Emanuel: City, Cubs Nearing Deal On Wrigley Field Renovation Plan

[careless hal]

I hope this will increase the value of my nearby condo.  Then I  might be able to sell it! (Those gurgling sounds you hear are of Hal underwater!! )


Emanuel: City, Cubs Nearing Deal On Wrigley Field Renovation Plan
 By Adam Harrington | CBS Local - Chicago - 8 hrs ago
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Images have been resized. Originals at CBS Local - Chicago CHICAGO (CBS)

[Just Saying]

Can you say, Bend over, taxpayers...?

1. The Ricketts have more money than China, and can donate handsomely to Rahm's next    campaign fund.

2. The Cubs have not won anything in over 100 years, but they still sell out Wrigley Field anyway, based on fan loyalty and nostalgia. A $400,000,000 colossus in that neighborhood would break that nostalgia, and they'd just become a long losing team. I wouldn't mess with that legend. Just my opinion.

[careless hal]

Well it is a shrine-- a shrine to losing  It is falling apart though!
Something has to be done or it will be closed as unsafe.
Typical day for a Cub fan going to a game:
1.  Arrive in area by bicycle around 8 AM.
2.  Go to one of many local establishments and have breakfast---Beer it it's what's for breakfast.  I would say a nice oatmeal stout would be a good way to start the day.  Treat it just like oatmeal, put a spoon of brown sugar in it.
3. 12:30 stager across street and enter the shrine,after stoping to pray at the statues of Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks and Harry Carey.
4. Quickly find one of the troughs to relieve bladder pressure before you wet your pants.
5.Go to the bleacher area and see if any of the halter-topped B-cups need sun screen applied. Ply them with some cheap swill and sushi.
6.  Text all your friends pictures of you and the b-cups, preferably with you copping a feel.
7. Return to bar you started the day at and stay untill closing, 4AM.
8.Try and see if the W flag is flying in case anybody asks you about the game.

[Elgin]

By MARK YOST
Boston
Baseball fans will be tuning in for Tuesday's All Star Game, but as taxpayers they should be fuming. Nearly every one of the teams represented has gone to its local government and asked for hundreds of millions of dollars to build a gleaming new stadium.
One of the few exceptions: the Boston Red Sox, who have taken Fenway Park, which turns 100 in 2012, and transformed it into one of the most fan-friendly ballparks in the country. Moreover, they've mostly done it within the historic confines of the original ballpark, kept ticket prices affordable and haven't taken a dime of taxpayer money. The net result is that the Red Sox still play in the smallest ballpark in baseball, have capped season-ticket sales at 20,000 seats out of about 40,000, and yet, according to Forbes magazine, remain the team with the third-highest revenue in all of baseball.

 Most teams have sought tax dollars to build new stadiums. The Red Sox are sticking with Fenway Park.
What the Red Sox have done with Fenway Park should be a lesson for every sports franchise and municipality in the country. The argument from pro sports teams is always the same: We need a new billion-dollar stadium (paid for with your tax dollars) to remain "economically competitive." The Red Sox have not only turned that argument on its head, but shown how truly disingenuous it is.
The credit for what I'd call the Tax-Free Miracle of Yawkey Way goes to the Red Sox ownership group, which bought the team in 2002 and pledged to stay in Fenway. "We knew the perils of asking for public money," Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino said. Namely, that fans get annoyed when teams ask taxpayers to build a stadium, and then raise ticket and concession prices on the very people who paid for it.
The key to transforming Fenway, a hemmed-in urban ballpark last renovated in 1934, was to build out as well as up. "What we perceived to be constraints were more elastic than we thought," Mr. Lucchino said.
The result is wider concourses, more concession stands, more club and patio seating, picnic areas and an atmosphere on the streets around Fenway unlike any in baseball. All without alienating the average fan.
The renovations began in 2002-03, when dugout seats were added to both the first and third base lines and seats were built atop the famed Green Monster in left field. The Red Sox could have asked almost anything for the Green Monster seats, but instead they kept them remarkably democratic. There are no season tickets. Instead, tickets are awarded through an annual random drawing

[Just Saying]

The Bidwells owned the Football Cardinals in St Louis and couldn't fill Busch Stadium. (because they couldn't beat anybody) They blamed it on having to play in an old baseball stadium. They wanted the taxpayers to build them  a new one, or they would leave town. The taxpayers said no, so they screwed the taxpayers of AZ to build them a colossus in the desert, jacked their ticket prices to the highest in the NFL at that time. Guess what? They still couldn't beat anybody, so instead of not being able to fill a 45,000 seat stadium, they can't fill a 80,000 seat stadium. And the AZ taxpayers take it in the poopy-chute.

The Cubs better take a lesson from The Red Sox. If the Cubbies lose their legacy and nostalgia, they have nothing else. But it's IL... we are BILLIONS behind in paying our bills for everything, and the pols like Rahm want to throw money at the billionaire Ricketts family for campaign donations. Doesn't surprise me at all.

[tonyb147]

Does anyone remember the name of the hot dog joint that was on the corner before it was torn down to build the McDonalds on Clark and Addison? I do - anyone else? Hugh Jass? Hal?

[Elgin]

Dallas isn

[careless hal]

Does anyone remember the name of the hot dog joint that was on the corner before it was torn down to build the McDonalds on Clark and Addison? I do - anyone else? Hugh Jass? Hal?

Doo Doo Dogs?

[Danville]

The Cubs better take a lesson from The Red Sox. If the Cubbies lose their legacy and nostalgia, they have nothing else. But it's IL... we are BILLIONS behind in paying our bills for everything, and the pols like Rahm want to throw money at the billionaire Ricketts family for campaign donations. Doesn't surprise me at all.

It is most appropriate that the taxpayer pick up the tab for the Wrigley renovations. If they can pay the full tab of that monstrocity on the Sout' side it's only right that Sucks fans own a little bit of Wrigley Field.
Funny ---but right !!