Aisle 527?" doesn't involve profanity.

But I don't believe that hospitality should extend to playing a song the visiting team is familiar with from its home ballpark, so imagine my surprise when "Sweet Caroline" began blasting from the Wrigley Field speakers last night. Now, if the P.A. guy had, right after "Touching warm . . . touching you!" given the turntable a solid kick, sending the needle skittering and screeching across the vinyl, then it would have been okay. But just playing the song, straight, is like the French translating all the road signs just in from the Maginot Line into German.

Original comments...

thatbob: "Blasting from the Wrigley Field speakers..."?

Wrigley Field shouldn't even have speakers that blast. That would solve your problem right there.

Labels: cubs, music, red sox, Wrigley Field

From today's Tribune, a story about three guys being charged in a brawl outside the ballpark Sunday evening.

The two highlights of the story:
1) The guy they attacked, who was running a memorabilia stand, at the start of the verbal altercation identified himself as a police officer, off-duty . . . then the guys attacked him.

2) The last sentence of the article points out that police suspect alcohol to have bene a factor in the incident.

Labels: Wrigley Field

Said the poet Burns:

How long and dreary is the night,
When I am frae my dearie!
I sleepless lie frae e'en to morn,
Tho' I were ne'er so weary:
I sleepless lie frae e'en to morn,
Tho' I were ne'er sae weary!

But even the poet Burns would surely be feeling a bit more of the vim and vigour these days, what with photos of ballplayers in the paper once more.

The rites of spring are upon us: sportswriters in such brackish backwaters as Kansas City and Milwaukee are dusting off their hopeful columns from last spring, Ozzie Guillen is running down his list of former White Sox to run down in the media, and the news that Matthew Wade Stairs has shed both his belly and his mullet is, well, news. If St. John of the Cross were here in my office with me, warming his long-dead insides on a pre-work coffee while we gazed out at the sub-freezing winter wasteland that is Chicago in March, we'd probably find ourselves in general agreement that the dark night of the soul is giving ground to dawn.

I had two dreams of baseball last week. In the first, I simply listened to a WGN broadcast of a Cubs game. Low on action for a dream, maybe, but hearing Pat Hughes's voice again after these many months made me wish for extra innings and maybe even a rain delay. Alas, I got my alarm instead.

Later in the week, I dreamed that I was cycling to Wrigley for Opening Day. The game was to start in ten minutes, and I was halfway there. But I was only wearing a t-shirt and pants. No jacket. No hat. No gloves. No mittens. No long underwear. No balaclava. No battery-powered heating socks. No seal oil with which to protect my face from chapping. I was torn: should I return home to properly prepare for the first game of the cruelest month at Wrigley, guaranteeing that I'd miss the first pitch? Or should I proceed to the game, more or less guaranteeing that my death from exposure would be a lead story on WGN that night?

Instead of choosing, I woke up.

Actual games are on tap for today, though Opening Day is still a ways away. But we can surely be patient now, even through the heavy hours. The poet Burns reminds us:

How slow ye move, ye heavy hours,
As ye were wae and weary!
It wasna sae ye glinted by,
When I was wi' my dearie!
It wasna sae ye glinted by,
When I was wi' my dearie!

Labels: dreams, pat hughes, robert burns, Wrigley Field

This is a short post, because I'm busy at work and probably will be right up until Friday.

Apropos of an earlier discussion about Bud Selig's tipping habits, here's a commercial about George W. Bush's tipping habits at the ballpark. They're not so good.

Beer prices in themselves seem to more or less set the value of tips at Wrigley Field. When they end in $.50, the vendors seem to get more tips, if only because they are very good at the little "You're not really going to ask me to pass your two quarters all the way down the row?" pantomime. I have to admit that when the quarters hit my hand on their way to their drunken owner, I'm frequently tempted to send them back the other way, just to see what would happen.

Labels: tipping, Wrigley Field

Following a mostly baseball-free trip to Lake Tahoe, I'm back in the world of the Internet (and, that means, the office). But because I have a fair amount of work to do this morning, I've got just some disjointed thoughts to offer.

1) Here are some things that people I overheard on the trip (at restaurants, airports, in the gondola at Squaw Valley) are more concerned about than I tend to be: Property values, cars, gas prices, commercials, and traffic. Oh, and there was the woman at the airport who was detailing to everyone in earshot the degree to which she always gets sick on airplanes. The short version: not quite sick enough to barf, but very close.

Things they are less concerned about than me: public transportation, bicycles, and baseball.

I'll take my set any day.

2) We did get to see one game while we were on vacation. The last night of our trip we spent at Stacey's aunt's house in Sacramento, where I got to watch the Cardinals beat the Athletics on the Bay Area Fox Sports Network. And I got to feed Aunt Sherry's pair of pet bunnies. It was a great day.

3) The flag at Wrigley Field at Saturday's very chilly game was still at half staff. The Most-Loved Terrible President Ever has been dead more than three weeks! Isn't it time to reflect his American optimism and pull that flag back up?

4) Speaking of honoring the dead, if I had been Commissioner of Baseball, "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the day Ray Charles died would have been played by solo organ or trumpet in every ballpark. It's not like anyone is ever going to sing it better than he did at Game 2 of the 2001 World Series. Watching that performance, I was astonished that any such carefully staged moment as the pre-game National Anthem at the World Series could be so moving. On a song and in a situation where most renditions don't even reach the level of craft, Ray Charles on that night produced art.

5) Jim's posts recently have now doubled the amount of non-Maura-created Devil Rays content on the Internet. The infinity symbol no longer quite expresses the porn/Devil Rays ratio on the Web. Congratulations, Jim. The D-Rays will have your season tickets in the mail this week. Hope there's room on that fast-rolling bandwagon.

6) Ron Santo and Pat Hughes on Friday had this exchange:
Ron: "Patrick, have you ever thought of writing poetry?"
Pat: "No, not really, Ron."
Ron: "I think you should."
Pat: "Well, I think I might just stick to broadcasting."
Ron: "I really think you should write poetry."
Pat: "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

It's good to be back.

Original comments...

sandor: Re: #3. I (regrettably) didn't take any pictures, but in our short jaunt through southern Wisconsin this weekend, we saw an inordinate number of flags at half-mast. Probably more at half- than at full-. In fact, the larger the flag was, the greater chance it was halfway down the pole. It was astonishing.

Jim: They're supposed to be at half-mast (or half-staff) for 30 days after a President dies. I seem to recall that 10 years ago, flag proprietors were pretty good about keeping them halfway down (or up) for a month after Nixon died, so if he can get that kind of flag cooperation, it's no wonder Reagan is doing even better.

Levi: Wow. 30 days?

Stand me corrected!

But it still seems like an odd relic of, say, Victorian-style mourning, when you went through several specific stages of mourning with their accompanying public displays.

Toby: Levi, At Sunday's Cardinals vs. Reds game (in which Junior hit his 500th homer), a kid from your hometown named Landon Bayley threw out the first pitch. Just an FYI.

Levi: How'd he manage to get to do that? And was it faster than Matt Morris's fastball these days?

Toby: His grandfather is the Bayley in Martin & Bayley - the small Carmi company that built Huck's into a major chain in the Midwest. It was Huck's day at the ballpark. He got to meet Lou Brock, who, I believe, also threw out a ceremonial first pitch.

I've never clocked Landon so I don't know if he's faster than Morris, but I know he's a good kid.

Labels: athletics, Cardinals, national anthem, pat hughes, ray charles, ron santo, Wrigley Field

That's how my father described the atmosphere of Wrigley Field the first time he was there, astounded by the fact that seemingly no one ever sits down for more than a couple pitches before wandering off again hither and yon.

Ordinarily, because my season ticket seat is high up in the upper deck, where the slope allows me to see over the heads of the perambulators, that's just a minor source of annoyance for me. Kind of along the lines of that caused by people who don't understand that you let the passengers off the train first before attempting to board.

But Sunday, we were in the lower deck, section 108, where to see the game we had to see over or through anyone in the aisle. And everyone was always in the aisle. Which led me to a couple of possible solutions.

The first idea is for true baseball fans to work up an advertising and media campaign to make wandering fans realize that, come the Day of Judgment, their behavior at baseball games--like all bad behavior--will be held against them. Just as a good fan might get extra credit for, say, knocking the glove off an opposing fielder reaching into the stands to attempt a catch, a drunken lout will find his balance sheet slipping more into the red for every time he staggered back from the concession stand and unwittingly left most of his new beer down the back of, say, a nearby nun. The calculation that determines eternal damnation is a complex algorithm, of course, making Fermat's Last Theorem look like the formula for figuring E.R.A., but I have faith that trips up and down the aisle while yammering into two cell phones have their part in it. We just have to make the drunks realize it.

The second option is to have Pedometer Day at Wrigley Field every day. Each fan, upon entering, would get a pedometer, which he would be forced to wear during the entire game. At the conclusion of the game, everyone's pedometer would be checked, and anyone who walked more than the average beer vendor would have to stay and clean the park with a toothbrush. His own. This plan has the virtue of simplicity and a very American attempt to encourage good behavior through imprisonment and hard work.

Anyone have better ideas?

Original comments...

Steve: Maybe make a 3rd inning, 5th inning and 7th inning stretch where people can go to a designated area and exchange phone numbers.

At Wrigley only of course....

Labels: Wrigley Field

Well, Wrigley Field still has less signage (modern euphemism for advertising) than any other ballpark. Actually, at one point during the broadcast, I think Bill Murray was joking with Chip and Steve about putting ads on the wall behind the ivy, at a reduced price, of course, since they'd only be visible in April and perhaps October. Or maybe it was Senator Dick Durbin doing the joking and not Bill Murray. I forget. What did come up during their conversation with the senator was a suggestion that he introduce legislation to force the Cardinals to trade Albert Pujols, preferably to the Cubs, or to the American League.

Anyway, here's this week's "Car Talk" puzzler, posted here because it happens to be baseball-related:

RAY: Lefty McDougal, star pitcher of the Kenosha Ramblers, had an incentive clause in his contract that guaranteed him an extra thousand bucks if he won 20 games during the season.

TOM: This sounds like 1925!

RAY: It's last game of the season. Lefty has 19 victories, and is scheduled to be that day's starting pitcher. The opponent is a lousy team. They've got a terrible record, and Lefty knows he's going to get the bonus.

As luck would have it, an hour before the game his manager approaches him and says, "You ain't starting, Lefty."

Lefty asks, "Why not?"

The manager says, "The owner of the team came and said, 'If you start this bum... if he throws even one pitch, you're losing your job!'"

Lefty's dejected. He says, "Jeez, I was going buy a new house in the Hamptons with that thousand bucks!"

Lefty's discouraged, and the manager is discouraged too, because he has great regard for Lefty. The manager wonders, "How can I get Lefty to win his 20th game and collect his bonus-- and not throw a single pitch?"

And that's what happens. Lefty wins the game without throwing a single pitch.

How did he do it?

Original comments...

sandor: Here's a guess. I'm not an expert on how win-lose records are figured, so I may have this wrong.

If the game is away, the Ramblers will bat first. Assuming they get a run in in the first inning, they'll have the lead going into the bottom of the first. Lefty starts the game, but gets pulled for a reliever immediately before throwing a pitch. Assuming the reliever does his job, and the offense does theirs, and the Ramblers keep the lead for the entire game, wouldn't Lefty get the win?

Levi: No--to get a win, a starting pitcher has to go five full innings.

The rules for relievers are much less solid, and I'm trying to come up with an answer. The problem I'm having is that so far, the only scenario I can come up with (pitcher comes in with 2 outs, runner on first in a tie game, picks him off, team takes lead in the bottom of the inning, he gets the win) is not a situation that the manager could plan for. And technically, that pitcher ought not to get the win, because the rule for awarding wins for relievers says that they should be the pitcher of record when the team goes ahead to stay, but it also mentions that, in a game featuring multiple pitchers, the win could be awarded to the pitcher who pitched most effectively. Wins are almost never parceled out that way, but in this case, I think even the official scorer might have to agree that a different pitcher deserved the win.

I'll keep thinking.

Jim: I have here a link to a recent example of a pitcher getting the win without throwing a pitch. It's similar but not identical to the situation Levi described, and it would still be hard to plan for.

Luke: Who gets the win in a forfeit? Maybe the manager persuades Lefty to offer half of his bonus to the other team if it forfeits.

Or maybe lefty balks four times to each batter, thus walking him, then picks him off the bag. He is left-handed, after all. He probably has a wicked move to first.

Luke, hanger-on: Oh, what happens when a starting pitcher dies after the game starts but before he's thrown a pitch? Is it like when your roommate dies in college and you get a 4.0 for the quarter? (It's probably a 5.0 now with grade inflation.) Assuming it's a home game, let Lefty take the mound in the bottom of the first, then right as he's about to start his wind-up, he takes a big lick of the hemlock he's hidden in his glove, next to the emory board and Vaseline.

Luke, hanger-on: Well, what was the answer?

Labels: car talk, Wrigley Field

Some thoughts on yesterday's Cubs opener:

1) The forecast, for once, was right on: 40 degrees, with a 20mph wind out of the northeast. That's like having a personal wind just for my season ticket seat. So it was cold.

2) Sadly, no one wore a balaclava like Shawon Dunston used to do. I always felt like it was a form of protest from Dunston, saying, essentially, if you guys are going to force me to be out here in this shit, I'm going to look as silly as I can.

3) None of the players seemed to be playing with the urgency of people who realized how absurdly cold it was until the 6th inning, when three Pirates struck out, a couple of them on "We've got a six-run lead and my fingers hurt" kind of swings.

4) Not content with raising my ticket price 70% (from $10 to $17) in six years (and more than 100% in the twelve seasons I've been going to Wrigley Field), the Cubs seem in the last couple offseasons to have spent most of their time trying to figure out how to bring in more billions. Two seasons ago, they added silly little Sears ads by the dugouts. Last year, they added really tacky-looking LED screens along the roof of the upper deck in right and left. This year, they've replaced the three light boards--the one below the scoreboard in center and the two along the facade of the upper deck--with LED screens. So now we've got McDonald's ads in center field during play. What's their slogan these days? Gotta love it?
I half expect to show up for Opening Day next year and find the outfield grass mowed in the shape of a McRib.

5) Public address announcer Paul Friedman welcomed "those Cubs fans watching from the rooftops." The request did not elicit the booing that the whole enterprise--and the strongarming the Cubs gave it--deserves.

6) The Cubs lost. Badly. I only lasted six innings, the fierce cold and wind overcoming my desire not to start the season with an incomplete entry in my book of scorecards.

Original comments...

Levi: By the way: I am a little bit embarrassed that I only lasted six innings. I don't regret it, seeing as seven or eight of the thirteen walks the Cubs issued came after I left. But you'd think that, dressed for the cold, I could hold out longer.

Luke, hanger-on: Didn't Stacey give you her flask to keep you warm?

Labels: cubs, pirates, shawon dunston, Wrigley Field