What trip to Chicago would be complete without a trip to Wrigley Field? Baseball and hot dogs go together like -well – baseball and hot dogs, so we scheduled an appearance at the iconic park on Tuesday, August 19, 2014 to see the Cubs play the San Francisco Giants.
As a die-hard Red Sox fan, I can appreciate the charm and antiquity of Wrigley Field and I can empathize with Cubs fans. THEIR team hasn’t won a World Series in 105 years (and counting – it doesn’t look good this year either). That bought of futility far surpasses the 86 year-long drought my Red Sox endured!
It was neat to finally step into the place and catch a game. It is a jewel of a ball park!
There was a notable buzz in the park and we met some great people in our section. Cubs fans, despite their long-suffering, know their baseball and LOVE their team.
Hot Dogs at Wrigley Field
Some folks in Chicago say you can get the best Vienna Beef Chicago hot dogs at Wrigley’s Rooftop. They grill up Vienna Polish Sausages and Vienna All-Beef Franks with all the proper toppings.
Normally, the hot dogs would be the biggest part of the story (especially on Hot Dog Stories), but we were in for a somewhat historic evening at Wrigley Field, but not for a good reason!
Wrigley Field Grounds Crew Steals the Show
After the 5th inning, the Cubs were up 2-0, courtesy of Anthony Rizzo’s two-run homer in the first. That score held until the middle of the fifth inning. That’s when the rain started.
It was quite a deluge, but the Wrigley Field grounds crew rolled out the tarp before the heavy stuff came – sort of. The tarp got stuck while they were unrolling it, leaving the third base corner of the field and the home plate area exposed. Those parts of the field quickly became a quagmire.
After some wrangling with the tarp, they rolled it back up and started again – while the crowd heaped derision on the grounds crew. They were able to cover the field, but the damage had been done. To make matters worse, when the rain stopped and they removed the tarp, all the water on top of the tarp got dumped in the third base corner, creating a sixth Great Lake: Lake Wrigley.
They called the game – it was official – but the Giants protested and, for the first time in 28 years, Major League Baseball upheld a protest by a visiting team. The game was to be completed before the start of the following night’s game! Baseball’s Ruling was:
An examination of the circumstances of last night’s game has led to the determination that there was sufficient cause to believe that there was a “malfunction of a mechanical field device under control of the home club” within the meaning of Official Baseball Rule 4.12(a)(3). Available video of the incident, and conversations with representatives of the Cubs, demonstrate that the Cubs’ inability to deploy the tarp appropriately was caused by the failure to properly wrap and spool the tarp after its last use. As a result, the groundskeeping crew was unable to properly deploy the tarp after the rain worsened. In accordance with Rule 4.12(a)(3), the game should be considered a suspended game that must be completed at a future date.
The game was to be completed before the start of the following night’s game! We couldn’t attend the finish of the game as we were headed to Niagara Falls the next day, but we can say we went to a Wrigley Field on an historic evening. The Cubs prevailed, despite a rally by the Giants when Joe Panik had an RBI single in the sixth. The final was Cubs 2, Giants 1 – with an assist to the grounds crew!
Enjoy the video of our visit to Wrigley Field.
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