It's opening day at Wrigley Field. And despite the Cubs 101 year World Series Championship drought, it will now cost you more to see this year's motley assemblage in blue perform than any other team in major league baseball.
According to the Wilmette-based Team Marketing Report, the Cubs have now overtaken the Boston Red Sox with an average ticket price of $52.56. That means "a day of fun at the old ball park" as Jack Brickhouse used to blurt, will now cost a family of four $329.74, when you add in parking and all of the other associated costs.
The Cubs were second in the majors with a 10.1% price increase for 2010.
Thank you, Ricketts family.
But as the Cubs limp into Wrigley today with a 2-3 record, hitters that can't hit in the clutch and a bullpen creakier than the boards on the deck of the Mayflower, they will be sold out this afternoon.
You see, the Cubs now are chic.
But it wasn't always that way.
Back in the mid-60s, the old owner, P.K Wrigley, couldn't give away Cubs tickets.
On a bone-chilling opening day in '67 or '68, one of my avid Cub fan childhood friends ditched grammar school to attend along with about 1,014 other stalwarts (or lunatics depending on your perspective.)
P.K. was so grateful that he gave them each a certificate for free admission to another game. I wonder what the 2nd place prize winners got -- 2 tickets?
Back in 1964, the year the Cubs traded away future Hall of Famer Lou Brock for a sore-armed pitcher, Ernie Broglio, to save money ladies used to get in for free every Wednesday.
I'm sure that P.K.'s marketing geniuses thought this would turn Wrigley Field into a chick magnet. In reality it gave suburban mothers an excuse to pack the station wagon with the neighborhood kids and bring them to a game. The moms would get in for free and the kids would set them back a quarter a piece.
My mom did that with me and my neighborhood baseball card trading pals on several occasions.
According to an old scorecard that I have (I was lucky enough to get it autographed by future Hall of Famer, Juan Marichal) that year an Oscar Mayer hot dog cost 30 cents and a Budweiser bottle 40 cents.
Bleacher admission was 50 cents.
That was, of course, before the great liberal Democrat, Lyndon Baines Johnson, inflated the US currency to pay for his wildly successful wars: his war in Vietnam and domestic war on poverty.
In 1981, Cubs Manager, Lee Elia went into his famous on-tape, career ending, obscenity-laden rant when he said that most of the city of Chicago worked for a living and the rest came out to Wrigley to boo his ballclub.
Despite a nation-leading 11.9% unemployment rate you won't see the unemployed represented at Wrigley today.
It's just too bloody expensive.
