Wrigley Field Renovations

The hiatus is over. Ballpark Guide is back. Be warned, readers: this is not your usual post, that is informative and unopinionated, and caters to those seeking information about the MLB's top stadiums. This post covers breaking news that, when I heard about it, I almost jumped out of my seat in the need to express my anger. This blog, Ballpark Guide, is where I will express my anger. (There is also a good mix of approval, too.)

And if you haven't heard, the anger I'm expressing is over a park that I've never visited, but is near and dear to many fans across the league. This ballpark is Wrigley Field. Wrigley Field is the jewel ballpark of the Major Leagues, one that each team strives to have. The focus is on baseball, and baseball only. Win or lose, Cubs fans swarm the gates, as tickets at Wrigley are hard to come by. Wrigley's outfield walls are graced with Ivy, the only stadium to have it, and it's been there since 1937 since famous owner Bill Veeck planted it.

Today at CubsFest, owner Tom Ricketts revealed his plan to renovate Wrigley Field. The renovation will cost $300 million dollars, and will take 5 offseasons to finish. Above shows the trademark entrance to Wrigley. Nothing special, except the famous red sign that's been there since the start reading "Wrigley Field Home of the Chicago Cubs". This rendering below shows Rickett's plan on the Cubs front entrance.

I have only small issues with this. The integrity of the entrance has remained the same, which I commend Ricketts for, but the proposed restaurant lining the top entrance is unique, but a little odd. It could work very well, but whenever you add restaurants to a place like Wrigley in interferes with the integrity of it, because Wrigley's focus has always been watching baseball, and that's why it's so well attended. Whenever I'm at a game, I would never miss part of it to eat at a restaurant. Maybe it's just me, but I think Cubs fans won't bite either. I don't believe the restaurant faces the game, but I could be wrong. And if it does, than I give in A+ to Ricketts in this category, because eating in the comfort of a restaurant while watching a game detracts nothing from the experience.. An interesting feature is completely opening up the concourse to the front entrance, and the skyline of downtown Chicago, which could definitely work, but I never realized Wrigley was that small. Maybe it can be a before/after game hangout like McFadden's at Citi Field.

BEFORE

Another feature the Cubs are improving is the concourses, which have been known to be cramped and dingy. The Cubs are classy-ing up the look by painting the exposed pillars and bleacher supports an Ivy-Green, and inlaying brick to the concourses, surrounded by stripes of cement, which looks great in the rendering. The rendering also shows small LED's along the pillars, which remind me of pixels lit up on a scoreboard. They also add TV's which detracts nothing from the game as it lets people watch while in the councourse, walking to the restroom or concession stands. Ricketts once again gets an A+ in his improvement of the team's concourses.

AFTER

The next rendering is what gets me most angry, and covers a lot of ground in the Wrigley Field renovations. Wrigley Field already has some very bad seats, with pole supports lining the lower bowl and extending into the upper deck. My main point of focus is how they have somehow managed to make the seats even worse. They did nothing about the pole obstructions and committed a crime that has been done in baseball stadiums of recent all across America: sacrificing the middle-class fans’ view of the game for expanded high-rollers’ suites. Usually this is done by adding a club level with suites and in therefore, pushes back the seats for fans sitting in the upper deck . But because pushing back the upper deck is constructually unfeasible, they added/expanded suites under the upper deck. And from what I can tell, doing this would definitely create the worst seats in baseball, out of what could have already been the worst seats in baseball. They offer no sight above the head, as ticketholders would literally be looking at the back of high rollers suites, and even better, there are windows in the hallway leasing to the suites, so you can see who is ruining your view. They are already in the back of the section, offering the worst view on the level, and to top it all off, the poles that have obstructed Cubs fans view of the game for nearly a century, , still remain. The only good things that this rendering shows are the improved concourses and team stores for fans, along with an expanded dugout and new batting tunnels for the players. The biggest improvement for players is the new home clubhouse under the stands, improving from what was previously the smallest clubhouse in the league. And players never like to be bumper-to-bumper to eachother while changing, and the gymnophobics have stated their displeasure for the cramped quarters before. Ricketts gets a D- in this area, because he made some good improvements. That's the only thing that saved him from failing, because he broke the golden rule: he put the players and rich suite-owners before the average fan. This will ruin his grade point average.

Besides this, the interior of the park has improvements. When I first heard they were adding more LED scoreboards I was less than estatic. Ricketts has asked for easing of some landmark restrictions from famous Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel which require Wrigley Field, which is designated on the National Register of Historic Places, to stay as it is. And at first I thought Emmanuel shouldn't agree to anything. My thoughts were "Wrigley shouldn't have a Jumbotron, It's Wrigley! How are the rooftops going to be able to see, and how are the fans going to see the backdrop of Chicago skyscrapers?" But after seeing the renderings I have changed my mind. The LED scoreboards are small and streamlined, fitting under the bleachers and above the Ivy. It even took me a little bit long to find them. Another great thing shown in this picture is standing room, which will help with overflow crowds once Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo lead their team to the playoffs, maybe. A closer look at the LF standing room can be seen in the rendering below. He has also requested that he is able to put more ads in the outfield, which I still disagree with. Wrigley Field needs to stay a baseball museum, not an older version of Citi Field. Ricketts gets an B+ because he added standing room and scoreboards without affecting Wrigley Field's great history. But there is no way he's going to get away with putting those ads up in the outfield. Not If Rahm Emmanuel wants to get reelected. I alreasy believe the Toyota sign is enough visual polllution, though signs like those are the best kind of advertisements, because It's not just put on the outfield fence. It's a structural part of the park.

In it's statement, Wrigley Field stated that they would be adding more restrooms. The restrooms at Wrigley are famous for long lines and there trough-syle urinals, which give some people bad views in their peripheral vision, but keep the lines ever-so-slightly shorter. Luckily, Wrigley added more non-trough urinals last offseason, and since they're adding more restrooms, the new ones probably won't have the bad views. Here are the pictures of the old one's, and last season's renovations.

My final thoughts are, and I want to make this clear, is don't buy into the fact that the Cubs are calling this a restoration. This is not a restoration by any means. An example of a restoration is when they take an old historic house, and return it to it's original form. I'm pretty sure in 1916 Wrigley Field didn't have LED scoreboards, Suites, restaurants, or even standing room. It's a renovation, not a restoration.