Chicago Baseball Parks 1937

 Baseball season is almost here.  Spring training games begin in less than two weeks. Opening Day is about 6 weeks away.  The White Sox, who look to have an exciting team, will not be playing in Comiskey Field.  Did the Sox ever play in Comiskey Field?  As far as I know it was always Comiskey Park.  The Cubs, as they have been since 1916, will be playing in Wrigley Field.

This card dates from 1937.  I tried my best to figure out where the Wrigley image came from.  I had no luck at all.  Was it taken from an actual photograph?  Note all the fans standing on the field.   Can anyone date it? 

Wrigley Field After People

I sure hope we win a World Series Championship before this happens:

The Birds

You've all seen this card by now.  The gulls told me they wanted a whole post featuring them.  So here it is.

From the Chicago Tribune. June 16, 2009
    Yes, Reed Johnson saw tape of the "bird game" in Cleveland last week when a flock of sea gulls took off as a game-winning hit went to center field.
    Johnson seems to be in center at Wrigley Field when gulls swarm, usually very late in the afternoon, like late in the 3 p.m. start for Fox television this year. "I didn't have any balls hit to me, but I was worried about it," Johnson said. "I know you've seen them get blown up by pitches in the past, so you know they're not quick enough to react and get out of the way. That's always a concern.

    "The only time it bothers me is when the ball is hit in the same area. I just hope no one hits it out there when those things decide to fly."

Chicago Gulls Go Green

Seen a brightly colored gull lately, or one sporting flashy tags on its wings? You're not losing your mind--you've just spotted an (unwitting) participant in the Ring-billed Gull Management Program.

The program began in the spring of 2007 as a joint effort by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services and the City of Chicago's Department of Environment, designed to discourage the birds from nesting here. The gulls, named for the black ring circling their yellow bill, were only occasional visitors here until the mid-1970s. However, by 1999, 134,000 of these birds had decided that Chicago-area landfills, trash cans, and beaches made a fine home.

By April 2007, the gull population had soared by 500 percent in some locations. In addition to other various nuisances attributed to the gulls, their droppings are believed to be a possible cause of elevated E. coli levelsin Lake Michigan, which have resulted in many beach closures.

The program hopes to gain insight into controlling the gulls through tagging and monitoring. Wildlife Services personnel wing-tagged more than 1,300 nesting gulls at Lake Calumet (blue and yellow tags) and at Dime Pier near Navy Pier (orange and green tags) in 2007 and 2008, along with help from biologists from the National Wildlife Research Center in Ohio. They also marked other gulls with nontoxic dyes, leaving not a few members of the public puzzling over their hue. Marking the gulls will help researchers learn more about their movements and lead to long-term management strategies. Birders from as far as Iowa, Lake Ontario, and even Florida have reported the marked gulls.

People who see marked gulls in 2008 can e-mail john.w.hartmann@aphis.usda.gov. Include the date, time, and specific location of the sighting, the color of the tag or dye, the number of marked gulls seen, and the observer's name and phone number. The study ends in December, and results will be released in early 2009.

— Betsy J. Green

Wrigley Morning

I saw this card on the great Vintage Cubs Cards blog.  Below is my own copy.

 What interested me was not PAUL ASSENMACHER whose name looks like something you'd see on Wheel of Fortune.

What I love is the shot of left field at Wrigley Field in the background.  There's something about Wrigley that's  so like home to me and never so much than in the morning.  It's obviously Spring when this was taken with the trees on Waveland Avenue just having sprouted and the ivy on the wall still brown.  Assenmacher looks pretty contented here.  I would be too.

From the Vault -- Pictures from Wrigley 8

Back in the day I went to a number of Cubs games with my Canon FTb equipped with a telephoto lens.

The camera looked like this:

The lens looked something like the one below.  It's a fixed focal length of 400 mm, no zoom.  

Here are some miscellaneous pictures from the Cubs-Phillies game on May 24, 1978.

From the Vault -- Pictures from Wrigley 5

Back in the day I went to a number of Cubs games with my Canon FTb equipped with a telephoto lens.

The camera looked like this:

The lens looked something like the one below.  It's a fixed focal length of 400 mm, no zoom.  

Here are another handful of pictures from the Cubs-Phillies game.

From the Vault -- Pictures from Wrigley 4 -- Who's on First?

Back in the day I went to a number of Cubs games with my Canon FTb equipped with a telephoto lens.

The camera looked like this:

The lens looked something like the one below.  It's a fixed focal length of 400 mm, no zoom.  

The whole setup was very heavy and cumbersome.  

After all these years I thought it would be fun to share some of my pictures here. Keep in mind that this was back in the days of film and the photos were scanned on my $50 scanner.  Hopefully they look OK.  Click to enlarge them. 

Ok, for this post let's change games.  We started at first base last time so let's do it again.

From the Vault -- Pictures from Wrigley 3 -- Gimme Mick

Back in the day I went to a number of Cubs games with my Canon FTb equipped with a telephoto lens.

The camera looked like this:

The lens looked something like the one below.  It's a fixed focal length of 400 mm, no zoom.  

The whole setup was very heavy and cumbersome.  

After all these years I thought it would be fun to share some of my pictures here. Keep in mind that this was back in the days of film and the photos were scanned on my $50 scanner.  Hopefully they look OK.  Click to enlarge them. 

Johngy, who kindly identified that these pictures are from a game on August 10, 1976  mentioned that #20 was Mick Kelleher.  I think the two pictures below are of #20 after he hit a double in the bottom of the 6th.

Caption, anyone?

I guess I ran out of color film at this point and quickly switched to a roll of B&W.  

This umpire seems kind of nosy.

A few recent pictures of Mick

From the Vault -- Pictures from Wrigley 2

Back in the day I went to a number of Cubs games with my Canon FTb equipped with a telephoto lens.

The camera looked like this:

The lens looked something like the one below.  It's a fixed focal length of 400 mm, no zoom.  

The whole setup was very heavy and cumbersome.  

After all these years I thought it would be fun to share some of my pictures here. Keep in mind that this was back in the days of film and the photos were scanned on my $50 scanner.  Hopefully they look OK.  Click to enlarge them. 

One of the things that makes Wrigley Field special is the old manual scoreboard.  Here are three pictures from the same game as the Perez-LaCock from the previous post.

 Cubs fans could play, "What's Changed", here.  As much as Wrigley has stayed the same over the years, there are some differences.  Anybody want to play?  This shot is from before the game started.   The clock says, 1:10 and the grounds crew is watering the infield.  I've always liked the hour or two before the game.

Here's a nice look at the scoreboard taken during the Cub's half of the second inning.  I'll confess to not knowing off the top of my head who #20 was.  The good news is, there are already three runs in.

I have to blame the bad framing on this one on the long lens.  Note that this must be a weekday as all the other games are "being played under the lights."