You see - darn near like clockwork - when the Cubs are tanking, folks start looking for someone or something to blame. At some point that blame comes to rest on Wrigley Field, and this week there were a couple such stories in the newspapers that did just that.
First you had Dave Eggers' backhanded complement: Who needs winning baseball at the ultimate neighborhood park? This youngster, who you'd think was my age, wrote: "Not that the score mattered much. I grew up with the Cubs, and I don't remember the possibility of winning ever being high among the reasons we went to Wrigley. We went because the park was ragged and crumbling and lived-in, beautiful in an almost accidental way."
That there is one way folks blame Wrigley Field. You see, they blame her "atmosphere." They say that somehow her beauty or her charm or the fact she's "lived-in" woos fans into not caring about winning.
This is horse manure.
Then you've got baseball "writer" Peter Gammons. He not only insulted Wrigley Field by calling her "A Dump" he also said the Cubs probably can't win in the future because of her. Mr Boston-lover said: “The Ricketts family has a serious issue they’re going to have to understand: It’s not only rebuilding personnel ... they got to make that ballpark livable, it’s a dump. They’re going to have to spend $200-and-something million on renovating Wrigley Field, And the investment is far greater than, I think, maybe they realize."
That's another argument we hear from folks blaming Wrigley Field. They say she's some sort of dump - that she should be torn down and replaced. Now, I'm no mathematician but it seems to me that building something new - something that would no doubt TRY to be Wrigley Field - for $500 or $600 or $900 million might not be such a great idea compared to fixing what we've got. And what we've got is a damn national treasure. She's not perfect and we all know that at some point she is going to need some renovating. And sure, $200 million dollars is a lot of money. I mean - heck - that's Alfonso Soriano and Kosuke Fukudome's contract added together!
Let me tell ya, we are getting awfully tired of folks blaming this Stadium and saying we've got one of two ways to look at Wrigley Field. Either she's so darn charming that she's prevented us from winning OR she's such a money sucking dump that she is preventing us from winning.
We would simply like to propose a third option: that the Chicago Cubs are preventing us from winning.
Fix the team. Leave Wrigley Field alone.
While much of this season can't be attributed to the state of Wrigley Field...the ballpark has become a serious competitive disadvantage.
ReplyDeleteIf the restrictions on night games, restrictions on revenue generation from advertising and the pathetic player facilities all are problems that actually could probably be solved without spending much more than $100 million.
To add to that, if the Tigers can leave Tigers Stadium, if the Yankees can leave Yankee stadium, and if the White Sox can leave Comiskey Park, there is no reason the Cubs can't leave Wrigley. The state or Wrigley right now is worse than the state of Comiskey when the Sox moved out of it.
Something drastic needs to be done for the long term health of the franchise.
Excuse me but was Peter there today to experience Wrigley hosting the Yankees? There to see 42,000 fans enjoying one the best atmosphere's in all of the major leagues?! A dump?! Why because there's no jumbo-tron?!
ReplyDeleteCub's leave Wrigley?! Why not look at the recent team leaders as a possible reason for lack of success, guys who don't seem to play with heart; (a certain LF who loves to spit, 3B who I can't even tell if likes to play baseball or for that matter talk, and an "ACE" pitcher who is a fragile flower and definitely not the best teammate---and in no way a leader).
It ain't Wrigley's fault.