Happy Birthday Wrigley!

If you read my MLB previews, and in particular the NL Central preview, you know that for the third year in a row, I have absolutely no faith in the Cubs this season. I think I've already tweeted out something to the effect of "#Cubes" about half a dozen times so far this year, which seems light given how bad the Cubs have been so far unless they're facing the somehow worse Arizona Diamondbacks. But today is a special day.

A lot has changed since April 23, 1914. My grandparents weren't alive yet, the World Series drought was at a whopping five, going on six years, and Weeghman Park was a single-tier stadium that held fewer than 20,000 fans. The Chicago Tribune has a great interactive graphic on how the park has changed in the last 100 years and what's to come.

Photo from April 13, 2009 game vs. Colorado

Wrigley was not my first Major League ballpark; that distinction belongs to the Metrodome when I was about three or four and Kirby Puckett was still doing Kirby Puckett things (RIP Kirby). I didn't want to stay for the whole game though; we left in about the seventh inning. My first full game though was a trip to Wrigley in the summer of 1998 when Sammy Sosa was on the juice baseball was undergoing a rebirth following the '94 lockout. Sosa would hit his 38th of 66 home runs that year and the Cubs would win.

Since then, I've been to Wrigley at least once every season. And despite most of those years ranging from mediocre to abysmal, the Cubs have had a minimum of a .500 record when I've been there every season except, weirdly enough, 2008.

Photo from April 22, 2009 game vs. Cincinnati

I have a lot of great memories of times at Wrigley Field. I skipped school one day in April of my sophomore year of high school to freeze my butt off for a double header. I've had seats right behind home plate thanks to connections with the Muscular Dystrophy Association. North Central has had alumni outings here every year towards the beginning of the season, and I was for all intents and purposes kidnapped into going last season by my wonderful fiancee. I was out in the bleachers the day Fergie Jenkins and Greg Maddux had their numbers retired in 2009, and again last year when Joel Quenneville brought the Stanley Cup with him to throw out the first pitch. I've heard multiple insults thrown at opposing outfielders and laughed at the chorus of boos directed at a guy wearing a Cardinals shirt at a Cubs-Orioles game (and the call in the ninth inning from a probably drunk guy that "It's not too late to throw him onto the field!"). It's where I saw my first two walkoff wins in person, including one from the bleachers after a phenomenal pitcher's duel between Ryan Dempster and Tim Lincecum. It's also the site of my favorite game I've attended in person back in 2003 when the Cubs blew out the Brewers behind a wealth of home runs; Kerry Wood was part of a set of back-to-back-to-back jacks, and Sammy Sosa hit a pair of bombs, including one that went at least 520 feet (I can still see that ball sailing well past me out over Waveland and onto Kenmore Avenue).

Photo from May 3, 2013 game vs. Cincinnati

My dad has been going to games at Wrigley since he first moved to Chicagoland in 1984, and he's the one who introduced me to this cathedral of baseball. He'll be the first to tell you that "Wrigley is a pit", and even said so in a project I did during my senior year at North Central for my Writing Across Media class. But he and I can both attest to the magical feeling that you get when you're on the Red Line approaching the Addison stop when you can first see the lights atop the ballpark, and the atmosphere you get when you first step out of the station and into the neighborhood. Just being among that throng of people and seeing the history in and around the ballpark... you can't really put it into words. If you haven't been yet, you need to.

I'm not sure yet when I'm going to make it to Wrigley this season. Planning a wedding while working on a new home, plus a honeymoon takes up a lot of your time. Hopefully I'll be able to make it there after all the excitement is past and I can celebrate the Party of the Century with the Birthday Park itself.