No Cubs No

Last Wednesday, I made it to Wrigley Field for the second time (the first time was in April 2009).  I wanted to get back later in the season when the ivy had grown in (and it does look a lot nicer in the summer).  So I went last Wednesday.  It was raining in the morning so I just stayed in my room and watched Wimbledon.  Then I headed for the game for my first (and possibly only) afternoon game of the season.  I took a lap around Wrigley before going in.  They have some statues outside the stadium.  I would probably prefer a statue of Will Ferrell as Harry Caray to a statue of Harry Caray, but that's just me.

It's a simple question:  Would you eat the moon if it were made of ribs?

I went in the stadium and got a free 1916 Cubs jersey.  Both the Cubs and Reds were wearing throwback uniforms for the game.  I'll probably give the jersey I got to one of my students in the fall.  On that lower concourse, it is really packed and tough to move around.  I did manage to get out to the seats and take some pictures from right behind home plate.

It is a nice looking ballpark.

Then I headed up to my seat.  I was on the first base side and there was a pole that prevented me from seeing first base.  I can't kill Wrigley Field for that because you can have the same thing at Fenway Park.  I don't think we had food there when we went last time because I had no memory of the fact that there's only one place to get food and drinks on the upper level.  It's behind home plate.  Think of the top of the Citi Field rotunda, only much much smaller.  There are some beer stands along the ramps that go up to the upper level, but your options are very limited.  So the lines were really long, but I was able to get a personal deep dish pizza before the game.  The pizza comes from Giordano's, which is supposed to be a good Chicago pizza place.  And it did taste good, but to call it pizza is a stretch.  My friends from college will remember that I'm a pizza snob and I won't eat pizza outside of the Pizza Belt (which I think that article defines a little too liberally).  But if I were to get pizza outside the Pizza Belt, it's likely that whatever place I went to would be trying to imitate New York pizza (and doing so poorly) because that's what pizza is.  It's not this deep dish Chicago silliness.  But I was in Chicago so I had Chicago "pizza."  Again, it was pretty good, but it wasn't really pizza.

It might be made of dough, cheese, sauce, and pepperoni, but it's not pizza.

One drawback of Wrigley Field is the beer selection.  I had a Goose Island Urban Wheat.  It's a Chicago beer, but it's crafty Anheuser-Busch InBev.  Get some real local craft beer in there.  I mean seriously, this is a high payroll team in a major market and they don't have a good beer selection.  Lame.  The same is true for Yankee Stadium.

As for the game, Zack Cozart led off the game with a home run for the Reds, but it was looking good for the Cubs early.  They were up 3-1 after six.  And then it all fell apart.  Trevor Cahill came in to pitch for the Cubs in the sixth and worked a scoreless inning, but he gave up three in the seventh.  The Reds tacked on a run in the eighth and won 5-3.  So I didn't get to hear that stupid Go Cubs Go song (hence the title of this post).  Attendance was 41,262.

My view for the game

What I noticed after the game was that people just hung around inside the stadium.  They didn't want to leave.  I'm sure you had a lot of tourists there and the fact that it was a day game probably contributed to that, but you don't get that anywhere else except for maybe Fenway.  I don't really remember Fenway because when I went last year, we left after eight.  I went to day games in 2009 and 2010 with John and people probably stayed also and took pictures near the field (we did), but I don't remember it being as many people as you had hanging around at Wrigley.

The last time I did my stadium rankings, I was kind of unsure as to where to rank Wrigley Field.  It's hard to compare Wrigley to anything other than Fenway Park.  And Fenway wins that comparison.  It has a better beer selection, it's easier to move around, and I love Fenway's weird dimensions.  Also, Fenway kind of has the 360 degree concourse (I don't think the Green Monster is accessible unless you have a ticket there, or if you friend worked there in my case).  I don't think you can access the bleachers at all at Wrigley unless you have a ticket there.  I feel like there should be some way for them to connect the bleachers to the rest of the seats in their renovation.  And maybe I'm wrong because I didn't feel like trying to get out to the bleachers because it was so cramped and hard to move around on the lower level.

So anyway, I had Wrigley Field 6th in my rankings.  One of my other complaints in the past was the atmosphere.  Well, with the Cubs being one of the favorites to win the National League, that has improved.  And it really is beautiful on a bright summer afternoon with the ivy grown in.  My rankings are very subjective and I don't have a formula that I use or anything.  But here's how I would explain my rankings:  if Major League Baseball was just starting now, but the stadiums were already built, where would I want my team to play?  Now, the obvious answer to that would be Citi Field so that I could go see them whenever I wanted, but let's take distance from home out of the equation.  Then pretty obviously, Fenway Park is number one and Tropicana Field is last.  Using that as my way of ranking stadiums, I'm bumping Wrigley Field down one spot.  I'd rather have my team play at Kauffman Stadium than Wrigley Field.  That's probably not going to be a popular opinion, but Kauffman is absolutely beautiful, it's easy to move around, they have really good local craft beer, it's excellent.  I might even move Kauffman ahead of Petco Park also.  The location isn't great (it's surrounded by parking lots) and it doesn't look too impressive from the outside, but it is a fantastic stadium.

So there it is.  There are two cities with two Major League Baseball teams (Los Angeles has one, never forget that the Dodgers are the only Los Angeles team).  In New York, you have two stadiums that are kind of middle of the pack (I could see the argument for either one being better).  And in Chicago, you have one of the worst (US Cellular Field) and one of the best.  Yes, Wrigley Field is one of the best, but I don't like it as much as Kauffman Stadium.