A Cub next door? Players embrace Wrigleyville living

The key is in the cap.

If you pull a Pearl Jam cap down low enough, slightly shading your eyes, chances are you can navigate the streets of Wrigleyville without anyone knowing who you are, even if you run the hottest team in baseball.

“I know how to live in the shadows,” Theo Epstein said.

The Cubs’ president, along with several players, coaches and clubhouse men, happily live in the shadows of Wrigley Field, where walking to work is not only possible but possibly therapeutic.

You don’t hear about baseball players living in U.S. Cellularville, Buschville or Kaufmannville. Neighborhoods don’t adopt the names of their ballparks, and Wrigleyville didn’t even exist until real estate agents began to call it that in the early 1980s to capitalize on the Cubs’ sudden trendiness.

While many Cubs players have lived near Wrigley over the years, it seemingly has become a more popular destination over the last decade after Ryan Dempster, Jeff Samardzija and a few others made it their home.

Former Cubs manager Dale Sveum learned he was going to be fired in a bar near his Wrigleyville home, and when Samardzija became a free agent last fall he met with Epstein at the same establishment.

Kyle Hendricks said during spring training he could walk from his home a few blocks from Wrigley in full view without any strangers saying a word to him. Now that he’s one of the top pitchers in the game, it’s only slightly different.

“I can still keep my head down and not get recognized too much,” Hendricks said. “I feel lucky. Every once in a while I’ll get some people. It’s starting to slowly change. I’m feeling it.

“But for the most part, I can keep my head down and get through it. Not as many as you’d think, though. We’ve got so many guys on this team that are so recognizable, and I’m not really that kind of a personality, but it’s fun to get some recognition.”

Hendricks lived downtown when he first came up in 2014, but he moved to Wrigleyville last year and grew in love with the Southport Corridor restaurants. Justin Grimm and his wife lived with Hendricks last year until moving into their own place, and Grimm and Hendricks walked together to Wrigley during the playoffs.

“Downtown is fun to live down there and experience it, but I like to get out away and be in a quieter place,” Hendricks said. “And then you can still go downtown for whatever you need.”

Jon Lester lived near Fenway Park when he played for the Red Sox, and with his family growing he wanted to see them more often. The proximity to work was one of the reasons Lester chose to get a house in Wrigleyville after signing with the Cubs.

“I didn’t want to deal with driving an hour to and from the field every day, especially with all the day games,” he said. “I think Chicago is very different as far as living in the city, as compared to Boston. We’re not really in the city. It’s more of a suburb in the city. It’s not like we’re living above a restaurant or next to one, like you’d be doing in some condo buildings near Fenway in Boston.

“It’s something different, something new, and I thought we’d give it a while.”

Unlike Hendricks, walking to work is not usually an option Lester takes.

“I don’t walk, but I like it,” Lester said. “It’s nice being close, especially for those road trips when you get in late. Even road trips when you get in early you’re home right away and don’t have to worry about traffic.”

Most of Lester’s neighbors know the family lives there, and he said they give him space. It did get a little crazy last Halloween when the neighborhood kids went up to his door hoping for some huge candy bars, knowing Jonathan Toews’ Halloween treats are legendary in Lakeview.

But Lester and his family had already left Chicago for their offseason home, so they couldn’t keep up with the Toewses.

Since our athletes are the biggest celebrities in Chicago, neighbors tend to enjoy having ballplayers live nearby. One neighbor of Jake Arrieta’s said he enjoys hearing Arrieta’s kids play in the backyard and catch fireflies, just as his own kids did when they were young.

Arrieta said he loves living in the neighborhood, and the chance to feel like part of the community.

“It’s much more of a unique situation in Chicago because Wrigley is immersed right in the middle of a neighborhood, in the Lakeview, Wrigleyville area, and it’s something you really don’t see really anywhere else,” Arrieta said. “Kids growing up and being able to walk out their front door and see such an amazing establishment as Wrigley Field. I cherish that.

“Me and my family love living close to the stadium and being around the community. The community outreach has just been incredible. The support, it’s a daily thing where I’ll leave the house and people reach out to me. It can be something as simple as saying ‘Go, Cubs’ or ‘We’re pulling for you.’ All my neighbors talk to me. It’s something to have that kind of support around the community. It makes you really enjoy what I’m able to be a part of.”

Wrigleyville isn’t for everybody, naturally.

Joe Maddon lives downtown, where he can walk to a restaurant for dinner or bike along the lakefront. But he gets the attraction to Wrigleyville. A small-town guy from Pennsylvania, Maddon said one thing he’s learned about living in Chicago is size doesn’t matter.

“Chicago is a big small city,” Maddon said. “Outside of the big buildings downtown, when you get outside of that, it’s kind of got a small-town flavor to it, and I like that. So I think my comfort level was derived from the fact that where I’d grown up, I was prepared for the folks of Chicago and I feel very comfortable around them. I enjoy the conversation. I feel we have a lot in common.”

Epstein, a Wrigleyville resident since he became a team president in 2011, also lived near Fenway Park during part of his time as general manager in Boston, where he grew up.

Wrigleyville, he said, has been an easy transition. Epstein can go watch his son play in the local Little League and can take his family shopping at Jewel.

Like Lester, Epstein said the chance to see his family more often was more of a lure than the restaurants or nightlife. Baseball is full of long days, bad food choices and no sleep, so Epstein likes to make a little escape when possible.

“For a night game after batting practice, it’s like a dead time usually for an hour or an hour and a half,” he said. “I like to walk home and have dinner with my kids, do the bedtime thing and make it back for first pitch. It’s awesome. It’s really pretty cool. I don’t know where else you could do that.”

Wrigleyville can be chaotic on the days the Cubs are playing, with loud, partying fans rumbling through the neighborhood. But it can be relatively quiet and serene, like the suburb in the city Lester described.

The one day everyone expects Wrigleyville to really explode is the day the Cubs finally win a World Series.

If it’s at Wrigley Field, it may be tough for some of the players to make their way home.

“Then it’ll be a little bit different,” Hendricks said with a grin. “We’ll take it.”

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