Chicago-Wrigley Field

Well kids on Tuesday your mother and I went exploring by ourselves.  We didn't start off very good when we couldn't even find a Dunkin Donuts a mile from the house but oh well.  The rest of the trip downtown went fine and we only had to make one U-turn. 

Wrigley Field is a national treasure and certainly worth the $25 to get a tour.  The entire area around the field are full of bars and restaurants so it looks like it would be a blast to be down there on game day.

The gift shop is across the street from the ballpark

Mom pointing to the Clark on the sign

Look at the roof top seats on the houses outside the ballpark.  These are privately owned and when they went up the Cubs wanted some of the action and the owners said hell no.  So the Cub management said that they were going to put up a cloth net that would extend so high that it would block the view from the roof tops...they settled the next day for 17% of the sales which generates $5 million dollars a year for the Cubs!

 

 

 

The seats in the outfield are called the bleachers and that is where all the partiers sit.  Back in the day the top of the cement wall was flat and guys would race on top of that 6" wall...one started at the 3rd base side and the other at the 1st base side and whoever reached the woman standing in the middle first won the beer!  Unfortunately the drunks kept falling off and breaking their bones so they had to build a pointed extension on it to stop them!  

 

The press box

 

Up in the press box they had some great pictures of different events that have been held at Wrigley.  I was very surprised that they could do all of them.  I tried to take some pictures of the pictures but the flash got in the way on some of them.

NHL Game

The Bears played here for 20 years until 1971

The movie with Tom Hanks

High jump skier

Before Ronald Regan was famous he used to be a radio announcer in Iowa.  The story goes that he used to listen to Harry Caray and then relay the play by play to his audience.  While he was president he came to Wrigley and announced with Harry for a short time.

 

Players locker room

 

Sitting in the dugout

 

 

After a great tour we decided to eat at one of the local bars in Wrigleyville called Goose Island.  Some of you might know that name from their beer.  They do produce some beer at the restaurant but most of the beer that is for the retail stores comes from the brewery which was sold to Anheuser Busch.

 

 

Great tour, great food and great company...Wrigley Field is added to the Bucket List!