Cubs announce LED board and patio in RF bleachers for 2012

[El Duderino]

i hope dempster is really hitting 95 next year

[Guest]

So, I'm guessing the basket is still the line for HRs and if a ball hits off the board it's a HR?

[UMFan83]

I would love a video board, but having a board to provide significantly more statistics might be an even better thing to have.

 

The only stats you could get previously were on the crappy little LED board under the scoreboard. Their first AB, all you got was BA/HR/RBI, and then the other times they were AB they had stupid little things like "Castro has .461 SLG% in home games in June." or "Soto had a GW RBI on 7/3 against the Brewers". Just not really useful information.

 

And the fact that it will have a dedicated pitch count tracker is awesome. Previously that info would only be up on the LED boards that lined the 1B and 3B lines. But it would only start showing up when a starter was over something like 60 pitches. And sometimes they would run the out of town scoreboard on it instead and just wouldn't have pitch count or pitch speed for a little bit while the scores were shown.

[hawkcub]

It didn't look silly before 1985 - no baskets in either of the corners before the catwalks were replaced with seats.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Wrigley_Rooftops_780819.JPG

I like how the way the baskets look all around the outfield now better then a line in non seat locations as was the case pre 1985. Yes I know the original reason was not for esthetics. But the baskets all around make it look good IMO. But to each his own.

[OldCubby69]

Anyone who supports this is not a real Cubs fan. I've been a lifelong fan and travelled hundreds of miles almost every season to visit Wrigley Field. You "modernize" and change what makes Wrigley different than every other stadium and it loses the character that has set it apart — making it no more than a ramshackle dump. It would be like taking an ancient, historic Cathedral and installing video boards in the style of a "modern" mega church. Idiotic. Good riddance to the Cubs. I hope they never win anything.

[Cubs Evangelist]

Anyone who supports this is not a real Cubs fan. I've been a lifelong fan and travelled hundreds of miles almost every season to visit Wrigley Field. You "modernize" and change what makes Wrigley different than every other stadium and it loses the character that has set it apart — making it no more than a ramshackle dump. It would be like taking an ancient, historic Cathedral and installing video boards in the style of a "modern" mega church. Idiotic. Good riddance to the Cubs. I hope they never win anything.

 

Welcome to the forum. I respectfully ask, Are you a fan of the stadium or the team?

[Guest]

Anyone who supports this is not a real Cubs fan. I've been a lifelong fan and travelled hundreds of miles almost every season to visit Wrigley Field. You "modernize" and change what makes Wrigley different than every other stadium and it loses the character that has set it apart — making it no more than a ramshackle dump. It would be like taking an ancient, historic Cathedral and installing video boards in the style of a "modern" mega church. Idiotic. Good riddance to the Cubs. I hope they never win anything.

 

The Cathedral of baseball in which a championship has never been won.

 

 

It's an old ballpark. A pretty one. Stop pretending it's anything more than that.

[El Duderino]

Anyone who supports this is not a real Cubs fan. I've been a lifelong fan and travelled hundreds of miles almost every season to visit Wrigley Field. You "modernize" and change what makes Wrigley different than every other stadium and it loses the character that has set it apart — making it no more than a ramshackle dump. It would be like taking an ancient, historic Cathedral and installing video boards in the style of a "modern" mega church. Idiotic. Good riddance to the Cubs. I hope they never win anything.

 

this has to be a joke post

[OldCubby69]

It's an old ballpark. A pretty one. Stop pretending it's anything more than that.

 

Wrigley Field has been determined eligible for designation as a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior for 25 years. So yeah — it's "more than that."

[TruffleShuffle]

yeah those historic old cathedrals from the 13th century aren't really pretty and nice to visit in 2012 because they weren't changed or refurbished for 800 years.

[Guest]

It's an old ballpark. A pretty one. Stop pretending it's anything more than that.

 

Wrigley Field has been determined eligible for designation as a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior for 25 years. So yeah — it's "more than that."

 

If you're a real person, I can't believe you exist.

[Guest]

http://espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/story/_/id/7462544/like-cubs-roster-wrigley-field-get-bit-facelift

 

The Cubs announced plans to reconfigure the right-field bleachers by elevating seating in the newly-constructed Budweiser Patio section. The new design was revealed on Saturday at the team's annual fan convention.

 

"We're thrilled to expand our partnership with Budweiser and offer our fans an exciting new experience in the right field Budweiser Bleacher section at Wrigley Field," said Wally Hayward, the Cubs' executive vice president, chief sales and marketing officer, Chicago Cubs. "The Budweiser Patio will provide our fans with a rooftop experience inside the ballpark and more baseball content during the game on our new 75-foot LED board."

 

"No not at all," Kenney said when asked if the plan was similar to seats on top of the Green Monster. "I get that question asked all the time. Why isn't that section full even though the rest of the bleachers are full? So we've done some research into that as to why and one of the issues is that there's some obstruction. So if you sit in the very center field section of that section, you're blocked from seeing the center-fielder. So we're trying to alleviate the obstruction there. In one of the ways to do that is to raise the seats up. So you're not looking over the well and the way the well cuts in there. So that depression there creates the obstructed view. So the elevate on was really generated by trying to avoid obstructed views."

 

The team expects the renovation to be done in advance of Opening Day 2012.

[OldCubby69]

Yeah — none of you have a problem with this. Do any of you even remember the protests at Wrigley over installing lights? You obviously don't care about the the architectural integrity of the stadium if you think a video board "looks cool." So you're basically just rooting for uniforms now — until they change those. I'm sure you wouldn't have any issues with that either, though.

[Guest]

Yeah — none of you have a problem with this. Do any of you even remember the protests at Wrigley over installing lights? You obviously don't care about the the architectural integrity of the stadium if you think a video board "looks cool." So you're basically just rooting for uniforms now — until they change those. I'm sure you wouldn't have any issues with that either, though.

 

 

I was 5 years old, so no. Before you call me kiddo, or some condescending [expletive] like that, realize that that makes me 29 years old and realize just how out of touch you and your opinion on this are.

 

And the lights were a big improvement and an extremely overdue addition.

 

So you're not helping your case at all.

 

BTW, are you rooting for a stadium?

[TruffleShuffle]

Do any of you even remember the protests at Wrigley over installing lights?

 

yeah, those people were morons who were stuck in the past.

[El Duderino]

architectural integrity of the stadium? seriously?

 

i hope the cubs brass tears down wrigley field and change their logo to a bear [expletive] a goat if it gets them a world series

[OldCubby69]

 

BTW, are you rooting for a stadium?

 

Sure.

 

Every season the players change. The ownership and uniforms have been changed numerous times of the years. So since 1916 — Wrigley Field has been the one constant which has defined the Cubs organization. People don't travel across the country to go to U.S. Cellular Field.

[J.R.]

 

BTW, are you rooting for a stadium?

 

Sure.

 

Every season the players change. The ownership and uniforms have been changed numerous times of the years. So since 1916 — Wrigley Field has been the one constant which has defined the Cubs organization. People don't travel across the country to go to U.S. Cellular Field.

 

Surely you realize that the park has changed many times in ~100 years. This section alone has been turned upside down three times in the last ~30 years.

[OldCubby69]

Since we're so "modern" here — If every fan has a smart phone why does any stadium need a video board showing updated stats in these "modern" times?

[VVMattVV]

 

BTW, are you rooting for a stadium?

 

Sure.

 

Every season the players change. The ownership and uniforms have been changed numerous times of the years. So since 1916 — Wrigley Field has been the one constant which has defined the Cubs organization. People don't travel across the country to go to U.S. Cellular Field.

 

Wrigley Field has not been the one constant that has defined the Cubs organization.

[OldCubby69]

 

Wrigley Field has not been the one constant that has defined the Cubs organization.

 

That's exactly the point — Take away Wrigley and the Cubs are just a team that hasn't won anything in 100 years.

[ScrubMD]

 

Wrigley Field has not been the one constant that has defined the Cubs organization.

 

That's exactly the point — Take away Wrigley and the Cubs are just a team that hasn't won anything in 100 years.

 

I'm big into tradition and all of that, too. But I don't see what something like this hurts, especially since the bleachers have been changed and upgraded multiple times. If they tore down the scoreboard to install a jumbo-tron or ripped out the ivy to put a bunch of ads up along the outfield fence, I would be pissed. Like I said in my last post, I don't want to be told when to get rowdy or crap like that, but this addition hurts nothing.

[Cubs Evangelist]

Since we're so "modern" here — If every fan has a smart phone why does any stadium need a video board showing updated stats in these "modern" times?

 

Are you the dude that got pissed last night when Ricketts announced that the cell coverage is enhanced at Wrigley this year and people can actually use smartphones they way they are intended to when watching the game? He touched on this topic last night during the panel discussions with Theo/Jed and fuzz nuts, aka Kaplan...

[Guest]

Since we're so "modern" here — If every fan has a smart phone why does any stadium need a video board showing updated stats in these "modern" times?

 

Are you the dude that got pissed last night when Ricketts announced that the cell coverage is enhanced at Wrigley this year and people can actually use smartphones they way they are intended to when watching the game? He touched on this topic last night during the panel discussions with Theo/Jed and fuzz nuts, aka Kaplan...

 

Somebody got pissed at that? Jesus Christ.

[davearm2]

The notion that these changes are going to threaten the ballpark's architectural integrity, or disgrace its status as a historic landmark is kinda far out there.

 

The people that opposed the lights for purely nostalgic reasons were living in the past and refused to see that that improvement was absolutely necessary for Wrigley to remain viable moving forward. I recall most folks had other, non-nostalgic reasons for opposing the change (namely, the impact night baseball brought to the neighborhood).

 

Adding a LED board (and this one is very modest compared to the huge, HD video screens around pro sports) is like 1/10th the magnitude of adding the lights, but the principle is the same: times change, and people/places can and should adapt.