Ballpark Review: Wrigley Field

Forty-eight years.

Depending on the context, that can be a tragically short amount of time or a tragically long one. Roy Halladay, born in 1977, experienced the tragically short side of that coin, sadly never getting to see his 48th year. The Seattle Mariners, born in the same year as Halladay, view it from the tragically long perspective since they’ve never been to a World Series in their existence.

In each case, they came into being one year after I saw my first major league game in my first major league ballpark, Fenway Park. At the time, I had no notion of trying to see games in every major league park. In fact, I don’t think I could have named more than one or two of the ballparks that existed at the time, and, now that I could, most of them are gone. Let me go count them up…

Wow.

Of the 24 teams that existed in 1976, 18 of their ballparks have been replaced. Five of the six that are still standing are Fenway, Dodger Stadium, Angel Stadium, Kauffman Stadium, and Oakland Coliseum (for now). I’ve seen them all, most more than once, some before they had their current names.

The one ballpark still in operation from that year that I hadn’t seen, in fact the only active major league ballpark of any kind that I still hadn’t seen, was Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs. I purposely saved it for last because I wanted the two oldest parks to be the bookends of my personal ballpark tour.

Now that I’ve been there, I sort of wish I’d come sooner.