Would You Make This Deal With The Devil?

If you knew in advance that the Cubs wouldn’t go to the World Series until 2010, you wouldn’t have been expecting them to get in before that. Hence, you wouldn’t have been disappointed or upset by anything that happened to keep them out of WS, no matter how catastrophic.

The stadium is great. I love the day game tradition. But if these things are holding the Cubs back from winning it all, get rid of them. Now.

but I don’t know which choice I’d make. And I came up with the scenario! Is the temporary joy of winning a World Series (or even three or four) worth the trade off of losing Wrigley Field? I don’t know. Some of my favorite moments are hanging around the empty stands after the game and just looking at how the setting sun illuminates the park. I was there for Kenny Holtzman’s 1969 no-hitter and Jody Davis’s 1984 killshot grand slam against the Mets and they were fantastic moments as well. I have no idea how I’d feel if the Cubs won it all. But I do know that Wrigley Field makes me happier than almost anything else I know.

Did this Mischievous Deity also promise any championships to the Sox?

If yes, then I’d pass. What good would winning the World Series be if you couldn’t rub it in the faces of your intracity rivals, am I right Crawdad?

were actually good throughout the 70s and 80s? As in playing each other a time or two in the Series and regularly contending? It would be civil war in Chicago!

You could tell me that we would win the World Series in that steel trap 20 times, and I wouldn’t care, because it has to do with heart. When we do win it all (hopefully soon) it will be an unbelievably beautiful event not only for Cubs fans (the world’s greatest), but for the great city of Chicago and for all of Major League Baseball. It has to do with tradition, with passion, God knows with plenty of patience, and I just don’t see this other scenario being worth it. I honestly could careless if the Rays win a WS before us, because I know that when we win it, it will be different, and it will be indescribably better.

…. it’s very unlikely that a stadium built in the 1960’s or early 1970’s would have been called the “Motorola Bowl”. Stadium naming rights didn’t really begin to take off until the 1980’s (with a couple of NFL exceptions).

The first attempt to do so in baseball was by the Cardinals in 1953, when Anheuser-Busch bought them. They wanted to name the park “Budweiser Stadium”. The commissioner’s office nixed this and they settled on Busch Stadium; that was allowed because it was the name of the owner — but right after that, A-B started selling “Busch Beer”.

MLB would have probably looked dimly on a naming rights deal in that era.

…went out of style fifteen or twenty years ago. By now we might very well have a beautiful, Wrigley Field "retro’ type stadium.

Gound balls booted by a SS and a 1st baseman.

It’s what’s for dinner!

Or can I go back a couple more years and stop the Kennedy assassination? Hopefully, dressed as a Dungeons and Dragons character.

I’m pretty fond of Wrigley so I think I’m leaning that way. However, they might end up winning in a cold, sterile cookie cutter stadium anyway. They might win on the road.

For True Cubs fans.

I can’t take the bait. I want to be able to go back to see the Cubs in Wrigley Field. I want the Cubs to win the World Series. Which one do I want more? This ain’t Sophie’s Choice.

First of all, I don’t even see how it would work. Trying to schedule two baseball teams AND a football team in the same stadium? No, thank you. All it takes is a few delayed games and you’ve got chaos.

Secondly, a baseball team should have it’s own stadium. The stadium becomes part of the team in many cases.

The problem is not the stadium. In fact, in many ways, the problem is nothing quantifiable at all. The 2007 and 2008 teams were both good, and both choked. The 2003 team was good — and they self-destructed.

Had nothing to do with Wrigley.

My main reason is that Wrigley Field is what drew me to the team in the first place as a little kid. “What is this crazy place that has bricks behind home plate, and ivy on the walls instead of padding, and are people actually watching the game from across the street?” My allegiance to the Cubs grew out of an attraction to their home, and for better or worse has helped shape who I am. If they were playing in a concrete shell, I may have grown up like my brother, a Yankee fan (shudder) with no real appreciation of how magical good seasons are, without the terrible seasons providing a frame of reference.

that a stadium has to mean something. It’s the home of the team. It should be loved and cherished by fans. A stadium is where a fan or a player would want to be there everyday, and consider it a second home. It should have tradition, tradition that should be shared by the fans and players only, and no fans from other teams should know what that tradition means or feels like. A stadium should be what players, fans, and the owner of the team could proudly call their stadium the home of the team. It should have an atmosphere that no other place has ever felt.
   
    The Cubs have this. They’ve got Wrigley Field, they’ve got fans who love their team ans their stadium, no matter what the condition. So I’ve never been to Wrigley Field. So I’ve got no idea what it feels like once you step through the entrance of Wrigley. But I can’t wait to see a Cubs game at Wrigley, and once I do, I can’t wait to get that feeling and say “Wow, I’m actually hear.” while a feeling of disbelief flows through my body once I step over the gates for the first time ever.
 
   If Motorola Stadium ever existed, their might still be a tradition, but it wouldn’t be as special. The Cubs will always win games and they always lose some, too. Wins and losses go by as quickly as time does. But if there’s one thing that will never change, then those things are memories. Memories that players and fans will never forget when something special happens or when something doesn’t go their way. And without Wrigley Field, these memories mean nothing. I wouldn’t trade these memories tradition for any wins or losses. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I would cherish the memories of old and wait for new memories to come. ( A Cubs WS win at Wrigley, everyone?)

Once Chicago police finally restored order at the Motorola Dome in the wake of the Cubs 1969 World Series victory over Baltimore, more than 52,000 fans would have been chanting in unison for one man to take the podium and accept the championship trophy from newly-appointed Commissioner Bowie Kuhn.

But before Old Number 14 could get to the microphone, Manager Leo and Captain Ronnie already would have been fighting over the hardware, with Santo winning the tug-of-war and heel-clicking his way to the outfield. Then, in a move anticipating the unforgettable ride of Wade Boggs in ‘96, we can imagine one of Chicago’s finest letting Ronnie hop on board, with Santo holding that trophy over his head and mouthing appropriate greetings to any Mets fans who may have been watching the postgame show.

Over at Ray’s, the atmosphere may have been a little less frantic, with patrons from the double strip mall across Sheffield wandering in to watch Channel 9’s special coverage. On that momentous day, more than one oldtimer at the bar likely would have been heard to say: "I don’t know how the hell we let Brickhouse and Wrigley give us that BS all those years. It really was the damn ballpark!"

Question guys,

Is it weird that I’m somewhat elated that I got a new cubs hat today? I mean it’s just a hat, and I’ve gone through countless ones in my lifetime, but I just feel pretty weird wearing. I think it’s the antsy anticipation of this season coming up. Frankly April 5 couldn’t come any faster. I’m going to be sitting in Wrigley South watching Big Z through a perfect game (ha.), and catch a foul ball from D-Lee. Man I feel like a kid. haa. I dunno. Anybody else feel like this when they get a new cubs hat? or is it just me?

…and I still don’t have a laptop, I would have to do some back-of-napkin figuring. And since this is the early sixties, I would be halfway through a three-martini lunch. So after saying something inappropriate to the waitress, I would have to say, ‘We keep the Cubs at Wrigley.’ They’re two different sports, and require different venues. You’re not going to try and shoehorn equestrian events into a roller derby rink, even though you probably could.

Option 2 forgets this: Once the Motorola-Pig Futures Bowl was exploded, Cubs’ Management would be clamoring for new digs. Once city aldermen couldn’t find fourteen acres to build their retro-Fenway, the team would move to Normal in an effort to cut in on the Redbirds’ fanbase.

that playing in Wrigley is a significant disdadvantage. Seems to me I hear many guys say they love playing there.

To me they are entertwined, I just don’t make a distinction between the two. And , thanfully, in reality I don’t have to.

If you told me in 1965 that I could have a team with 3-4 WS rings and all I had to do was tear down a 50 year old stadium that didnt have a tradition of winning only to get my own stadium again in 1994…what is stopping us, give me the C4 NOW!

In 1965, Wrigley wasn’t all that special yet. WGN super station, then internet, then 2003 helped create the “iconic” status of the ballpark.

Of course all of us would 1st want to see the Cubs win the WS at Clark and Addison. But not knowing if the park would even be there come 2010 way back in 1965, it would be impossible to tell. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Trying to place myself as an adult and being able to rationalize this in 1965 instead of being a young child, I’d have to say I’d take the championships. It was already 57 years w/o the WS title back then.

a Cub fan through day baseball televised on WGN from Wrigley Field, I’d have to choose staying at Clark & Addison.

Without those factors in place, I wouldn’t have followed the Cubs from 1987 forward.

The Cubs wouldn’t have landed in the “plus” column when I was weighing whether to accept a new job years ago in Chicago. Would I have moved? Would I have met my wife, in Chicago, two years later? etc.

I’m glad the Cubs were on TV and broadcasting day games from a beautiful park. Anyway, if all the appearances and titles were before my time, I would have grown up looking at the Cubs as the Yankees of the NL.

The premise here implies the Wrigley Field is your soul or the most precious thing to you. That’s always the Devil wants.

The Devil never tells you the ultimate price of your deal. You want fame, fortune, or try to keep a family member safe from disease or harm. You’re greedy and want to take the short path to success. You get short term results, and then lose what you ultimately value. What you’re forgetting is that the Devil wants your soul, and he wants to make you suffer for your greed.

So you want the World Series championships and and I’ll play the Devil.

1. You take the deal, the Cubs play in a cold concrete ballpark next to McCormick Place – Richard J. Daley Stadium.

2. Wrigley Field is bulldozed and low income housing in developed there.

3. The Cubs go on to win 4 World Series championships in 1969, 1975, 1984, and 1989.

4. Due to orientation of Richard J. Daley Stadium and unpredictable wind gust, Kevin Butler misses 4 critical field goals in the 1985 Bears season, including one in the playoffs. The Bears do not play in the 1985-86 season Super Bowl and have never appeared in a Super Bowl.

5. Richard J. Daley Stadium is falling apart in 1992, due in part to extremely poor construction from a politically connected contractor. But the city of Chicago and mayor Richard M. Daley will not spend the money to build a new baseball stadium and a new, separate football stadium.

6. The Chicago Cubs, owned by the Tribune Company since 1981, agree to a deal with Tampa Bay to move to Florida and Tropicana Field. They are renamed the Devil Rays to attract more local fans.

7. They have still not any World Series since moving to Florida.

Does everyone like the deal now?

Waa Ha Ha Ha!!!!!

I gathered the thrust of all these hypotheticals was to get some sense of whether we are fans of the Cubs no matter the park, or was our love of the Cubs inextricably intertwined with the field on which they play.

I don’t think the OP is conflating playing at Wrigley with losing, inasmuch as his scenario involves time travel and speaking with the devil.

and I have to say I would make the deal. I am a life long Cubs fan from Canada who has yet to attend a game at Wrigley although I will be in Seattle in June to take in some games. I would love to see the Cubs win a World Series and can’t imagine what it will feel like for me let alone some of you who have been around longer than I have on this Earth. Having said all of that I do think that winning a WS at last with Wrigley will be slightly better than winning one without Wrigley. Now a lot but just a little sweeter. Especially if the WS is clinched on Wrigley’s turf.