 |  |
 |
| Wednesday, April 17 Cubs right in screening out rooftop fans By Jim Caple ESPN.com |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Cubs opened their home season recently with new screens behind the Wrigley Field bleachers that obscure the view for fans on the neighboring rooftops. Unfortunately for Cubs fans, the screens do not obscure the view of left fielder Roosevelt Brown. Ha! That's just a joke. All good Cubs fans know Brown will shed his early season slump and become every bit as productive as Gary Mathews Jr. was.
The new screens are quite the controversy at Wrigley Field, where the neighboring apartment buildings are as much a part of Cubs tradition as day baseball, ivied walls and last place. Fans have long climbed on the surrounding roofs to peer onto the field but with local businesses now selling tickets for extensive seating areas on those roofs, the Cubs are fighting back with the view-blocking spite screens. One team executive claimed the screens were a security precaution due to Sept. 11, which indicates he either is sucking up for a job in attorney general John Ashcroft's office or thinks Cubs fans are complete morons (readers, insert your own punchline here). If the Cubs truly are concerned with security, they would stop peddling beer to the obviously drunk so that fans don't run onto the mound and attack the relief pitcher anymore. The Cubs have been criticized for corporate greed on this issue because sneaking a free peak of a game is a well-established baseball tradition that extends almost as far back as Jesse Orosco. Teams still market ticket promotions as knothole specials, harkening to the days when street urchins would peak through openings in the stadium fences. Everyone has been to some park where fans can stand on a nearby slope called "Tightwad Hill" and gain a free, albeit obstructed view of the game. The key to knothole peering and rooftop slumming, however, is that the view is supposed to be free.
The way it works is, you bring your own lawn chair or climb a tree or hoist your child onto your shoulders for a view while trying to eat the peanuts you bought at the local grocery store. You don't fork over a handful of twenties to a bar owner and sit in a section of seats so elaborate that Frank Gehry must have been the architect. And you don't take the afternoon off from peddling energy futures so you can sit in a private rooftop suite so corporate that it should include its own paper shredder and Arthur Andersen accountant. Tightwad views are supposed to be for the devoted fan who can't afford a ticket, not the casual fan who simply was too lazy to buy one. And that's why I side with the Cubs on this one. They're the ones who are providing the product. They're the ones who want to expand the park so more fans can squeeze in. They're the ones who have been part of the Wrigley neighborhood decades longer than anyone on those rooftops. The Cubs are not the ones ruining the rooftop experience -- it's the people building and selling the rooftops seats. Those surrounding rooftops used to be as special a part of American sports as the bleachers inside the ballpark and tailgate parties outside Lambeau Field. But that was when watching a game there was free, before the greed of a few losers ruined it for everyone. The free view was great while it lasted. But if the people selling rooftop seats want to keep the screens down, I suggest they start paying part of Sammy Sosa's salary.
Box score line of the week Remember when Kansas City rookie Miguel Asencio walked four batters and didn't throw a strike in his major-league debut? Seattle rookie Ron Wright had an interesting first game as well Sunday. He struck out looking, hit into a double play and hit into a 1-6-2-5-1-4 triple play, accounting for six outs in his first three major league at-bats. His line: 3 AB, 0 R, 0 H, 0 RBIs, six outs Asencio hasn't pitched since his 16-ball debut, but at least he's still on the team -- the Mariners designated Wright for assignment Tuesday. "He thanked us for the opportunity," manager Lou Piniella told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "He said he'd go down, hit, and if we called him back, he promised he wouldn't hit into another triple play."
Lies, damn lies and statistics
From left field Detroit is the seventh team to begin a season by losing 10 or more games in a row, and the previous seven finished last or next to last. That's a bad sign, but there is hope for next year. The two teams to lose the most games (and lose them most recently), the '88 Orioles and '97 Cubs, both improved significantly the next season. Baltimore led the AL East most of 1989 and went into the final weekend before being eliminated while the '98 Cubs were the wild-card team that season.
Win Blake Stein's Money QUESTION: Which teams hold the record for most victories at the start of a season?
Off Base Power Rankings
ANSWER: Atlanta in 1982 and Milwaukee in 1987 each opened its season with 13 consecutive victories. Unfortunately, both also had long losing streaks. Atlanta lost 11 games in a row that season but still went on to win the NL West that year. Milwaukee lost 12 in a row and finished third, seven games out.
Infield chatter
Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com. |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
