A few views from Cubs season ticket holder family day

Every year, the Cubs invite season-ticket holders to Wrigley Field to enjoy some time on the field, tour the dugouts and press box and see other parts of the ballpark usually not available to fans.

This year, the team pushed the STH family day back into November. This wasn’t a popular thing with most STH and the team has moved it back in-season for 2020 (June 26 and 27, according to the renewal package received last week).

Fortunately, the weather more or less cooperated Saturday. Temperatures were in the mid-40s, the wind wasn’t too bad and there was no rain. It was kind of like getting ready for Opening Day weather. I went to the last Saturday session, 4 to 6:30 p.m., in part because I wanted to see the field lighted up for this event.

For the first time, the Cubs clubhouse was opened to fans on STH family day. In past years fans had been able to tour the corridors outside the clubhouse, but with the season over and most personal player possessions gone from the clubhouse for the winter, the team opened up the spacious new Cubs clubhouse for a walk-through. We were asked not to take any photos inside the clubhouse, so I can only tell you about the cowboy hat Jon Lester left in his locker, the collection of bobbleheads in Jason Heyward’s space, and the two football helmets (LSU and Miami Dolphins) that were in Anthony Rizzo’s area. The team hung jerseys for all the players, but other than those and the items noted above, the area had been pretty much cleared out.

One thing I did want to mention here in terms of the few remaining items in the 1060 Project is the press box. While up there, one of the team staff members mentioned that some construction will begin in the press box soon. There’s space available for them to expand in what is now a media dining area (photo 13). They’ll also likely be renovating the broadcast booths, now 30 years old, and probably putting in windows that can open and close (currently, once the press box windows are removed for summer weather, they have to stay off). Since this is all interior work, it can be done all winter with no real worries about weather. Unfortunately, since it’s interior work, it won’t really be visible. There won’t be any further construction updates this winter due to the fact that the major renovations are basically finished except for things like this and some “punch list” items. Sometime over the offseason I hope to put together a retrospective on the entire project from the thousands of photos posted here over the last five years.

One thing the Cubs promised season-ticket holders was that we’d get a book of commemorative tickets at this event, similar to the tickets we used for games previously and no longer will due to the switch to all-mobile tickets. Each ticket has a photo from the game in question and space on the back to write notes, if you choose. I’m probably going to leave mine intact in the book. Here’s what it looks like:

It was a nicely-done event by the Cubs, though I will be glad when it moves back to summer dates next year and I won’t have to come all bundled up as if it were Opening Day. The home opener at Wrigley Field March 30, 2020 against the Pirates is just 141 days away. Sounds like a long time, but it’ll be here sooner than you think.