Hi all. A few weeks ago, I read the following essay at one of my favorite live lit shows here in Chicago, The Paper Machete. If you have not been to this show yet — held every Saturday at the history-sodden Green Mill Lounge at 3 pm, with FREE admission, no less — then you should do yourself a favor and haul your keister over there. Great readers, great comedians, and sometimes great/always interesting musicians. The best thing since indoor plumbing (hey, the Green Mill even has THAT!)
One of the big news stories of the week had been the proposed renovation of Wrigley Field and the surrounding neighborhood. The plans involved, among other things, more than 35000 square feet of advertising signage at the intersection of Clark and Addison Streets. I decided to get a little snarky about it. Quel surprise!
WRIGLEY RENOVATIONS: EVERYTHING’S COMING UP ROSEMONT
Chicagoans are used to threats. We get em all the time. Threats of random street violence. School closings. Government bankruptcy. A second term for Rahm Emanuel.
Now add to that, the threat that owner Tom Ricketts will take his Chicago Cubs out of the city – lock, stock and Marmol – if he can’t get approval to renovate the area around the park and install scads of gargantuan video screens inside Wrigley Field. As threats come, it’s about as hollow as Sammy Sosa’s bat.
He told a business luncheon crowd this week, “I’m not sure how anyone is going to stop the signs in the outfield, but if it comes to the point that we don’t have the ability to do what we need to do in our outfield, then we’re going to have to consider moving.”
Whoa, harsh! If Denzel Washington heard the word “consider”, how fast would the bad-guy corpses start piling up. That’s the kind of hard-charging, take-no-prisoners attitude that made the Cubs what they are today!
First off, where would Ricketts “consider” moving? Rosemont? How peaceful, to rebuild the Friendly Confines within a few hundred yards of the runways at O’Hare.
Maybe a bigger market, like Las Vegas? It’d be tough to build a brand new stadium in a place only slightly less mobbed-up than Rosemont.
Besides, years of negotiations have already happened, among the team, the mayor, the alderman, and the neighborhood. The only hurdle now is the rooftop owners, who worry that the new signage will block their view of games over the wall. If you can only get off on baseball voyeuristically by peeking over the wall like a guy in loose, dirty sweatpants, there’s no better place to be.
The rooftop owners are painting themselves as the little guy in this contest. Some national reporters have even described them as a “neighborhood tradition”. Now, a real neighborhood tradition would involve a picnic table, cheap folding chairs and a cooler of beer, like it did 20 years ago, and not small corporations cramming Miller 64 and chicken wings into people either too claustrophobic to wedge into a stadium seat or too dumb to use StubHub. However, compared to all other commercial ventures in Wrigleyville — ah, Wrigleyville, that friendly northside village where the leafy country lanes stream with beer and vomit – compared with them, the rooftop owners are like Mr. Hooper on “Sesame Street”.
In the end, like any other Chicago tradition, the rooftop owners will be bought off. Rosemont will fade into the horizon, and the Cubs will roll up their Under Armor and start building. So what does this whole project entail?
A 7-story, 175-room hotel across Clark Street, where the McDonalds now sits.
An office building and plaza, where once stood a car wash and the dear, departed Yum Yum Donuts.
A 3-story, 14,000 sq foot Captain Morgan Club, which allows 1000 sq feet of party space for each and every loyal drinker of that shitty concoction.
And signs, signs, signs. A Jumbotron three times as big as the current landmark scoreboard, a huge sign in Right field, and more signs tucked into every empty corner of the outfield, all surrounded by the traditional ivy, of which each and every leaf will be stamped with a logo for Pepsi MAX.There are many benefits to consider with this building plan. Take the hotel. It would segregate and insulate the out-of-towners, keeping them safe from the horrifying Blade-Runner-like dystopia of actual Chicago. The players will like it too, because they won’t have to drive all the way downtown for their prostitutes.
The triangular plaza will be ringed by tall video kiosks, celebrating the decades of Cubs glory, all one of them, and how they would have been even better with Rock Star Bubbleberry Energy Drink. Die-hard fans will be able to aimlessly mill around the plaza, where they can be secured from walking into traffic to take pictures of themselves. The Cubs have said they might show movies in the plaza for neighborhood residents. It would be cool if the plaza becomes a social meeting place all year round. Maybe Chicagoans could gather there on New Year’s Eve. If there’s one place we’re used to watching balls drop, it’s Wrigley Field.
And, the Captain Morgan Club. *shudder*
Now inside the ballpark is where things get interesting. Please realize that right now, as busy and chaotic as Wrigley Field might seem, the amount of advertising signage inside is really miniscule compared to other ballparks. It’s even small compared with the rest of your daily lives. You can find more ads printed on the chips in a Pringles can. Now, if the team really knew what it was doing, they would keep raising ticket prices gradually, slowly eliminate the game on the field, and turn the place into one big day spa and meditation center. But that’s not going to happen.
Instead, a 6000 sq foot video screen is going to be installed to scorch the retinas of anyone in the bleachers who dares turn around. Maybe the team can have a promotional giveaway of atomic bomb-blast goggles. Patrons in the grandstand will be treated to Godzilla-sized portraits of Cubbie players who will be shipped down to the minors before the game is over. We’ll also get to watch Kiss-Cams, Panini-races, word jumbles, cooking shows, and a new “Cops”-like reality show called “Help the Shitfaced Sorority Girl Find Her Friends Again Cuz That Guy Hitting on Her Who Was a Total Asshole But She Went Along With It Anyway Because You know YOLO Ditched Her at John Barleycorn and Why Does This Shit Always Happen to ME, Kristen??”
Gone will be those fusty know-it-alls who talk about strategy during the game, and defensive switches and pitch selection. Now between every inning, we’ll all stare at frightening commercials for Taco Bell and film clips from “Ferris Bueller”. Believe me, after all this gets approved, you’d better make your peace with watching a lot of Ferris Bueller. It’ll almost be like fun at the old ballpark.
Of course, the changes outside the field will completely transform the neighborhood. The new structures will carry 35,000 sq feet of electronic signage, which will be run year round. Wrigleyville used to be congested and noisy. Now it will be congested, noisy, and bright enough to be seen from the moon. Think of Times Square but without the Russian tourists and pirate DVD sellers. Or the Las Vegas strip, with the lingering aroma of Italian Beef.
As the area absorbs all the life-affirming glitter and excitement that only advertising brings, it will throw even more out of whack the delicate balance between the north side and south side. In the years to come, parents taking their kids to see a White Sox game at 35th and Shields will have to endure frightened looks on their little faces and the whispered question, “What happened down here? Why is it so dark and quiet? Are the White Sox being punished for doing something naughty?”
And parents can answer, “Yes. Yes they did. They got tax money to build their stadium, but worse yet, they threatened to move …. To Dupage County!”