Seeing a Game at Wrigley Field is Fun for Any Level of Baseball Fan

I don't know what made me think about going to Wrigley Field when planning our trip to Chicago. I think it showed up high on a lot of people's "must do" lists, so I read up on it. Many people recommended doing the Wrigley tour to see the whole stadium, but I am not into all that history stuff. Instead, I thought it would be fun to see a game there. After all, the only ballpark I had ever been to was Comerica Park which is pretty much a brand new ballpark. So I quickly became excited to go to a game at Wrigley field and see how another town does their baseball!

The Tickets
First and foremost, you have to buy tickets. I never realized how hard it would be to get good tickets to a game at a decent price. Tickets to a game at Comerica Park can be found for as little as $20 for decent seats. The games during the time I was there were all sold out on the MLB website so my only choice was to buy tickets from another person. I searched and searched Ebay and used SeatData.com as well as advice pieces found online to try and find the best seats at an acceptable price. After shopping for a few days I learned I was going to have to spend more than $150 for 2 tickets if I wanted to actually see the game. I ended up buying a pair on Ebay for $175.

The Seats
The reason seats for games at Wrigley Field are so hard to choose is because of the fact that it was built in 1914 and therefore they didn't have all the fancy building techniques that they have now. This means that there are support beams throughout the park to hold up the upper level and to hold up the roof. These beams make it so that many seats throughout the park are "obstructed view", meaning you can see most of the park, but you might not see it all unless you lean all over the place. After much research, I settled on upper deck seats in the front half (box) portion knowing that there would be no support beams there and hoping that the seats would be inclined a lot so I could see down.

The seats I had were awesome - section 425 row 3, pretty close to home plate, with a great view of the whole field. The seats in the upper deck had a pretty large incline making it so I could easily see over the heads of the guys who sat in row 1. Luckily no one ever showed up in row 2 but I still think I would be able to see pretty good. When seeking tickets to a game at Wrigley, make sure you ask the seller a) are there any support beams blocking any part of your view and b) can you see the scoreboard since some seats cannot see the scoreboard due to overhang of the above layers. Be aware also that Bleacher seats are first come first serve.

The Scoreboard
One of the biggest attractions of this field is the old fashioned score board. Being a Detroit Tigers fan, I'm used to the high tech electronic score board with graphics, players pics, and more. I was excited to see an old fashioned board in motion and kept my eye on it every time they scored. The board is actually updated manually from behind. Holes are in place to show how many points each team has scored and a person behind it updates the number with each run scored. The score board is definitely cool, although I did miss the players pictures and other images that they show throughout the game at Comerica Park.

The Sun
I was told that there aren't many night games at Wrigley Field and ended up with tickets to a day game. Before arrival, my husband and I sprayed sunscreen all over and assumed we would be in the sun the whole day. However, we got lucky! Turns out most of the infield seats are covered from the sun throughout the game. It's the people in the outfield and the bleachers that get it bad the whole game. Even the people in the expensive lower deck infield seats had sun on them for a lot of the game. If you are looking for shade, try upper deck. It was 80 something degrees outside, but with the shade and the breeze I was actually cold at times.

The Food/Soveniour Court
We walked around before the game to see if there was anything else worth seeing, but we quickly saw there was no reason to wander the food/soveniour court unless you are buying something. At Comerica Park, you can still see the field even if you are in the food court because of the way it is set up in between the layers. However at Wrigley Field the Food court is actually under the seats and you have to go down to get something. Therefore when you are on this level you can't see the field at all and basically you are likely to get hot and sweaty quickly in this stuffy place. If you don't need to buy anything, it's best to stay up above for the most part.

The Pictures
One thing I wasn't expecting was for their to be a photographer that would come around. Shortly before the game started, a photographer asked if we wanted a photo, took it quickly with the field behind us, and gave us a ticket. When I got home I looked up our photo at www.cubs.com/fanfoto and decided to purchase it for memorbilia. I think this is great if you are bringing your family, or even a group of friends, to the game because it means you can get a nice photo without relying on another fan to take it for you. Of course you do have to pay for it if you want a copy, but there are various options for this so you can get it in almost any size or type you want.

The Game
Watching the actual game of the Cubs vs the Phillies was fun to watch. At first it was hard to get into it since I don't know the players, but the fans around us were getting more and more excited as the game went on which made it even more fun to watch. We may be Tigers fans, but for that day we were Cubs fans. One thing I learned from a fan is that the wind makes it harder for them to hit home runs. At Comerica Park, I've seen many home runs, so it was interesting to see the Cubs hit the ball with tons of power just to fall short of a home run.

Another thing that was different for me was the lack of prompting from music or speakers. At Comerica Park, they often flash signs to "get loud" or play music to get the fans pumped up at certain points. At Wrigley Field, they aren't that high tech, so they rely on the fans to pump them up. This means that the fans did not get loud that often near the beginning, however as the game went on and the score got closer, the fans definitely started to get excited and encourage everyone around to get excited to.

The End
At the end of the game, the Cubs won 3 to 2, and I was surprised to hear the whole park start singing a song along with a karaoke on the board written specifically for the Cubs. I've never heard of anything like this at any other sporting event I've been to, so we thought it was cool to see the whole ballpark singing this Chicago Cubs song together. I don't know if anything like that would ever catch on at Comerica Park, so it was fun to see at Wrigley Field.

I would recommend visiting Wrigley Field at least once, just to see it and enjoy a game. Sure, you can also do a historical tour, but seeing a game really gets you into the spirit of the Cubs and the field. Games are appropriate for all ages. Enjoy!!

--Getting to Wrigley Field--
Just a few words of advice since most visitors will come from Downtown Chicago. We had planned to take the CTA Red Line but overheard some other fans saying that could take anywhere from 20-45 minutes depending on how many stops it made. Plus, at the end of the game it seemed like 70% of the fans were trying to get on the Red Line to go South. Therefore, we decided to take a Taxi even though we had to pay for it. This was partially because we didn't know exactly how the CTA worked but also because we didn't want to be on the CTA for an hour each way. If you have kids, you might want to consider a taxi. Driving isn't the easiest either as all the street parking was filled 2 hours before the game. Make sure you do your research and plan wisely so that you and your family are not stuck in a forever long CTA line.