Posted on 05/14/2012 7:46:35 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Having not won a World Series since 1908, and having last appeared on that stage in 1945—a war year in which the professional leagues were still populated by has-beens and freaks—the Chicago Cubs must contemplate the only solution that might restore the team to glory: Tear down Wrigley Field.
Destroy it. Annihilate it. Collapse it with the sort of charges that put the Sands Hotel out of its misery in Vegas. Implosion or explosion, get rid of it. That pile of quaintness has to go. Not merely the structure, but the ground on which it stands.
I'm a Roman, and to me, the expanse between Waveland and Addison on Chicago's North Side is Carthage. The struts and concessions, the catwalk where the late broadcaster Harry Caray once greeted me with all the fluid liquidity of an animatronic Disneyland pirate—Hello, Cubs fan!—the ramps that ascend like a ziggurat to heaven—it's a false heaven—the bases, trestles, ivy, wooden seats and bleachers, the towering center-field scoreboard—all of it must be ripped out and carried away like the holy artifacts were carried out of the temple in Jerusalem, heaped in a pile and burned. Then the ground itself must be salted, made barren, covered with a housing project, say, a Stalinist monolith, so never again will a shrine arise on that haunted block. As it was with Moses, the followers and fans, though they search, shall never find its bones.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Over my dead body: May 23, 1945 - Chicago Lying-In Hospital, University of Chicago. Touch that field and prepare to die Cohen!
Get away with this and ‘they’ will be wanting to tear down Ebbets Field or, even worse, move the Dodgers out of Flatbush, or the Giants away from Coogans Bluff and the Polo Grounds.
I'm assuming you've read "The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Homeruns" by Bill Jenkinson?
I have a bro-in-law who held season tickets to the White Sox and took me to a game at old Comiskey Park the year before it was torn down. I couldn't believe how small the park was. Many foul balls went completely out of the park. It was a dump.
The Cubs Official Motto:
“Just wait’ll next year!”
/card fan for 38 years.
I don’t disagree. I wasn’t opposed to a new Stadium. I’m pissed because they didn’t build it where the old Stadium had been.
And as for 1960, that’s still the only Series the Yankees lost that REALLY pisses me off [1981 against the Dodgers comes second]. The only upside was that it cost Stengel his job. Whitey should have pitched Game 1, instead of 2. then he would have pitched 4, and 7.
Isn't the new stadium right next door to the old?
Where would the Yanks have played for two years when they tore down the old stadium and built new on the same spot?
And as for 1960, that’s still the only Series the Yankees lost that REALLY pisses me off
As a 12 year old Pirates fan at the time, I thought it was the greatest series ever! The Yanks broke all the series batting records and the Pirates won anyway. ;~))
Yeah—but on the other hand, look at all the teams that have won games in Wrigley Field while playing the Cubs.
Same in Pittsburgh. The Buccos said, “Build us a new ballpark and we’ll give you a winning team”. Two hundred million dollars and eleven years later and the losing streak is extending into its 20th straight year.
We stole Louis Bierbauer and the longest losing steak in professional sports from the Phillies. WhooHoo!
St. Louis built the new Busch right into the old one with an overlap without skipping a beat.
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