Wrigley Field: A Rich Tradition in Baseball

Wrigley Field is a Chicago --and an American-- landmark. Constructed in 1914 for what would today be considered a “measly” $250,000, the field is one of the oldest ballparks in baseball history.  And, funnily enough, it wasn’t always called Wrigley Field.  When the ballpark was built, it was owned by ten shareholders, who also owned the team… and it stayed that way for about ten years.  Then, in 1926, the ballpark was sold to the owner of Wrigley’s Chewing Gum, William Wrigley Jr., and renamed Wrigley field.

In addition to being one of the first ballparks named for a business (though that’s the norm now, of course-- think Staples Center and Philips Arena), Wrigley Field had a lot of “firsts” in the sports industry. Wrigley Field was the first field to give fans official permission to keep the foul ball that players hit into the audience… an experience that would soon become a baseball classic.  It was also the first ballpark to build a permanent concession stand.

Wrigley Field has played host to more ball games than any other field in baseball history. And everything about Wrigley Field celebrates the classic baseball experience; it’s one of the most traditional venues in baseball.  Most of the stadium is free from the flashing, buy-buy-buy advertisements that plague other ballparks.  The stands and the scoreboard hail from 1937, and are operated manually to this very day.  And until recently, the park maintained exactly the same landscaping built in the 1930’s by Bill Veek, who was also responsible for building the scoreboard and bleachers at Wrigley Field.

However, damages to Wrigley Field over the last decades have forced the managers of the ballpark to make some changes.  They recently renovated the whole field, and while it still looks like the Wrigley Field we all know and love on top, many things have changed underneath.  The new grounds designer, ballpark genius Roger Bossard, renovated everything from the turf to the drainage to the dugouts. 

Wrigley Field is a baseball history landmark, and deserves to be cared for and preserved. After all, a lot of the most historic moments in baseball history have taken place there… making Wrigley Field a sort of temple to the sport.  Babe Ruth’s famous “called shot” of the 1932 World Series took place at the park, as did Ernie Banks’s 500th homerun in 1970, and, more recently, Sammy Sosa’s most famous homeruns in the late 1990’s and in the year 2001.

To learn more about Wrigley Field, including Roger Bossard’s incredible renovations, visit the Smithsonian Magazine website at the following link:  http://www.smithsonianmag.com

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