On the final day of the 1983 baseball season, the late Bill Veeck was perched in his usual seat in the center-field bleachers at Wrigley Field, spinning tales to anyone who cared to listen about the creation of his
”outdoor office” at the corner of Sheffield and Waveland avenues.
”I built that scoreboard,” said Veeck, turning his shirtless body around and pointing at the manually operated monster behind him. ”The inventor showed me a model, and I thought it`d work great for day baseball. But I did something dumb.”
Veeck turned back and pointed toward home plate. ”See, from the top of the lower deck over there, you can`t see the whole scoreboard,” he said, shaking his head. ”It never even occurred to me.”
It was 50 years ago this week, on July 9, 1937, that Veeck oversaw the beginning of construction on what is arguably the most glamorized,
romanticized and overmagnified section of ”cheap seats” in a major league facility–the Wrigley Field bleachers. Veeck`s scoreboard still stands at the top of the bleachers, a symbol of the timelessness of baseball. It was featured on last week`s cover of Sports Illustrated.
Later in the summer of `37, Veeck, who started out as an $18 a week office boy for the Cubs, would help plant the bittersweet and ivy and attach them to copper wires running up the new 11-foot-high outfield walls. It was all part of a three-month, $200,000 renovation project that has seen a minimum of change in the five decades since.
Wrigley Field, which was built in 1914 by the Chicago Whales of the soon- to-be-extinct Federal League, had been without a left-field bleacher section since 1925. An item in a Tribune article on the new bleachers in the summer of `37 explained why:
”The old bleachers in left field were the happy target of Hack Miller, Cub slugger of a decade and a half ago. They were torn out when it developed that the Cubs had fewer sluggers who could reach the area than were on the rosters of visiting teams.”
William Holabird, 83, was involved with the bleacher project from the day former Cubs owner P.K. Wrigley first walked into his uncle`s Loop architectural firm, Holabird & Root.
”Wrigley came to the office and said he wanted new bleachers,” said Holabird, who years later would become president of the firm. ”They were afraid they might have an accident there because they`d been up there quite a long time and wood doesn`t last too long.”
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Then 33, Holabird served as an errand boy for the company, and his job that summer was running the blueprints back and forth between the firm and the ballpark.
”I`m only three or four years out of Yale at the time, and I don`t know what`s up or down with a hammer,” he recalled. ”My uncle, John Holabird Sr., told me I was gonna learn the business from the bottom up, and, boy, did I learn it.”
Holabird said that when the Cubs played at home that year, the workers had to be finished by 2:30 p.m. for the regular 3 o`clock starts. ”I spent most of my time just watching the games,” he now admits. ”It was a good opportunity to see a game for free.”
The original concept of the bleachers included plans to have several Chinese Elm trees growing on the steps leading up to the new scoreboard. But the stiff winds off Lake Michigan blew all the leaves off the first batch of trees, and wreaked havoc again after second and third attempts were made at planting trees in the bleachers.
As Veeck wrote in his autobiography, ”Veeck–As in Wreck”: ”It took about 10 sets of trees before Mr. Wrigley began to spot a trend. The trees were quite inexpensive; the footings cost about $200,000.”
They eventually gave up on the trees, but the footings still provide knowledgable bleacherites with a chance to spread out a blanket and relax even on days when the stands are packed.
On Sept. 28, 1938, the first full year of the new bleachers wound down with the most famous homer in Cub history. In the bottom of the ninth, player- manager Gabby Hartnett hit a two-out, two-strike, tie-breaking shot into the left-field bleachers to beat Pittsburgh 6-5 and move the Cubs past the Pirates into first place. The ballpark was really too dark at the top of the inning for play to continue, but the umpires decided to let the game go one more inning, setting up the heroics that led to a pennant.
Hartnett`s homer was given the lyrical moniker– ”Homer in the Gloamin,” and the Cub immortal later recalled:
”A lot of people told me they didn`t know the ball was in the bleachers. Well, I did–maybe I was the only one in the park who did. I knew it the minute I hit it. When I got to second base, I couldn`t see third for the players and fans there. I don`t think I walked a step to the plate–I was carried in. But when I got there, I saw (umpire) George Barr taking a good look–he was going to make sure I touched the platter. That was the shot that did it. We went into first place. And while we still had the pennant to win, we couldn`t be headed.”
Although the Cubs have won only one pennant since then, in 1945, bleacherites still have had their moments in the sun. After the final home game of the 1984 regular season, former manager Jim Frey led the Eastern Division titlists in a march from the dugout toward the bleachers to thank what he called the park`s most loyal fans.
In one of the few changes in the bleachers, in 1985, Tribune Co. did away with the Cubs longtime policy of not selling bleacher tickets until the day of the game. The announcement brought about a celebrated boycott of the ballpark by Veeck, who had originated the policy.
”It did bother him, but he was definitely a man of integrity and principles,” said Veeck`s widow, Mary Frances. ”Bill felt the bleachers were the last bastion of the common man, and woman. It wasn`t just a matter of picking a quarrel with the Tribune (Co.). I think he looked on (the new policy) as being a little greedy, and he just didn`t like that.”
Marv Rich, 57, a Bleacher Bum since 1943, claims that yuppies have taken over since the first group surfaced en masse during the summer of 1984. ”They don`t care about watching the game,” Rich complained. ”All they care about is getting a good tan and being able to tell everyone later that they got it in the bleachers.”
”It`s a little sad,” added long-time fan Richard Fire. ”One of the nice things about those tickets set aside for day-of-game sales was that you could just decide to take off at the last minute. And they were priced so that, (former Cub manager) Lee Elia`s comments notwithstanding, anyone could go sit there.”
Fire, a local actor, helped create and was in the original 1977 Organic Theater cast of the successful play, ”Bleacher Bums.” In the comedy about a typical sunny day in the lower center-field bleachers during a Cubs-Cardinals game, Fire played a calculating gambler named Marv whose motto was, ”No one ever lost money betting against the Cubs.”
At the end of the play, the characters glumly file out of the bleachers after another heartbreaking loss to the hated Redbirds. Fire recalled that the creators decided to sign off with old Cub announcer Jack Brickhouse`s ”dream game,” which he had described to them in an interview during the early stages of production.
”We put this `dream game` in the mouth of the blind fellow who did running commentary throughout the play,” Fire said. ”It`s the `50-Cents Series,` which was how much it used to cost to ride the `L` between Wrigley and Comiskey Park back then. The Cubs and Sox would go into the seventh game at Wrigley, the pitchers would duel into the 21st inning, and Ernie Banks would come out of retirement to hit a home run into the bleachers and win it.”
Sweet, farfetched dreams–and happy birthday, you bums.
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FACTS
— The bleacher wall is 11 feet high.
— Capacity in the bleachers is 3,260.
— The basket attached to the wall was constructed in 1970, partly because Bleacher Bums often jumped onto the field after victories during 1969. — The center-field scoreboard, which was built with the new bleachers in 1937, has never been hit by a batted baseball.
— Golfer Sam Snead once hit a golfball over the scoreboard with a 9-iron while teeing off at home plate.
— Bill Veeck installed a flagpole with red and green lights on top of the scoreboard so elevated train riders could tell if the Cubs won or lost as they rode by. Green meant win, red meant loss. This device later was replaced by ”W” and ”L” flags.
— Ernie Banks hit his 500th career home run into the left-field bleachers on May 12, 1970.
— Ground rules stipulate that a double is awarded on a batted ball that sticks in the ivy on the wall or in the screen of the basket.