Cubs infielders have long complained about the condition of Wrigley Field`s playing surface. But the gripes became louder Wednesday, one day after a bad-hop single helped Montreal defeat the Cubs.
”It`s awful,” Mark Grace said. ”It`s a shame. There`s bad hops in the grass, not just the dirt. Last night it cost us a ballgame.”
Grace referred to a play in which a ball bounced over the head of shortstop Shawon Dunston. A true hop probably would have ended the eighth inning with the Cubs still leading.
Groundskeeper Roger O`Connor said he`s heard the players` gripes.
”It`s tough because it`s been so dry,” he said. ”The ground is just real hard. It`s an unfortunate problem. What we need is a good two-day rain;
let it soak in there.”
Weather is a big part of the problem, but it`s not the only reason for the poor conditions. The field has been used recently for the filming of two movies.
In both cases, hundreds of actors, staff and hangers-on milled around the field for days. Film crews drove trucks onto the field and did so much damage that one member of the grounds crew said, ”It was like having a football game played here.”
Said Grace, who once appeared in a film shot in Wrigley, ”I wish they`d quit filming movies until after the season.”
That many? Ryne Sandberg played in his 1,500th game Wednesday. Of those, 1,487 were in a Cubs uniform, the rest with Philadelphia.
Psych job: Bob Scanlan is trying a novel approach to Thursday`s emergency start, his first start since June 28. ”I`m not thinking of it as a start,”
Scanlan said. ”I`m thinking of it as a long relief appearance. Coming out of the bullpen, I was just worried about one inning at a time instead of worrying about going nine innings.”
Whatever the reason, Scanlan has been one of the hotter hands in the bullpen lately, allowing no earned runs and only five hits in his last 16 2/3 innings. Scanlan starts in place of sore-armed Frank Castillo.
Working his way up: Hector Villanueva is 10 for 21 with four doubles and two home runs since his demotion to Triple-A Iowa last week. Villanueva has been used as the designated hitter.
