Wrigley Field Renovations Are Good, So Shut Up

Look, I understand Wrigley Field is a beautiful place. Most ballparks are on the outskirts of industrial parks or surrounded by asphalt parking lot deserts. Wrigley has a neighborhood charm and an old-timey feel. It also has pretty bricks and ivy. And urinal troughs. Oh, and those bricks, though pretty, are also an idiotic safety hazard in the name of aesthetics and tradition, but whutevz.

Anyway. The 2012 Cubs Convention came with the announcing of the Cubs' plans to give more than just a lipstick refresher to the ol' stadium. They plan to do this in right field:

That's right. A digital scoreboard / jumbotron thingy in right field.

I'll let my man McGinnis take it from here:

I have news for people. Wrigley Field is not a museum. It is a functioning major league ballpark whose job is to maximize revenues for the team so that it can have a strategic edge over the other teams that don't make as much money. That is the system as it stands, so those are the rules the team should play by. Voluntarily leaving revenue uncollected because a few fans want to remember what Wrigley looked like in years past is stupid.

Wrigley was originally built without an upperdeck, that was added in 1927. The permanent bleachers weren't added until 1937. Those additions were necessary to keeping Wrigley Field as the home of the Cubs. If they couldn't have done those additions, then the Cubs would have had to move. But now, all of a sudden, any time the Cubs want to simply keep up with the economics of the game, they have to fight fans for the right to make a change in their own ballpark. It took a threat from the Commissioner of Baseball that the Cubs would not host home playoff games if they didn't get lights to finally have have lights installed.

Emphasis mine.

Frankly: There is no reason to let the New Thing scare you.

Wrigley (you know, that stadium named after the gum magnate) is not magical. Our experiences there may be magical, but that's got a lot more to do with the humans on the grass, on the clay, and in the seats — and almost nothing to do with whether or not there is a Bud Zone.