History
Main article: History of Wrigley Field
The park was built in six weeks in 1914 at a cost of about 0,000 (.3 million in 2008 dollars) by the Chicago lunchroom magnate “Lucky Charlie” Weeghman, who owned the Federal League Dolphins. (The club signed a fifty-five-year lease to use the park for app ,000 per year.) It was designed by the architect Zachary Taylor Davis (who four years earlier had designed Comiskey Park for the Chicago White Sox), incorporating the new “fireproof” building codes recently enacted by the city. According to some sources, when it opened for the 1914 Federal League season, Weeghman Park had a seating capacity of 14,000. According to another source, the original seating capacity was 20,000.
In late 1915 the Federal League folded. The resourceful Weeghman formed a syndicate including the chewing gum manufacturer William Wrigley Jr. to buy the Chicago Cubs from Charles P. Taft for about 0,000. Weeghman immediately moved the Cubs from the dilapidated West Side Grounds to his two-year-old park. In 1918 Wrigley acquired the controlling interest in the club. In February 1926, he renamed the park “Wrigley Field.”
In 1927 an upper deck was added, and in 1937, Bill Veeck, the son of the club president, planted ivy vines against the outfield walls.
Wrigley Field was a hold-out against night games, not installing lights until 1988 after baseball officials refused to allow the Cubs to play any post-season games without lights. Night games are still limited in number by agreement with the city council. Capacity is set at 44,250.
Features
Wrigley Field follows the jewel box design of ballparks that was popular in the early part of the 20th century. The two recessed wall areas, or “wells,” located both in left, and right field, give those areas a little more length than if the wall were to follow the contour from center field, it is also in those wells, when cross winds are blowing, that balls have a habit of bouncing in all sorts of interesting directions, there is also a long net running the entire length of the outfield wall, about two foot from the top, the primary use is to keep fans from falling out of the bleacher area, and onto the field of play, which is about seven, to ten feet below the top of the wall. Called “The basket,” by players, and fans alike, the rules of the field state that any ball landing within the netting is ruled a home run, making the distance to hit a home run in Wrigley Field actually shorter than the location of the outfield wall.
Ivy-covered outfield walls
Wrigley Field is known for its distinct ivy-covered outfield walls.
The ballpark is famous for its outfield walls which are covered by ivy. In the first weeks of the baseball season, the ivy has not leafed out, and all that is visible are the vines on which it grows. However, as the baseball season progresses further into spring, the ivy grows thick and green, disguising the hard brick surface of the outfield wall. Many a ball has been lost in the ivy when hit towards the outfield fences. An outfielder will signal that a ball is lost, by raising his hands. When this occurs, the umpires will call time and rule the play a ground-rule double. Also, there have been occasions of fielders being injured when slamming into the wall after a fly ball. The ivy that covers the outfield wall is Boston Ivy, which can endure the harsh Chicago winters better than its English cousin. The ivy was planted in 1937 by the Cubs General Manager Bill Veeck, to try and add some padding to the then brand new brick outfield wall.
Rooftop seats
See also: Wrigley Roof
The rooftops seats across the street offer views similar to those from the ballpark’s own seats.
Old-time ballparks were often surrounded by buildings that afforded a “freebie” look at the game for enterprising souls. In most venues, the clubs took steps to either extend the stands around, or to build spite fences to block the view. Perhaps the most notorious of these was the one at Shibe Park in Philadelphia, which caused a rift between the residents and the team that never healed. The Cubs themselves had built a high fence along the outfield at West Side Park, to hide the field from flats whose back porches were right next to the outer fence of the ballpark.
But at Wrigley it was different. The flat rooftops of the apartment buildings across Waveland and Sheffield, which
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