{"id":4163,"date":"2013-11-03T07:55:13","date_gmt":"2013-11-03T13:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/?p=4163"},"modified":"2013-11-03T09:04:18","modified_gmt":"2013-11-03T15:04:18","slug":"ballpark-tour-wrigley-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/ballpark-tour-wrigley-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballpark Tour: Wrigley Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WrigleyField\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Stadium Name:<\/strong> Wrigley Field<\/p>\n

Location:<\/strong> Chicago<\/p>\n

Home Team:<\/strong> Cubs<\/p>\n

Years in Service:<\/strong> 1914 – Present<\/p>\n

Visits:<\/strong> 313<\/p>\n

Weeghman Park, home of the Chicago Chifeds (soon to be the Whales) of the Federal League, opened on April 23, 1914. \u00a0In December of 1915, when the Federal League folded, team owner Charles Weeghman was allowed to buy the rival Chicago Cubs and immediately moved them from\u00a0the dilapidated West Side Park and into his Weeghman Park for the 1916 season. \u00a0The Cubs played their first game at Weeghman Park on April 20, 1916, besting the Cincinnati Reds 7\u20136 in eleven innings.<\/p>\n

Also in 1916, Weeghman sold a minority interest in the Cubs to chewing gum magnate William Wrigley. \u00a0As Weeghman’s financial fortunes started to decline, Wrigley acquired an increasing number of shares in the club and took on a growing role in the team’s affairs until November 1918, when Weeghman gave up his remaining interest to Wrigley, resigned as president, and left baseball for good. Wrigley would acquire complete control of the Cubs by 1921, and, prior to the start of the 1927 season, the park was officially renamed Wrigley Field.<\/p>\n

William’s son, Philip K. Wrigley, had intended to install lights at Wrigley Field prior to the 1942 season. \u00a0However, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 and the US entered World War II, Wrigley donated the materials for the lights to the war effort. \u00a0The Cubs eventually became the only team without lights, continuing to play day games at home exclusively until 1988, when lights were finally installed. \u00a0To this day, the Cubs are still limited in the number of night games they may schedule per season, though that number has increased significantly since the late 80s.<\/p>\n

As Wrigley Field prepares to enter its second century, there are plans in motion to renovate the stadium and make it economically viable for the 21st century. \u00a0Those renovations were expected to start this offseason, but threats of lawsuits from the rooftop owners, who fear that new signage would block their views, have stalled those plans.<\/p>\n

I’ve managed to identify 313 games I’ve attended at Wrigley Field, most of them since 2002, when I became a season ticket holder. \u00a0While it is hard to argue with the historical value of Wrigley Field, it is as hard to argue that the stadium needs work to satisfy the needs of fandom in the year 2013. \u00a0I hope that the bickering sides come to an agreement soon so that Wrigley Field can continue to be a viable home to the Cubs for the next 100 years. \u00a0Besides, they will need that time in order to bring their first World Series championship to the ballpark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stadium Name: Wrigley Field Location: Chicago Home Team: Cubs Years in Service: 1914 – Present Visits: 313 Weeghman Park, home of the Chicago Chifeds (soon to be the Whales) of the Federal League, opened on April 23, 1914. \u00a0In December of 1915, when the Federal League folded, team owner Charles Weeghman was allowed to buy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[4097,2969,120,2970,1469,4100,53,4096,4098,4099,4101,595],"class_list":["post-4163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-charles-weeghman","tag-chicago-wales","tag-cubs","tag-federal-league","tag-pearl-harbor","tag-philip-k-wrigley","tag-reds","tag-weeghman-park","tag-west-side-park","tag-william-wrigley","tag-world-war-ii","tag-wrigley-field"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4163"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4829,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4163\/revisions\/4829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}