Tuesday, March 13, 2007
A modest argument for ads at Wrigley
Posted by Whet Moser on 03.13.07 at 01:51 PM
SaveWrigley.com is petitioning Cubs fans to boycott the sportswear company Under Armour in response to their planned ads on the Friendly Confines' outfield walls. Me, I try to take the philosophical view.
1. The famous ivy was merely the first great brainstorm from genius huckster Bill Veeck, the man who brought you exploding scoreboards, Disco Demolition Night, Eddie Gaedel, the Comiskey Martians, and baseball player shorts. I think he'd find the ads profoundly uncreative, but his legacy has not been purity.
2. Remember how everyone was so upset about the lights? Oh, you don't. Ask your dad, kid.
3. Since this is about aesthetics, let's think about the purpose of architectural design and ornamentation. You could argue that, in pure aesthetic terms, the ads are a mistake. I won't argue with that. But I submit that, ideally, design should speak to the nature of an institution. And the Cubs are an institution that scalps its own tickets and drove out announcer Steve Stone because he had the temerity to be honest. So think of the ads as honest, resonant design.
4. By the All-Star break, the fact that Under Armour is picking up a chunk of fly-ball pitcher Ted Lilly's four-year, $40 million contract will seem like corporate charity.
Comments (6)
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Compared to the huge-ass lighted "Bud Light Bleachers" signage at Sheffield and Waveland, putting UnderArmour logos in the outfield certainly is subtle...
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I'm generally in agreement here, although it shouldn't be overlooked that the Cubs have frequently needed to be protected from themselves where Wrigley Field is concerned. Without the anti-lights movement of Citizens United for Baseball in Sunshine, would the Cubs have taken the pains to create the light standards that echo the arcs in the construction of the grandstand? And I can personally attest to how I was sitting in the press box one day in the 80s and overheard a couple of people in the Cubs' media-relations department discuss how the team absolutely had to put an upper deck on the bleachers in order to maximize seating and profit. Without fans fighting every small attempt to sully Wrigley Field's charm -- which has turned out to be the team's main selling point over the last 20 years or more -- the eventual bleacher reconstruction wouldn't have gone as well as it did, and Wrigley would long ago have been paved over. Under Armour ads are no big deal, but Cub fans should fight the good fight to retain the hand-operated scoreboard and preserve the integrity of the original stadium as much as possible. Also, you can try to twist Bill Veeck's baseball legacy all you want, but he cared about the fans and providing them good entertainment, he never held a gun to the head of the city and state to get public funding to replace Comiskey Park, and he spent many of his last days in the Wrigley Field bleachers -- as they were and as they deserve to remain.
Wait, they were going to put an upper deck on Wrigley? I am as far from a Cubs fan as exists (Cardinals for years, and since moving to Chicago I'm friendly towards the White Sox), but that's totally insane. I think that might get me out in front of the bulldozers just on general principle. It's worth noting that the removal of the upper deck at the Cell was the big difference in making it, if not a charming stadium, at least not as oppressive as it was previously.
