Wrigley Field: The Unauthorized Biography

Bathed in sun and suds, Wrigley Field is home to the perfect baseball viewing experience. The ultimate neighborhood ballpark serves as a sort of time capsule, transporting us to an era where every park felt like a day at Wrigley Field. But postcard memories aside, Wrigleyâ s modern cachet is a unique success story. From its construction in 1914 by the implausibly successful Charlie Weeghman (for a baseball team that was not the Chicago Cubs) to serving as the venue for George Halasâ s Bears, Wrigley Field has hosted many different kinds of sporting events for Americaâ s second city. Stuart Sheaâ s unparalleled history of Wrigley Field documents a park and its place within the surrounding community, its influence on who lives where in Chicago and why, and as a home to teams and events that have helped a city define itself.

Beyond Wrigleyâ s status as both a living treasure and a historical artifact, Shea looks at the current plans to renovate the park; the combative relationship among the teamâ s owners, the city, and the neighborhood; and the strange blend of interdependence and mutual annoyance that have handicapped efforts to preserve, promote, and adapt the park to the twenty-first century. Unlike any other history of a ballpark, this â unauthorized biographyâ chronicles the ballpark as a venue for womenâ s baseball, football, boxing, and soccer, among other sports. As Shea explains, the tension between past and present, memory and the future, or America as we imagine it and as it is, has rarely been so well captured in one place.

Details the unique historical relationship between a classic ballpark and its city; Presents an intimate account of one of baseball's best venues, from construction to adding lights to the expansive changes to come; Covers the park's association with other teams and sports beyond the Cubs and baseball.