Entries associated with the tag "Wrigley Field":

After the tornado-alert sirens stopped wailing in the Loop Monday night, we came out of the Reader basement and ran to the State and Grand subway station. The train north stopped a long time at Addison, where the platform teemed with Cubs fans heading home.

What happened? we asked a young woman who boarded our car with her dad. "Cubs lost 2-0," she said. "They called it after five." The two of them seemed pretty sure that if the game had continued the Cubs would have pulled it out -- it's been that kind of year.

About an hour and a half later, after inspecting the tree that had come down in our parkway, falling into our neighbors' front porch, I walked to the diner at the end of the block for something to eat. There was baseball on the flickering TV there. Highlights? I thought. No, it was play-by-play. The Sox? I wondered. No, it was the Cubs. They were in the seventh inning now at Wrigley, still trailing 2-0.

The game hadn't been called after all. It was held up after five -- delayed for two hours and 45 minutes, in fact. But then it resumed.

I don't think it's easy to walk out of a ball park thinking the game is over when it isn't.  It takes an aggressive failure on the part of management to explain what's going on. As I said, it wasn't just those two fans. The el platform was packed.

So why are Wrigley Field ushers so tough on fans who move seats?  

The only rules I could find on the Cubs Web site related to fans and seating are from the "Guest Conduct" section of the "Ballpark A to Z Guide," also called the "Wrigley Field Fan Guide -- 2008": 

"Customer Service is a major objective of the Chicago Cubs. The team strives to provide its Guests with the most positive baseball experience in the Major Leagues in a safe, comfortable environment. To help us achieve our goal of outstanding customer service, we ask for fan cooperation in the following areas:

• Dress appropriately for baseball. It is quite often cooler near the lake.
• Respect other guests' ability to enjoy the game. Loud or obnoxious fans could be asked to leave the ballpark if their behavior is deemed to be offensive to guests around them.
• Please do not bring balloons, beach balls, nets or laser pointers into Wrigley Field. These items are not permitted at any time.
• For the safety of all fans, do not interfere with the progress of the game or go onto the playing field. Any fan interfering with a ball in play or going onto the field will be removed from the park and could be subject to arrest.
• Please sit in your assigned seat and be prepared to show your ticket to an usher or ballpark supervisor upon request.
• There is no re-entry on a ticket stub."

Moving down to better seats at a major league ball game is practically an initiation rite for fans. I go to several Cubs and Sox games a year, and I not only see it happen all the time but occasionally I do it too. The ushers at Wrigley Field, however, seem preoccupied with stopping it.

Consider this: at a recent game I was sitting five rows back, just past the Cubs dugout toward left field. The guy in front of me stood to take pictures of Kosuke Fukudome each time he came to bat. He was with three men in business casual. They looked Japanese.

"Are you Japanese?" I asked. "No, I'm from Chicago," he replied in perfect English. "But my friends are." Hi, I'm an idiot, nice to meet you.

He knew a lot about Fukudome's baseball days in Japan and he wanted to give his friends the best possible view of the game. There were a few empty seats in the front row and he'd already spoken to an usher about moving down to them. The usher, who didn't happen to be the main usher guarding that aisle, told him that in order to do that they'd need season tickets to those seats. Even game tickets to the seats wouldn't be good enough. They'd need the kind of ducats you get in a pack when you buy a season's package. 

So the already empty seats were out of the question. More than once the fan walked down to the front row of our section looking for season ticket holders who'd be willing to give him their tickets if they left the game early. Lo and behold, in the 7th inning, with the Cubs well ahead, a middle-aged couple sitting on the aisle in the first row got up, walked right to him, and openly handed him their season tickets.

He nudged one of his friends and, tickets in hand, the two of them moved into the two seats. The main usher, standing just to their right, motioned for their tickets, which they showed. The usher nodded his head and resumed his position on the aisle, and all seemed right in the world. Meanwhile, the two seats to my right were suddenly occupied by 20something dudes with backwards caps and Miller Lites. They wore big smiles. Their secret was safe with me.

Not a half inning later, the usher who'd told the Fukudome fan about the seat-moving policy came down the aisle toward them. Now that the fan and his friend had actually done what the usher had told them was the only way to do it, he felt squeamish. He said they needed to return to their old seats while he checked with his supervisor. "Just gimme a minute and I'll let you know."

He was gone half an inning. He came back and said. "I'm really sorry, but I can't let you sit down there."

"I thought you said if I had the season tickets I could sit there," the guy protested.

"I know, I know I told you that before, but we just can't let you move. I'm really sorry."

So what's the deal? 

SaveWrigley.com is petitioning Cubs fans to boycott the sportswear company Under Armour in response to their planned ads on the Friendly Confines' outfield walls. Me, I try to take the philosophical view.

1. The famous ivy was merely the first great brainstorm from genius huckster Bill Veeck, the man who brought you exploding scoreboards, Disco Demolition Night, Eddie Gaedel, the Comiskey Martians, and baseball player shorts. I think he'd find the ads profoundly uncreative, but his legacy has not been purity.

2. Remember how everyone was so upset about the lights? Oh, you don't. Ask your dad, kid.

3. Since this is about aesthetics, let's think about the purpose of architectural design and ornamentation. You could argue that, in pure aesthetic terms, the ads are a mistake. I won't argue with that. But I submit that, ideally, design should speak to the nature of an institution. And the Cubs are an institution that scalps its own tickets and drove out announcer Steve Stone because he had the temerity to be honest. So think of the ads as honest, resonant design.

4. By the All-Star break, the fact that Under Armour is picking up a chunk of fly-ball pitcher Ted Lilly's four-year, $40 million contract will seem like corporate charity.