The Chicago Cubs, those lovable losers, came up short again Monday night as a torrential downpour spoiled their Historic Event, the first night game at Wrigley Field.
”This proves that the Cubs are cursed,” said fan Liz Rytel as she dashed from the ballpark beneath sheets of rain that halted the game in the fourth inning.
”But I had a great time,” she added, proving that the rain couldn`t dampen everyone`s spirits.
Most of the spectators, after all, had come for the party, not for the ball game. Many had been drawn by the Super Bowl-sized hype; few had come because they wanted to see the fourth-place Cubs and fifth-place Philadelphia Phillies engage in a baseball game that was unlikely to have any effect on the pennant race.
”I think it was great,” said a soaked John Meervaum, of Morton Grove, who paid $200 for two bleacher tickets. ”It was wonderful. I saw everything that I wanted to see, and everyone is having a great time.”
The party atmosphere swirled from the stands into the Cubs dugout. As the rain poured down, four Cubs ran out onto the field and did belly-flops on the tarp. So did at least 15 fans, who were chased down by slipping, sliding security guards in what resembled a Keystone Kops routine.
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The excitement of Monday night would have been unimaginable in 1982 when Dallas Green, then general manager of the Cubs, first proposed installing lights. Although other major-league teams had been playing night baseball for 40 years, Tribune Co., owners of the Cubs, suffered setback after setback in the beginning. The Illinois General Assembly approved legislation that effectively banned night baseball; the Chicago City Council did the same. Both were upheld by the state Supreme Court.
But persistent efforts by the team-and a threat to move to the suburbs-eventually wore down the politicians and blunted opposition from residents of the neighborhood around the ballpark.
Residents wondered what night baseball and the lights would do to the neighborhood, and they wondered who would stop unruly fans from parading over their lawns and taking their parking places.
The city came up with a plan, but police officials worried about what would happen when 40,000 homebound fans hit the Wrigleyville streets at night at the end of the game. They were rather pleased to see the rain.
”This is instant crowd control,” said one police officer in a command center, an electronically equipped bus parked outside the main gate. ”There`s no way you`re going to have crowd problems when people are getting soaked. This is a good dry run for us.”
The game was called after a rain delay of more than two hours, with the Cubs leading 3-1 in the fourth inning. The teams played only an hour and 15 minutes. The rainout means the game was not official.
The Cubs will try again against the New York Mets, beginning at 7:05 p.m. Tuesday.
But rain-soaked fans, many of whom were soaked hundreds of dollars for tickets, stubbornly clung to a piece of history as they left the ballpark Monday night.
”As far as we`re concerned, we saw the first night game,” said Gerri Willert of the Northwest Side. ”They can make it official, unofficial, whatever, it won`t be the same tomorrow night.”
”I`m not going to turn the stubs in for new tickets,” said John MacMillan, a Chicago native who now lives in Edgewater Park, N.J. ”I`ll hold on to them. It`s still the first night game.”
”This wasn`t about baseball; it was about history,” said Ron Smith, of Laguna Beach, Calif. ”And this was still history.”
Earlier in the evening, politicians, celebrities and average people who had managed to wheedle tickets toasted the coming of lights to the venerable ballpark, the last stadium in the major leagues to have them.
”Look at the people!” gushed the state`s First Fan, Gov. James Thompson, who six years earlier had signed a bill intended to ban night baseball from Wrigley Field. ”Look at the enthusiasm of the fans! It`s great not only for the Cubs but for baseball and everything connected with baseball.”
Mayor Eugene Sawyer agreed. ”I think this is a rather historic day for the whole city of Chicago, and everyone is enjoying it,” he said. ”It`s good for two reasons. It advertises the city, and we don`t have to pay for it.”
The fans cheered as 91-year-old Harry Grossman, who has been attending Cubs games since 1906, shouted, ”One . . . two . . . three . . . Let there be lights!” a variation of the line from the Book of Genesis that appeared on T- shirts, buttons and other gewgaws being hawked inside and outside the park.
Grossman then pushed a button, causing the 540 lights atop the Wrigley roof to flicker with pinpoints of fire in the dusk and gradually grow to their full 1,500 watts a light.
The park was draped in red, white and blue bunting, reminiscent of a World Series game, which hasn`t occurred in Wrigley Field since 1945. A 14-member ensemble of Chicago Symphony Orchestra musicians, wearing white baseball caps, entertained the crowd with Sousa marches.
Outside the field, Chicago Police Supt. LeRoy Martin was almost as enthusiastic as Grossman and the governor.
”What we have here is a party atmosphere,” Martin said.
Police officers were everywhere. More than 200 of them patrolled the Wrigleyville neighborhood, as city officials sought to quell resident fears about rowdiness, litter and parking problems.
A police officer accompanied by two dogs stood in front of the Chicago Transit Authority`s Sheridan-Irving Park elevated stop. Two more officers stood halfway up the staircase and two more were on the platform.
Tow trucks were everywhere, too. They were ordered to tow any car parked in the area that did not have a special sticker available only to residents. By the time the game began, more than 60 cars had been towed into a lot at Greenview and Belmont Avenues, city officials said. The owners had to pay more than $100 to get them back.
Numerous on-street parking spaces were evident during a tour of the neighborhood, a sign that the tow trucks were doing their jobs and that fans generally were heeding the city`s advice to take public transportation or to park in remote lots at Lane Technical High School, 2501 W. Addison St., and DeVry Institute of Technology, 3300 N. Campbell Ave., and take shuttle buses to the game.
Outside the sold-out stadium, hundreds of people packed into balconies and rooftops along Sheffield and Waveland Avenues, partying and dining on traditional and not-so-traditional baseball cuisine.
There was a semiblack-tie affair at 3537 N. Sheffield Ave., as men wearing tuxedo jackets and Bermuda shorts piled their plates with steaks.
”I found out how many friends I have,” said Tony Trombetta, watching the game from his balcony at 1038 W. Waveland Ave.
Perched on the roof of 1034 W. Waveland Ave., Lorri Sunara, 37, and David Wieland, 39, sat in ”Support Day Baseball” T-shirts as they supped on roasted cornish game hens and pate.
”Just because I don`t want lights doesn`t mean I`m not going to watch it,” Wieland said, as he bit into a celery stalk laden with cheese and olive slices.
Though the crowd was relatively orderly, it didn`t satisfy the anti-lights activists who had been fighting night baseball for six years.
”The problem is that there`s so many people here at night there`s no way to control it,” said Michael Quigley, vice president of Citizens United for Baseball in Sunshine (CUBS), the major anti-lights group.
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Walking west on Waveland Avenue toward Clark Street, Quigley also bemoaned the fact some residents were charging admission to watch the game from their roofs.
”These are people who used to watch the games for fun,” he said. ”Now it`s become commercialized. One guy is even thinking about putting a skybox up there. Can you believe that?”
Junior Cruz, 19, of 3621 N. Sheffield Ave., said his mother was one of those making money off the game.
”She rented out our roof to some suburban rich people,” he said.
”She`s even got a gate around the top so if they get drunk they won`t fall off.”
Some people said they had been unable to resist the intense publicity attending the game, which drew more than 500 reporters from around the world. At Bernie`s Tavern, across from the ballpark at Clark Street and Waveland Avenue, Mike Fraus, 27, of Skokie, said: ”The media have drawn me here. I don`t really know why I came. I don`t have a ticket. I have no interest in a baseball game. It just seemed like the thing to do.”
Even Cubs announcer Harry Caray thought the game had been a bit overblown. ”I don`t know why it`s history,” he said. ”We`ve had night baseball for a long time.”
Manager Don Zimmer agreed. ”I`ve been listening to this for weeks and weeks,” he said. ”What`s so big about it?”
Whatever it was, it was big enough to draw several hundred fans to Grant Park, where they watched the game on a 15-by-17-foot television screen at the Petrillo Band Shell before the rains came.
”I couldn`t get tickets for the game, and it`s just a godsend that they`re going to show it here,” said Lois Thurston, a Cubs fan since 1945.
”I wouldn`t have missed it for anything.”
On the South Side and in the south suburbs, though, where the favorite team is the White Sox and the second favorite is whatever team is playing the Cubs, apathy and indifference reigned.
”No one cares about the Cubs game here,” said John Sullivan, doorman at a tavern called Reilly`s Daughter in Oak Lawn. ”I don`t and neither do they.”
A patron, Dan Lowern of Oak Lawn, added, ”I`m just happy the first home run wasn`t hit by a Cub.”