The scoreboard’s got landmark status, to the point that the Cubs can’t even list every game being played on there.

Eventually, from what I can tell, there’s going to be a video board out in left field, with the Toyota sign moving. Tunney will whine, the Cubs will threaten the move to Rosemont, and eventually they’ll get to do in Wrigley what the other 29 teams can do in their ballparks.

The assumption — and I’m putting words in your brain — is that I’d only use a cell phone to post a photo on facebook. But I’m reasonably likely to want to know who their lefty specialist is, and how well he does against righties. There’s no scorecard in the world that would have that information.

Technology is a good thing.

http://boston.sportsthenandnow.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/old-green-monster.jpg

Stuff changes. Get over it.

I don’t need VORP up there. But something about the current pitchers being a lefty or how many runs he’s allowed? The position of the batter? How many stolen bases he has? These aren’t nerd-o statistics, and that scoreboard has no space for them. I don’t need a jumbotron — I need something that helps me understand the game taking place in front of me, and the Wrigley Scoreboard, classic though it may be, fails utterly on that count.

It wastes space with line scores from out-of-town games and the numbers of the umpiring crew and yet doesn’t have anything from the game you’re watching beyond runs and hits.

It’s a bad scoreboard. It’s been a bad scoreboard for 75-plus years. There’s no good reason to save it.

Granted these are two extremely different examples, but look at what the rule changes are doing to the NFL. Now you’re talking about making one of sports all time classic, beautiful, historic, iconic, etc… ballparks more modern!

Please, just leave things the way they are.

Fans have smart phones and radios. If they are so thirsty for this kind of information they can surely find it without having to compromise Wrigley.

And the old scoreboard should stay. I’m not from Chicago and I’ve only been to Wrigley a couple of times, but part of the experience to me was seeing baseball as purely as you can outside of a Little League game. You watch the game, you listen to the organ playing, you sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” There aren’t any flashing ad banners. If you don’t pay attention to a play, you just don’t see it. It was refreshing, and something a lot of teams could learn a little something from.

Also, since no one mentioned this yet in the demolishment argument, I am curious how they are going to get around the landmark status of the scoreboard itself. As I learned on a tour of Wrigley (during the same trip to Chicago), the red marquee on the front of Wrigley, the ivy covered outfield walls, and the manual scoreboard are all considered landmarks. Any expansion or reconstruction done around the stadium has to be done around these items and very carefully.

Also, I think the scoreboard is part of the designated historical part of Wrigley.

The scoreboard should stay. The jumbotron can go in Left easily and block that stupid Miller Lite roof ad across Waveland. There aren’t even rooftops with stands over there.

Sure, if you’re a blackguard or a knave, or some other fashion of
ne’er-do-well…

If they could at least get that right it’d be fine, but they never do.