100 Things Cubs Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Jimmy Greenfield Page B
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Authors: Jimmy Greenfield
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lamented to the Chicago Tribune ’s David Condon. “I can’t pinpoint it, but you know in flying we have an indefinable explanation when a crash cannot be explained. We call it pilot error. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t the Cubs pilot.”
Wrigley inherited the Cubs from his father, William Wrigley Jr., in 1932 and for the next 45 years—until Philip’s death at the age of 82 in 1977—presided over the franchise in a way that was always futile, often admirable, and occasionally bizarre.
The last four seasons the Cubs made the World Series—in 1932, 1935, 1938 , and 1945—all came under P.K. Wrigley’s watch, although the first three are credited to his father and team president Bill Veeck Sr. and the last one to the dilution of baseball talent due to World War II.
Blame for the long run of losing that took place after the 1945 season is heaped on the shoulders of Wrigley, whose interest in the sport of baseball was minimal at best. The legendary Bill Veeck Jr., who worked for Wrigley for eight years beginning in 1933, wrote in his autobiography Veeck—As In Wreck , “If he has any particular feeling for baseball, any real liking for it, he has disguised it magnificently.”
Wrigley’s first concern was always the comfort of fans, although he never was able to quite understand the emotional discomfort wrought by losing. He once ripped out hundreds of box seats at Wrigley Field at considerable cost because he felt they weren’t wide enough, a move that decreased capacity among the most expensive seats.
Yet over the years he lowballed superstars like Ernie Banks when baseball’s reserve clause made it easy to do so, and he bristled when free agency arrived in the 1970s saying “nobody is worth over $100,000.”
Despite his stinginess with baseball players, Wrigley didn’t define himself by his wealth and was generous with fans. He would answer his own phone at work, surprising more than a few Cubs fans calling to complain who never expected to get the owner himself. In 1969, during the height of that crazy season, he even arranged for dozens of Bleacher Bums to attend a three-game series in Atlanta.
Some of the ideas he brought to the Cubs were ahead of their time, such as having computers track hitting and pitching trends and having the scoreboard flash “hit” or “error” to let the fans know the outcome of a questionable play.
But he was wrong about night baseball, calling it a “fad” when it first became popular in 1935 and after a brief flirtation with lights in the 1940s refused to permit night baseball at Wrigley Field, in part out of devotion to local residents.
Wrigley had many downright goofy ideas, including using psychologists to discover what separates the best ballplayers from the worst. “We didn’t find out much about the 1 percent of the boys who could make the major leagues,” Veeck Jr. told the Chicago Tribune . “But we did find out a lot about the 99 percent who can’t.”
In 1961, Wrigley decreed the Cubs would not have a manager but instead would have a rotating “college of coaches.” This came about in part because of Wrigley’s distaste for firing people and also because he had noticed the dictionary defined “manager” as being a “dictator. ” He disapproved of the definition. The experiment lasted five years, whereupon Wrigley hired Leo Durocher, a dictator if there ever was one.
Probably the strangest thing Wrigley ever did came just a few years after he assumed ownership of the team. He paid $5,000 to an “Evil Eye,” whose job was to sit behind home plate and put a “whammy” on opposing teams. Not much else is known about this odd event but one thing is certain—it didn’t work.
Wrigley, who was demonstrably shy, stayed away from the ballpark during his final years, an irony because his greatest legacy is the ballpark. He poured millions of dollars into it out of a certainty that Wrigley Field was the greatest sales tool he had.
Decades later, as
Wrigley inherited the Cubs from his father, William Wrigley Jr., in 1932 and for the next 45 years—until Philip’s death at the age of 82 in 1977—presided over the franchise in a way that was always futile, often admirable, and occasionally bizarre.
The last four seasons the Cubs made the World Series—in 1932, 1935, 1938 , and 1945—all came under P.K. Wrigley’s watch, although the first three are credited to his father and team president Bill Veeck Sr. and the last one to the dilution of baseball talent due to World War II.
Blame for the long run of losing that took place after the 1945 season is heaped on the shoulders of Wrigley, whose interest in the sport of baseball was minimal at best. The legendary Bill Veeck Jr., who worked for Wrigley for eight years beginning in 1933, wrote in his autobiography Veeck—As In Wreck , “If he has any particular feeling for baseball, any real liking for it, he has disguised it magnificently.”
Wrigley’s first concern was always the comfort of fans, although he never was able to quite understand the emotional discomfort wrought by losing. He once ripped out hundreds of box seats at Wrigley Field at considerable cost because he felt they weren’t wide enough, a move that decreased capacity among the most expensive seats.
Yet over the years he lowballed superstars like Ernie Banks when baseball’s reserve clause made it easy to do so, and he bristled when free agency arrived in the 1970s saying “nobody is worth over $100,000.”
Despite his stinginess with baseball players, Wrigley didn’t define himself by his wealth and was generous with fans. He would answer his own phone at work, surprising more than a few Cubs fans calling to complain who never expected to get the owner himself. In 1969, during the height of that crazy season, he even arranged for dozens of Bleacher Bums to attend a three-game series in Atlanta.
Some of the ideas he brought to the Cubs were ahead of their time, such as having computers track hitting and pitching trends and having the scoreboard flash “hit” or “error” to let the fans know the outcome of a questionable play.
But he was wrong about night baseball, calling it a “fad” when it first became popular in 1935 and after a brief flirtation with lights in the 1940s refused to permit night baseball at Wrigley Field, in part out of devotion to local residents.
Wrigley had many downright goofy ideas, including using psychologists to discover what separates the best ballplayers from the worst. “We didn’t find out much about the 1 percent of the boys who could make the major leagues,” Veeck Jr. told the Chicago Tribune . “But we did find out a lot about the 99 percent who can’t.”
In 1961, Wrigley decreed the Cubs would not have a manager but instead would have a rotating “college of coaches.” This came about in part because of Wrigley’s distaste for firing people and also because he had noticed the dictionary defined “manager” as being a “dictator. ” He disapproved of the definition. The experiment lasted five years, whereupon Wrigley hired Leo Durocher, a dictator if there ever was one.
Probably the strangest thing Wrigley ever did came just a few years after he assumed ownership of the team. He paid $5,000 to an “Evil Eye,” whose job was to sit behind home plate and put a “whammy” on opposing teams. Not much else is known about this odd event but one thing is certain—it didn’t work.
Wrigley, who was demonstrably shy, stayed away from the ballpark during his final years, an irony because his greatest legacy is the ballpark. He poured millions of dollars into it out of a certainty that Wrigley Field was the greatest sales tool he had.
Decades later, as
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