Wrigley Field Bleachers May Not Be Ready For Chicago Cubs’ Opening Sunday Night
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Times are changing on the north side of Chicago as far as baseball is concerned. Wrigley Field, the shrine the Chicago Cubs play in 81 times a year, is getting a facelift that involves getting a big screen replay board in left-center field. Baseball purists shudder at that idea. Like it or not, drastic changes are coming to the iconic ballpark.
The change taking place this offseason involves the bleachers. Right after the regular season ended, crews got to work tearing down the historic bleachers at Wrigley Field so they could begin to build new ones that stretched further back. Photos of the work came as a shock to some Cubs fans as there appeared to be almost no bleachers left standing.
News is now surfacing that all of those bleachers may not be added back in time for the Cubs to take on the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday Night Baseball to open up the entire MLB season. Crane Kenney, Cubs president of business operations, said that all of the bleachers may not be ready to go for Opening Night.
If that’s the case, the atmosphere could be strange for Wrigley in primetime. For a team trying to show star free agents that Chicago is a place they want to play, not having these bleachers completely finished could be a disaster. In fact, it’s somewhat symbolic of a rebuild not yet completed.
Even if this is a normal setback on a project like this, the Cubs need to find a way to get all of the bleachers up for Opening Night. Both symbolically and realistically, an Opening Night game on national television signifies a major step in the Cubs’ rebuild. They will either continue their futility or develop into contenders.
Regardless, one thing is for sure: If bleacher renovations aren’t done by Opening Night, there will be less fans on hand to see the team start to change before their eyes.
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