Constable: Attendance at Wrigley Field is behind last year's pace
When the Chicago Cubs open a 10-game homestand Friday at Wrigley Field with an afternoon game against those pesky St. Louis Cardinals, we fans will make some news. Friday should be the day that we push the Wrigley Field attendance past the 1 million mark for the year. Drawing a million fans by the start of June is a good indicator that the Cubs should lure 3 million fans to Wrigley again this season. But, just like the team, which is returning from a winless road trip with a lousy record of 25-27, those attendance numbers are a bit underwhelming.
With an average of 38,619 fans per game, the 2017 Cubs are behind last year's pace, when Wrigley averaged 39,906 a game and drew a total of 3,232,420. Even last year's glorious World Series Championship run didn't set attendance records. Every season from 2004 through 2011, the Cubs drew more than 3 million fans, with 2008 (3,300,200) and 2007 (3,252,462) holding down the top two spots. The Central Division championship teams of 2008 and 2007 also set the marks for best average attendance with 40,743 and 40,154, respectively.
With new seats added for this season, the Wrigley Field capacity is 41,268. But the team can squeeze in more when necessary. Last Oct. 22, when the Cubs won the National League pennant for the first time since 1945 with a 5-0 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers, the attendance was listed at 42,386.
For the three World Series games at Wrigley Field, the official attendance was 41,703 for Game 3, 41,706 for Game 4 and 41,711 for Game 5.
The record for a Wrigley Field Cubs crowd was 46,572 paid and 47,101 in attendance when Jackie Robinson played his first game at Wrigley on May 18, 1947.
A Robinson honor on the 70th anniversary of that game drew 36,023. The smallest crowd ever to see the Cubs at Wrigley was on Sept. 21, 1966, when just 530 people watched the bad Cubs beat the mediocre Cincinnati Reds 9-3.
It's fun to be at Wrigley when the sun is shining, the bleachers are packed, and fans sport a party atmosphere.
In 1984, my schedule allowed me to attend 23 games, 21 of which the Cubs won, including the memorable “Sandberg Game,” when Ryne Sandberg hit home runs off Cardinals closer Bruce Sutter in the 9th and 10th innings to set the stage for a Dave Owen walk-off single that gave the Cubs a 12-11 victory before 38,079 screaming fans.
But some of my best days at Wrigley Field were spent in the pre-1985 era, when bleacher seats didn't go on sale until the day of the game.
If you got there a couple of hours before game time, the ticket window across from the firehouse on Waveland would sell you great box seats, which were turned in by players who reserved tickets for wives and girlfriends who didn't show. In the late 1970s, if my college roommate and I each had 5 bucks, we could take the L from Evanston to Wrigley and back, buy Big Gulps from the 7-Eleven across from Wrigley and each buy a bleacher ticket. Sometimes, I'd go by myself.
The Cubs averaged about 12,000 a game in those years, and there were days in the late 1970s and early '80s when only a few thousand would be on hand.
The upper deck would be closed, and fans could spread out. The Cubs didn't draw 2 million fans in a season until 1984.
Several times during those lean years, I saw Bill Veeck, the former White Sox owner who grew up at Wrigley Field and helped plant the ivy that covers the outfield walls in 1937, taking in a game from the center field bleachers.
On hot days, Veeck took off his shirt. I remember talking to him once, when he opened the ashtray built into his wooden leg and deposited the ashes from his cigarette.
Had there been giant video screens, 40,000 people in the park and a pennant race going on, I might have missed that.