Wrigley Field

Wrigley Field is a sports stadium in Chicago, Illinois which was built in 1914 for the Chicago Federal League baseball team, the Chicago Whales and which became the home of the Chicago Cubs in 1916. It was also the home of the Chicago Bears of the National Football League from 1921-1970.

Ivy Covered Walls

Wrigley Field is known for the ivy planted against the outfield wall in 1937 by Bill Veeck and the manual scoreboard Veeck also erected. No batted ball has ever hit the scoreboard, though Sam Snead did manage to hit it with a golf ball teed off from home plate.

Related Topics:
1937 - Bill Veeck - Sam Snead

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For some time prior to 1937, the Wrigley outfield was rather more spacious, though not initially. The early history is explained well in A Day at the Park, by William Hartel, 1994. There were other buildings on the west side of the property in 1914, and this compelled the designers to squeeze the structure between those buildings, resulting in the ballpark having a short right field, some 298 feet to the outer wall. The only bleachers were in the left and center field areas. The stands were single-decked, and also narrower than they are now, with the box seat railing being some 7 or 8 feet above ground. This was the park's configuration for its first 9 seasons.

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During the off-season between 1922 and 1923, with the extraneous buildings cleared off, engineers took the unusual move of slicing the single-deck grandstand in two places, and rolling those stands 60 feet to the west. The gap was filled in with more seating, resulting in the noticeable "dog leg" in the stands on the first base side, barely visible at the lower right of the "friendly confines" photo accompanying this article. The diamond and the foul lines were rotated 3 degrees counterclockwise, providing room for additional rows of box seats all around foul ground, but resulting in a shallower left field. So the bleachers were removed from that area and re-installed across right field. It was then about 360 feet to the outer right field wall, but an inner fence was constructed to cut the distance to 321.

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During the mid-1920s, the ballpark was upper-decked in two stages, the third-base (shady) side first, and then the first-base (sunny) side. But the bleachers were set. By the early 1930s, distance markers were posted: left field line, 364 feet; left-center against the outer wall, 372; left center, corner of bleachers, 364; deep center field, 440; right center, 354; right field line, 321.

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In 1937, the Cubs announced plans to rebuild the bleachers in concrete instead of wood, to be fronted by brick that would soon be covered in ivy, and to build a new scoreboard. To make the outfield look more symmetrical and graceful, the plans called for extending the left field bleachers to a point closer to the corner. The gentle curves between the ends of the left and right field bleachers would become known as the "wells". That summer, the Chicago Tribune ran a series of articles about major league ballparks, and the writer sharply criticized the Cubs for a remodeling that he suspected would result in too many "cheap" home runs. The writer later retracted when he saw that the final plan was somewhat more spacious than originally announced. But the results in subsequent decades speak for themselves, and it is fair to say that the Trib's original assessment was correct.

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Be that as it may, construction went on behind a temporary fence during the summer, and the finished product was unveiled in time for the last month of the season. Bill Veeck's famous ivy was planted not long after, but it would be another year before it fully took hold. Another part of the arboretum was to be a series of Chinese elms on the large "stairsteps" up to the scoreboard. According to Veeck's own biography, Veeck as in Wreck, that plan did not fare so well as the winds kept blowing the leaves off. Management finally gave up, so the trees are long gone, leaving just the large bare steps. Another mistake was putting bleachers in straightaway center, which looked nice as long as you were not batting. That area has been off-limits for spectators for decades now, last used during the 1962 All-Star game. The area is now occupied by juniper plants, complementing the ivy nicely.

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So by the end of 1937, the dimensions we all know and love were set: 355 feet to the left field corner, a few feet behind where the foul pole kisses the corner wall; 368 to fairly deep left-center; 400 to the deepest part of center; 368 to right center; and 353 to the right field foul pole. There are other intriguing distances, never posted. In the original Encyclopedia of Baseball, by Hy Turkin and S.C. Thompson, 1951, it revealed measurements of 357 feet to the left field "well" and 363 to the right field "well". That would put the closest point of the left end of the bleachers no more than about 350 feet from home plate, a fact many pitchers have cursed over the years. Left-center in general is shallow. Straightaway center is probably about 390. Deep center and the right field area in general are better balanced.

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