By Bob Ryan, Globe Staff, 08/05/95
Second of a three-part series
In the eyes of some, Chicago is an extremely lucky municipality.
"Chicago," asserts Bill Veeck, "is very fortunate. This city has half the ballparks in the world."
Veeck's bias toward the Cubs' Wrigley Field and the White Sox' Comiskey Park is as forgiveable as it is comprehensible. He was the individual who planted the fabled ivy on the brick walls of Wrigley Field back in 1938. Moreover, he twice owned and operated the White Sox. As for his larger point, that aside from Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park the only other "real" ballparks extant are Tiger Stadium and Fenway Park, well, Veeck is not some voice crying in the desert. Many traditionalists agree with him.
But while Detroit and Boston fans are blessed to have their old ballparks, only Chicago baseball followers have two. A dedicated patron of the art virtually could spend 162 Chicago afternoons and/or evenings annually watching baseball in the proper setting. That is to say, baseball in real ballparks in real urban environments, baseball with grass and dirt and bleachers and imaginative concessions and assorted nuances absent from - ugh - domes and ''multi-purpose stadiums." Talk about a touch of class - you can even get a shoeshine in either ballpark.
Most of all, a Chicago fan walks into history every day of his baseball life, whether on the South Side (Comiskey Park was opened for business in 1910) or the North Side (Wrigley Field was built in 1914).
And God bless those Chicago people, because they seem to appreciate what they've got. Last year each team set attendance records, as over 4 million people pried themselves away from their backyard barbecues and VCRs to attend services in their two baseball cathedrals.
Granted, not all the patrons, especially those who come to Wrigley Field, are Chicagoans. The Cubs have always had a hearty Midwestern following, and to that traditional tourist base has been added a new layer of fans created by the Cubs' frequent appearances on cable TV. Wrigley Chic is in, and so popular are the Cubs now that last year they sold over a million dollars worth of souvenirs by mail order alone. Meanwhile, the White Sox point out that, in fact, they drew more people to their less-publicized, somewhat less-beloved, less-controversial (Comiskey has had lights since 1939) and, yes, slightly larger ballpark.
But instead of these being the best of times for baseball in Chicago, they are the most precarious. Baseball as Chicagoans have come to know it is being threatened by the Great Lights Controversy on the North Side and by basic baseball economics on the South Side. The Chicago Tribune Co., owner of the Cubs, maintains that unless lights come to Wrigley Field the team must relocate. White Sox chairman of the board Jerry Reinsdorf and president Eddie Einhorn contend that unless a "Yankee Stadium-style" renovation is undertaken to modernize their 75-year-old dowager of a ballpark, they, too, must seek a new home for their club.
The Tribune Co. has had its share of battles in the past, but never in its storied history has it run into anything as emotional and sticky as the issue of lights in Wrigley Field. "The history here is too long and too strong,"
sighs Cubs president Dallas Green, who came here four years ago to rebuild a ball club and now finds that he spends as much time representing the Tribune's views on night baseball as he does poring over farm system reports or scanning the waiver wire.
From the time Wrigley Field was built in the Lake View section of Chicago's North Side by Charles Weeghman for his Federal League Whales in 1914, the ballpark has aroused deep emotions among the residents. Hardly had the last brick been slapped into place when Herman and Margarita Croon of 3699 N. Sheffield Street (behind the right-field wall) threatened to bring a law suit, saying that Mr. Weeghman had violated a city ordinance by failing to get the consent of the property owners adjacent to the ballpark.
Such feistiness among the residents is prevalent today, when the issue is not the actual presence of the ballpark itself, but rather the Cubs' desire to install lights. The 1985 version of the Croon family is Nancy Kaszak, who heads an organization known as CUBS - "Citizens United for Baseball in Sunshine."
Arguing that night baseball would bring unmanageable parking, litter and security problems to their neighborhood, CUBS has thus far been able to thwart every Cubs' management desire. Kaszak and her followers have lined up some powerful allies in their fight, including the governor, the city council and the speaker of the Illinois house.
The Tribune Co. says the 71-year-old tradition of day baseball exclusivity at Wrigley Field must end because there is no choice. Baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth has informed the Cubs that should they qualify for postseason play they must fulfill any requirements dictated for night ball. ABC is invoking its option to put all World Series games at night this year, and Ueberroth says baseball must comply.
Accordingly, Green dispatched letters to Cubs' season-ticket holders bearing the bad news. Moot point though it may be, according to the present standings, Green explained to his customers that if the opportunity arises the Cubs will almost certainly play no League Championship Series games in Wrigley Field and will definitely play no World Series games there. Green ruled out the use of temporary lights for Wrigley Field, saying those were for ''amateurs."
"How could Bowie Kuhn have negotiated a contract like that?" inquires Green. "Did he forget the Cubs were in the league? Or did he assume we'd never be a factor? But we are a part of that contract, and now we've got to live with it."
No one can deny that the Cubs are being placed between the proverbial rock and the hard place in this postseason business, but there is more to the
lights issue than the potential of a few playoff or World Series games. Many people believe that what the Tribune Co. really wants are night games that will help generate television revenue for the Tribune-owned superstation WGN. Night games at home, combined with road night games and Sunday games would give WGN a better advertising package if it wished to emulate Ted Turner's
WTBS and enter the national advertising arena.
It is a complicated issue because the Cubs surely must be aware that their uniqueness as a haven for day baseball is a major attendance inducement. When a team can draw 2,107,655 without night baseball, as the Cubs did last season, the evidence suggests strongly that there is a tremendous appetite for day baseball, at least in Chicago, and at least in Wrigley Field.
"It's a regenerating thing," points out esteemed Tribune baseball writer Jerome Holtzman. "Mothers have always been able to send their children off to Wrigley on the el. Those kids now bring their kids." Factor in people on vacation and the tourist trade, plus the ever-growing mystique of the ballpark and the overall experience, and it's obvious that the Cubs have something going that the other 25 ball clubs would love to have themselves. Going to the ballpark - in daylight - has become the thing, over and above going to see The Cubs.
Just saying you've been to Wrigley Field means something. Sacrificing Wrigley's special ambiance solely for corporate expedience would be sad, and, oh so typically American. But the Tribune Co. says that unless permission for
lights is granted, it will have no recourse but to seek an "alternative" to Wrigley Field.
A bluff? Perhaps. Right now there is no other place. But what does worry people is that the Trib owns a 100-acre tract of land in suburban Schaumburg (can you image a baseball stadium in Tewksbury?) and are hinting that this could become the much-discussed "alternative."
Comiskey Park has never been accorded the same civic-landmark status as its younger counterpart several miles to the north, but be assured this is a proud, stately edifice that continues to make its own contribution to baseball lore. It doesn't have Wrigley's brick-and-ivy interior beauty, but it is striking in its own way. Veeck painted the stadium exterior white a decade ago, and inside the park is a soothing green-on-green decor (the way Tiger Stadium was, pre-renovation) from the grass to the paint on the fences to the paint on the seats.
A recurring rap on Comiskey Park over the years has been location, and the feeling that attending games at Comiskey Park was dangerous reached its peak in the late '60s and early '70s. When the White Sox attendance plummeted to 495,355 in 1970, half the reason was attributable to the ball club (sixth place, 42 games out) and half to the supposed deterioration of the neighborhood surrounding Comiskey Park.
When Veeck assumed control of the White Sox for the second time, one of his first official acts (right after tearing out the artificial turf then covering the park's infield) was to apply white paint to the park exterior. "We were told Comiskey Park was in a bad neighborhood," Veeck explains, "but we found that it was in a good neighborhood. We wanted the park to look clean and bright to typify what the South Side really was, rather than what rumor would have it from people who had never even been there."
Agrees Holtzman, "I've lived in Chicago all my life, and I can tell you that the neighborhood around Comiskey Park is better now than it was 30 or 40 years ago."
Those who patronize Comiskey discover a splendid baseball park. Built by the legendary Charles Comiskey, it was billed as "The Greatest Base Ball Park in the World," when it opened on July 1, 1910. Comiskey invested the then- astonishing sum of $500,000 on his dream ballpark (Wrigley was built for half the price four years later), which was constructed in four months, including a five-week strike. From the beginning it was a pitcher's park, with hefty measurements of 363-420-363. Surely the Old Roman would be surprised to learn that last year his park, which now measures 341-401-341, yielded more home runs than any stadium in the majors, including a record number of shots to the roof in left.
The combination of the enticing green background, the physical proximity of the stands and the natural surface combine to make Comiskey an especially attractive place to play.
"This is a ballpark," says Carlton Fisk. "You feel like playing here. You go into some of those other places, especially the indoor ones, and you say, 'What am I doing here?' "
Comiskey Park is one place where a fan has no worries about finding something to eat. Veeck and his long-time, right-hand man Rudy Schaefer went far beyond the hot dog/hamburger mentality, catering to Chicago's wide range of ethnic groups with their concessions. The current regime has therefore inherited the tradition, serving quality Mexican food (not just those awful pseudo-nachos so in vogue everywhere else), hot sausages, excellent corned beef and roast beef sandwiches, pizza and, of course, the standard hot dogs and hamburgers.
Veeck's other legacy to White Sox fans are rest rooms. In no other stadium in America is there such a proliferation of rest rooms, and that includes representative space for ladies rooms, which were often a forgotten item when older stadiums were constructed.
But Comiskey Park is 75 years old. Too many of the seats are behind poles, and it doesn't have the wherewithal to generate the kind of income Reinsdorf and Einhorn say they need to survive in these treacherous economic times. The White Sox have neither superstation revenue nor the type of seating arrangement to take full advantage of the park's 44,058-seat capacity. All older parks are expensive to maintain, and in the last five years the Reinsdorf-Einhorn duo has spent upwards of $15 million in the sort of improvements and repairs a fan never notices.
They've got to. Like the Cubs, they have nowhere else to go - yet. But they are making goo-goo eyes at some property in suburban DuPage County (not that Reinsdorf and Einhorn would put up the money themselves), and they could certainly be tempted to play in a proposed domed stadium the city keeps talking about. Keep in mind, also, that Reinsdorf is the chief executive officer of the Balcor Company, a real estate investment firm. In Comiskey Park he happens to control a nice piece of real estate property, described by Veeck as "the largest contiguous piece of land with proximity to The Loop in all of Greater Chicago."
"Comiskey Park is not getting ready to fall down," says Reinsdorf. "But I would be very surprised if Comiskey Park, as we know it today, will exist in 25 years. We'll either need a new park or a Yankee Stadium-style renovation."
"We've done what we can," agrees Einhorn, "but we can't do it forever. This place is a dinosaur. We can't afford old ballparks. We can't afford cheap bleacher seats. We can't afford double-headers. You need artificial turf so you can get games in. In between the white lines, baseball hasn't changed very much. The big change is outside the lines, and people must understand and this place has no role in the game as it is today. We've done all kinds of things to hang on, but there are no mirrors left."
Change is imminent. The Tribune's battle to secure lights for its baseball team is one it does not intend to lose, and one most knowledgeable observers believe will win. Veeck, who understands the Chicago mores as well as anyone, believes that the lights will go up.
"All those threats of moving are just that - threats," says Veeck. ''They're the instincts of a bully. The Tribune is not used to being thwarted, particularly by a neighborhood group and a few second-rate pols. They're not going to move. They hope to get their lights and they eventually will, because they're tenacious. But the White Sox are a different matter. Balcor is going to use that property as a key to a development. They're just trying to figure out who's going to put up the money. But when exactly will they move? That I can't tell you."
Reinsdorf certainly appears resigned to a move. "I love old ballparks," he insists. "But at what price do you keep them? Not long ago I had a 50th anniversary party for my parents. There were friends and relatives from all over the country. I realized how much older some of them looked than I had remembered, and I was struck by the sad thought that I would never be seeing some of them again. That's life. So I ask you: if people die, why can't buildings?"
Meanwhile, baseball life in Chicago does go on as it has for over 70 years. The Cubs play in sunshine and the White Sox play in the "Greatest Base Ball Park in the World." The el disgorges eager patrons at both locales, and neighborhood bars accommodate the thirst of baseball lovers whose fathers, uncles and grandfathers once cheered for the likes of Big Ed Walsh, Frank Chance, Ted Lyons, Hack Wilson, Luke Appling, Phil Cavaretta, Nellie Fox and Ernie Banks. And when they enter Wrigley and Comiskey with their own offspring they can point out the spot where Gabby Hartnett hit the "Homer in the Gloaming," or where Ted Kluszewski parked two in the first game of the '59 series.
What a sad irony it would be if two of the four best baseball parks extant were to be replaced in the name of "economic progress." Says Veeck, "If these parks go it will be a triumph for materialism. Never mind the product if you can make a buck."
Perhaps Chicago will get lucky and receive new baseball parks instead of oval anti-stadiums, a la Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Montreal, Philadelphia, etc. Perhaps. But in no way could even the nicest new home - say, a Dodger Stadium - restore to Chicago baseball connoisseurs the special feel of Wrigley Field and Comiskey Park, any more than a clean, efficient chain store can replace the charm of the neighborhood ice cream parlor that flourished when William Howard Taft was president.
So enjoy it all while you can, Chicago. The hourglass has already been turned over.
PART I: