Chicago’s storied Wrigley Field truly one of a kind

By Ron Kantowski

Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009 | 2 a.m.

It took just 2 hours, 40 minutes for the Iowa Cubs to defeat the Las Vegas 51s 5-4 at stately Wrigley Field on Sunday afternoon.

If you ask those in the 51s’ traveling party, that wasn’t nearly long enough.

Wrigley Field is one of those places where you don’t mind a long game or extra innings. Wrigley Field is one of those places where you really don’t care if you ever get back — just like the song says.

“There’s no place like it,” 51s president Don Logan said as he entertained guests in a luxury box — or as close to one as Wrigley can muster — overlooking the first-base line.

“I’ve been lucky to be in every major league park. The new ones, the old ones. This is just as special a place as there is in baseball.”

It was basically the luck of the draw that was responsible for the 51s playing the I-Cubs on Sunday in Chicago in the annual Road to Wrigley game at the quaint and historic Friendly Confines. Each year one of the Cubs’ minor league affiliates is chosen and it was Iowa’s turn this year. Last year it was Class A Peoria.

That didn’t make it any less special, Logan said, to see “LAS VEGAS” up on the old monolithic scoreboard in center field.

He said a lot of people come to Chicago to see its many museums. So does he. Only Logan rarely sets foot beyond the ivy-covered one at Clark and Addison on Chicago’s Near North Side.

“This is the Parthenon, this is the Colosseum of my world. This is as special as it gets.”

Unlike Logan, who was raised in Tonopah, Lotus Broadcasting public affairs director and chief 51s enthusiast Andy Kaye grew up just around the corner from Wrigley Field near the intersection of Waveland and Southport.

Waveland is the street just beyond the left-field wall at Wrigley onto which sluggers such as Ernie Banks, Dave Kingman and Sammy Sosa belted home runs that were towering, prodigious, majestic and, in the case of Sosa, most likely steroid-enhanced, if you believe the rumors.

Kaye said he and his buddies would ride their bikes to Wrigley after the seventh inning because that’s when they’d let the neighborhood kids in for free.

“A lot of times, the Andy Frain ushers would watch our bikes,” Kaye said in a nod to the famous security force which for 68 years patrolled the Windy City’s ballparks in snappy blue uniforms with gold braids and white gloves and hats.

If the Andy Frain ushers were still around, one wonders how they might have reacted to some of the 51s strolling out to center field to pilfer a few leaves of authentic Wrigley Field ivy for their souvenir collections.

As Dirk Hayhurst, the 51s pitcher whose book about life in the minors is due out next opening day said, “If this ivy could talk, oh, the stories it would tell.”

“The more I stand here, the more I think about how many great baseball players have stood in this same spot,” Hayhurst said with reverence, a rare trait for a modern-day ballplayer.

And it’s not just the players who are famous at Wrigley, as Hayhurst pointed out.

“I mean, there’s Bartman’s seat over there,” he said, cocking his head toward the left-field line, where a longtime Cubs fan named Steve Bartman interfered with left fielder Moises Alou’s attempt to catch a foul pop fly with the long-suffering Cubs just five outs away from the World Series in 2003.

Needless to say, poor Bartman didn’t walk away from Wrigley Field with a souvenir sprig of ivy that night, although dozens of Cubs fans toasted him with full beers — sort of — as he was led away by security for his own safety after the Florida Marlins proceeded to score eight runs in the eighth inning off Mark Prior and others.

Yeah, The Bartman Seat.

Everywhere you turn out here there is a nod to baseball nostalgia and tradition:

• The archaic dark green scoreboard, sitting slightly off-kilter to straightaway center field, its antiquated scoring tiles keeping fans informed of the progress of games around the leagues just the way they are played — one inning at a time.

• The ivy on the outfield walls.

• The bleachers, the rooftops on Waveland and Shefffield, Frosty Malts and Old Style beer at the concession stands.

• Harry Caray and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”

• Ernie Banks and “Let’s Play Two.”

There’s a distinguishable Wrigley Field characteristic for every spot in the batting order.

Russ Langer, the 51s’ broadcaster, found his in a tiny cubicle in the press box that on this hot and humid day was more Stuffy than McInnis, the Philadelphia Athletics’ turn-of-the-century first baseman. He couldn’t get over where he had just been sitting for the past nine innings.

“All the great broadcasters who have sat in that chair ... Jack Buck, Vin Scully, Marty Brennaman, Ernie Harwell ...” Langer said. “I mean, it’s a privilege.”

That’s just Wrigley being special again. That’s just Wrigley being Wrigley.

Remember that line from the song about baseball fans not caring if they ever get back?

Well, Sunday’s game ended at 4 p.m. For the next hour kids and their fathers lined up to run around the Wrigley Field bases.

First base, second base, third place, home plate.

Touch one, touch another, touch third, touch ’em all.

That’s not U.S. Cellular Field or Chase Field or Minute Maid Park or Tropicana Field or — egad! — Land Shark Stadium.

That’s Wrigley Field.