GatewayRedbirds.com

You have to be damn careful with that .. too careful. Last night I was on the phone 15 minutes with jr. guiding him in buying reasonably priced tix for the two of us. I bought for the April Tues. game and went with field box - even those you have to watch because if you are in the first few rows you have concourse traffic to contend with. But I was 12 rows back, so no worries. But for jr on a budget, a little different. He calls and starts asking about various 200 level seats - I was consulting an invaluable webpage that has locations of all the poles, but most of the tix he was looking at just had aisle/row and no seat info - so we couldn't be sure we wouldn't have a pole to contend with. One had seat info but was row 19 - those are terrible seats because you are so far underneath the upper deck that you feel like you are watching the game through a pin hole. I encouraged him to go out - 239/240 where the pole either is gone or far enough back where you don't have to worry about it. I think we got row 8 in one of those sections - it's the OF but I know it's unobstructed.

During our conversation of back and forth he finally said this: "Wrigley Field is just a pain in the ass".

I had to agree, I've been going to alot of games there recently and the charm has just worn off. There are things I like about it still, but I get tired of dealing the crap. Last year I saw a Brewer/Cub game and we had 500 level seats in the first row - the concourse traffic was insane. That's all I did was watch people walk by. That's because the entire upper deck is served by one [expletive] food stand. The field itself is beautiful, and no doubt on a nice summer day with good seats it's as good as it gets. But there are about 6 nice summer days there. The weather sucks ass until mid June, it's close enough to the lake that until that [expletive] thing warms up you are screwed with any sort of wind coming off of the lake.

And getting to it? Not easy.

I'm tired of Wrigley. As far as I'm concerned B3 is better than Wrigley. I never have to worry about this [expletive] when going to B3. I know the view from the 100's is better than the 400's, but I also know that even though I'm way the [expletive] up there I don't have to worry about an obstruction.

Wrigley Field is just a giant pain in the ass.

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"Boy, that was exciting. I always say it ain't over til it's over, but that one should've been over a while ago." ~ Yogi Berra

LOL

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Freese Game 6 Home Run
Relive the 2011 World Series

jr has almost that exact seat a couple of years ago. He and a few buddies went and he said they just laughed and drank the whole day, but never really saw the game. My problem also is I expect complete and unobstructed view of the field. So even if there is a pole blocking 1 inch of the field I am going to be pissed. I can't sit in those 200 or 500 levels except way out in the outfield because of that.

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"Boy, that was exciting. I always say it ain't over til it's over, but that one should've been over a while ago." ~ Yogi Berra

It'd could've been worse. Like this seat at Shea.


And even new stadiums have their issues.

Yankee Stadium


Cowboys Stadium

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"I love to play this game of baseball - I love putting on this uniform."

The poles are why I hate Wrigley as well.

I'm also one of those people that who believes that if I spend $30-$75 to be in a ballpark, I deserve a completely onobstructed view of the field. It's always been my luck that if one corner of the OF is obstructed, that's where an amazing diving, game saving catch will be made and I won't be able to see it. It's even worse at Wrigley because if you miss something, there's not even a replay board. Just terrible.

The last time I was there in 2004, it was a Cards vs. Cubs game and I thought we had good seats. We were on the main level, but we were so far up under the overhang it was claustrophobic. I could see the backs of the suites really well and they did have tv's in that area, but anytime a ball was hit in the air, you had no idea if it was a pop up behind 2nd base or a home run. Had to rely on the crowd reaction.

Every ballpark has bad seats, even the new ones. There's some areas of Busch III I'd never want to sit in. Seats that are obstructed by the foul pouls and some of those left field seats look atrocious. Busch II had some of the loge level seats under overhangs that were as bad as Wrigley. The difference is with the new ballparks it's 10% or less of the seats that are obstructed. With Wrigley, it feels like it's about 60% that are bad.

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The Chicago Cubs: be-LIE-ving since 1908

"Do I want to be in STL forever? Of course. People from other teams want to play in STL and they are jealous that we're in STL because the fans are unbelievable. So why would you want to leave a place like STL to go somewhere else and make 3 OR 4 MORE MILLION A YEAR? IT'S NOT ABOUT MONEY. IALREADY GOT MY MONEY. IT'S ABOUT WINNING, THAT'S IT." Albert Pujols (February 15th, 2009)

About 15000 of the fans in Wrigley would cheer just as much for groundskeepers falling down as they would for a Cubs game. "Is it over yet? My friends are already at Cubbie Bear!"

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Let's Go Cards! Let's Go Hawks! Let's Go Bulls!

Thanks for the pics of Cowboys stadium, Shea, etc....

Here's the worst seat in the house at Omaha's new TD Ameritrade Park...

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The Chicago Cubs: be-LIE-ving since 1908

"Do I want to be in STL forever? Of course. People from other teams want to play in STL and they are jealous that we're in STL because the fans are unbelievable. So why would you want to leave a place like STL to go somewhere else and make 3 OR 4 MORE MILLION A YEAR? IT'S NOT ABOUT MONEY. IALREADY GOT MY MONEY. IT'S ABOUT WINNING, THAT'S IT." Albert Pujols (February 15th, 2009)

Hey buddy, those are some nice rivets.

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Silence is golden.

The reason why Wrigley still works for the Cubs is because so many of their fans only go there 1-2 times per season. They never get to the point where they get tired of the hassle it takes to see a game there, and the "specialness" of the place never really wears off.

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Someone above got to the heart of the matter when he noted that without Wrigley, the Cubs are the Cleveland Indians. What else do the Cubs have besides that stadium? One hundred years of failure, that's what. It's possible that they could gut it and rebuild within the confines of the structure, preserving the shell and the ivy wall, but they'll never just bulldoze it and leave.

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"This is a heavyweight bout indeed."--John Rooney, Oct. 27, 2011