On game days, Wrigleyville is packed with thousands of people pumped to see the Cubs go all the way.
After last year’s playoff run, nearly every ticket for the season has been sold, and people without tickets cram the neighborhood bars just to be near the excitement.
While the atmosphere for fans inside and outside the Friendly Confines this season has been electric, critics say the postgame party scene resembles Bourbon Street in New Orleans, with too many people crowding the area and alcohol pouring too freely.
Even though the Cubs have fallen down in the standings in the last week, pitching ace Mark Prior is expected to return from the disabled list for the first time this season and start Friday’s game against Pittsburgh, making it the most high-profile home game since Opening Day.
Since a 26-year-old man was shot to death during a traffic altercation across the street from Wrigley after a game last month, the crowds and partying that goes on long after the game has been viewed in a tougher light.
“The perception is that this is a freewheeling, out-of-control situation,” said Ald. Tom Tunney (44th), who represents the area that includes Wrigley Field. “I think we need to dispel some of that perception.”
Tunney believes much of the bad behavior that has drawn complaints–the public urination, drunkenness and fights–could be curtailed with police officers patrolling the area on foot for longer after the games. People would likely be better behaved if they knew police were around, he said.
David Bayless, spokesman for the Chicago Police Department, said police presence around the ballpark is already more than adequate. Aunit of officers is deployed before and after games for crowd control. For night games, extra officers patrol the area.
“People going to the game need to behave in a responsible way,” he said. “Bar owners, bartenders and bouncers need to be responsible too. By and large, we think they do.”
Police, Tunney and community groups have been working with the Cubs (owned by Tribune Co., which also owns the Chicago
Tribune) as part of a new “neighborhood protection” program designed to cut down on problems associated with rowdy crowds around the ballpark.
Charlotte Newfeld, chairwoman of Citizens United for Baseball in Sunshine, said a zero-tolerance policy is needed for bad behavior
in the neighborhood.
“Behavior is the key issue–I can’t understand why it’s so fun to drink so much you throw up on the street,” she said.
1 GAME, 2 FIGHTS … MAY 21 IN ROWDYVILLE
RedEye sent five reporters to the ballpark and the neighborhood on May 21 to find out what a game day is like in Wrigleyville.
Here’s what we found:
12:15 Aman returns to the 7-Eleven parking lot at the corner of
Sheffield Avenue and Addison Street after crossing the street to say hello to a friend and finds a boot on his car. After arguing
that he bought a water at the store and was gone for just a minute, Dio Vaccaro, 31, hands a credit card to the parking lot attendant who attached the boot. “It cost me $115 to buy a water,” he says.
1:15 A crowd fills Bernie’s at Clark Street and Waveland Avenue. Nick Lekousis, 25, of Naperville says he and his
friends always show up about two hours before the game. “We’ve gotta get at least 10 beers in us. We usually take time off
during the game because the beer is too expensive and it’s Old Style. But we’ll head over to Hi-Tops for seven or eight after the game.”
1:20 People are turned away from Bernie’s patio because it’s at capacity. Over on Clark and Addison, police officers are monitoring traffic, and an officer stops a group of Cardinals fans from crossing when the light is red. Someone in the crowd yells, “Don’t they teach you to cross streets in St. Louis?”
1:50 Fans pack the bars around the ballpark.
2:00 Mike Svete, 29, sits on a front yard patio in the 3700 block of Sheffield with some friends, drinking and blasting music.
“We don’t play music for all the games, usually on the weekend
and whenever else we’re home,” he says. “We put on whatever, from the Rolling Stones to rap. … The neighbors have never called the cops on us.”
2:20 The game starts. Most of the bars have cleared out, leaving roughly two dozen fans watching the game on TV. At Casey Moran’s, bartender Diane Cherry, 31, says, “We’ll just hang out until the 7th inning, then they’ll all be back. They start buzzing here before the game. When they come back, there is a mad rush to get to the bar. … It’ll start around 5-ish, and they’ll go
all night. As long as they can stand–and they’re not puking–they’ll stay here.”
4:01 A police officer at Addison and Racine Avenue starts writing tickets for cars parked on Addison, where parking is prohibited after 4 p.m.
4:30 Bottom of the 7th inning. At Sports Corner on Addison and Sheffield, Jenny Sopher, 24 and Alli Bogaard, 27, both of Pella, Iowa, are sitting at a table while their husbands are watching the game. Sopher said she has had eight beers so far. Over at Casey Moran’s, the staff braces for the postgame rush. Bartender Carrie Williams, 28, says, “In about 10 minutes they’ll all be walking or stumbling in.”
5:00 A man walks through the intersection of Waveland and Clark and unbuttons his shirt for oncoming traffic. He starts rubbing his nipples until a cop approaches him. They exchange words, and the wannabe stripper moves on.
5:08The game ends. Traffic is halted around the stadium as 39,000 people empty out.
5:10 A man in his 20s wearing a Moises Alou jersey urinates in the sunken doorway at 3724 N. Sheffield Ave. as pedestrians walk by. He declines to give his name, but when asked why he chose to pee on somebody’s home, he says, “Because that’s the closest spot.”
5:12 A few doors down, another man who appears to be in his late 30s or early 40s urinates on the bricks at 3740 N. Sheffield Ave. He says he just couldn’t hold it. “I was going to try to wait until I got to the restaurant, but I couldn’t,” he says.
5:15 Long lines form in front of all the bars. People are trying to climb in through the open windows at Casey Moran’s, and security people are telling them they have to wait in line. Several people offer money to the bouncers to be let in through the window and are rejected.
5:25A man runs across Addison in front of the Cubby Bear, hits the back of a cab stopped in traffic and runs off. The driver gets out of the car to see who hit him, but the guy is already gone.
5:35 Traffic starts moving. In front of Murphy’s on Sheffield, a woman flashes a guy taking a picture of her with his camera cell phone.
6:10 Gerald Bigham, 70, sits on his porch on the 1100 block of Addison watching the crowd go by. He is blase about the man who just urinated in the yard next to his. “If you gotta go, you gotta go,” he says.
6:30 Two guys defuse a fight by pulling their drunk friend out of Yakzee’s. “He was just being an idiot,” one says as they stand at Waveland and Clark. The three had been in the bleachers during the game, then started drinking heavily in the bars afterward when the friend started causing trouble in the bar. “It wasn’t good,” he says.
6:45 Brian Farrell, 31, walks with his two dogs. He says the worst thing he’s seen in three years living in the neighborhood is “some drunk idiot walking down the street bending antennas.” But he does see public urination every couple of weeks. “I’ll say something, always,” he says. “They’ll be like, ‘Yeah, people do live here. We’re sorry.’ “
6:50 A fight breaks out in the Cubby Bear between Brandon Bellew, who was wearing a Cardinals jersey, and another guy. The bouncer breaks it up after a couple of pushes between the guys. Bellew, 25, of Palatine said he had been trying to walk down the steps to the bathroom when the other guy insulted him with an epithet. Bellew attributes the scuffle to the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry. “Today I’m in a Cubs bar and I have a Cardinals jersey on,” he said.
7:30Two guys with cans of Bud Light walk down Clark in front of a parked police car.
7:40A man angry that a cab passes him by runs into the street and starts hitting the cab window and kicking the driver’s door, screaming, “You had your [bleeping] light on!” His two friends get in the back of the car, and the cabby gets out of the car. Someone across the street yells, “Get him! Hit him!” The cabdriver gets back in the car but refuses to drive as long as the friends are in the car; they get out.
8:20 A young woman is too drunk to figure out the fare card machine in the Addison “L” station. When she finally gets a card, she can’t put it in the turnstile.
REDEYEON THESPOT
With about 40,000 fans spilling out of Wrigley Field after every game, the surrounding streets are packed. RedEye asked fans: Do you ever worry about safety when you come to a game?
“Not really. But once I saw two guys who were walking down Sheffield just start pummeling each other until they were completely bloody. So I’m probably being naive.”
–Stacy Bly, 33, physical therapist, Wrigleyville
“Never. The day that shooting happened–that was ridiculous. That is so unlike this area.”
–Ted Phillips, 28 accountant, Uptown
“There’s just a lot of drunk people. I think it’s more funny than anything else.”
–Katie Hagen, 22, claims adjuster, Wrigleyville
“The media overdoes it with the ‘Wrigleyville is crazy’ thing. It’s fine. The only thing that sucks is traffic.”
–Andrew Rizzo, 17, vendor, Park Ridge
“You just have to be careful. If there’s a fight you could get hit by a beer or something. … But fans that come know what’s going down.”
–Brad Baker, 27, social worker, North Side
“At times I worry when the Cubs win because people have consumed so much alcohol. … You have to be careful about what you say and who you say it to.”
–Sam Saada, 26, sales manager, North Side
