Why I love that dump called Wrigley Field

I've touched the ivy. I've run in the outfield and kicked up infield dirt. I've stood in the same places where Ruth and Banks and Sandberg walked and ran and laughed. There's hardly a seat in that stadium I don't know. I've sat in the uppermost corner where you can see absolutely everything, small and far, but clear and true. And I've sat right behind home plate, so close that I could have touched the players if it weren't for the netting, so close that I could see the sweat beading the foreheads of the most beautiful people I have ever known. I've sat in the famous bleachers, listening to the heckling and trying to catch the balls during B.P. I've seen it all from everywhere.

If you have never been to Wrigley Field, you cannot possibly understand the uniqueness, the beauty, the art of the field. It comes out of nowhere. You can't see it from the highway. You have to find it. You have to look for it. I love the feeling of walking down Sheridan past the fancy brick buildings where all the rich people live, and then it's there, almost like an afterthought, almost like someone shoved it in the middle of a neighborhood because it didn't fit anywhere else. It looks a little bit like it's bursting at the seams, pieces of it spilling onto the sidewalk, fans spilling onto the streets because there's nowhere else to walk.

On game days, the endless array of Wrigleyville bars are busy and loud many hours before the game, many hours after. Cubs fans like their liquor, probably a little more than they like their baseball. They can tell you what beers Wrigley has on tap, but will have trouble naming four active players on the team. I saw a shirt once that said "Win or Lose, We Still Booze." That is probably the best description of Cubs fans, fans that come in the third inning and leave in the seventh, after the historic stretch that is different than at any other ballpark. Harry Caray made "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" more than a song--he made it an entity of itself ("Let's get some runs!"). And now in his absence someone famous and Chicagoey will sing it, and you can look across the groups of fans, blue caps in the air swaying to the music, and jerseys laced with names of players long gone, because most players don't stay with the Cubs. We Cubs fans know this and accept this; we hold onto our boys loosely. The ones we love best will either become mediocre or will be traded. There was a time before I existed when the Cubs unit was consistent. These days, the good ones never stay. They are just commodities to be traded for some phantom championship team we are promised will come later, but never does.

But don't think about wins and losses when you look at Wrigley, because you will be too disappointed to enjoy the experience. You will walk inside the dark concourse toward the stairs, and you have to stop. You have to tell yourself that you will never again see Wrigley Field for the first time. And then you will walk from darkness into that bright, bright sun, and you will see greener grass than you thought existed. You will see the stark white of the uniforms, the balls flying off the bats in practice, you will run to the fence that keeps us mere mortals off the field, and you will be closer to baseball than you deserve to be. Turn to the left and see a young boy with a too-large glove who keeps asking if a player will come over for an autograph. Turn to the right and see a pair of elderly gentleman arguing about the merits of Castro and Rizzo, and years ago Sandberg and Grace, and even years earlier as young professionals after work discussing Jenkins and Williams. Cubs fans start young and never leave. We die at Wrigley. We are doomed and cursed and trapped.

We are teased just enough to stick around. Right now, we have the promise of their farm system, full of the best prospects in baseball. The word is out that we will have a championship caliber team in less than five years. And in the early part of this century, our hopes were never higher than October of 2003, five outs away from history, with the unhittable Wood and Prior leading our team to victories, only to be destroyed as quickly as Steve Bartman's safety on a cool October night. My heart was broken so completely that October night, and in the following nights, and I have never allowed myself to hope that much again.

But here's the thing. The players change. They get terrible or they leave us. We remember with a sharp pain watching Kerry Wood's career dissolve. I sat a few feet away from where he threw his glove into the stands in disgust, and, just days later, I listened on the radio, tears running down my face, the evening Kerry Wood's young son came running out to him after the last strikeout of his career. I remember Sandberg retiring twice. I remember watching Shawon Dunston, my dad's personal favorite, turn singles into doubles, wheels churning around the bases, and then suddenly he was gone. I always get attached to the relief pitchers, and they NEVER stay. I loved Quirky Turk Wendell in the 90's and I love Blake Parker now and no one stays. I watched Darwin Barney, whose fielding is as poetic and beautiful as his name isn't, and I see him sitting the bench now and know is days are numbered.

But Wrigley will not change. Even if they put up the gratuitously enormous television screens and make the clubhouses better for the players and add all kinds of fancy stuff, they will never take away that ivy, they will never take away the green of the grass, the old scoreboard and marquee. I will see those familiar landmarks, and the kids will still be there, and the old guys will still be there, and I will still be there. I want to leave, but I can't.When I'm at Wrigley, I'm home.