Wrigley Field
Wrigley Field /ˈrɪɡli/ is a baseball stadium on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the ballpark of Major League Baseball's Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghman's Chicago Whales of the Federal League, which folded after the 1915 baseball season. The Cubs played their first home game at the park on April 20, 1916, defeating the Cincinnati Reds 7–6 in 11 innings. Chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. of the Wrigley Company acquired the Cubs in 1921. It was named Cubs Park from 1920 to 1926, before being renamed Wrigley Field in 1927. The stadium currently seats 41,649 people[7] and is the second stadium to be named Wrigley Field, as a Los Angeles ballpark with the same name opened in 1925.
For the former ballpark in Los Angeles, see Wrigley Field (Los Angeles).Former names
Weeghman Park (1914–1920)
Cubs Park (1920–1926)
1060 West Addison Street
41,649[7]
47,171[1]
(August 31, 1948 vs. Brooklyn Dodgers)
Left field – 355 ft (108.2 m)
Left-center – 368 ft (112.2 m)
Center field – 400 ft (121.9 m)
Right-center – 368 ft (112.2 m)
Right field – 353 ft (107.6 m)
Backstop – 55 ft (16.8 m)
Outfield wall height:
Bleachers – 11 ft 6 in (3.5 m)
Corners – 15 ft (4.6 m)[2] 
March 4, 1911
April 23, 1914
1937, 1988, 2014–2019
1922, 1927, 2006
Zachary Taylor Davis
Blome-Sinek Company
February 1, 2004
September 23, 2020[a]
In the North Side community area of Lakeview in the Wrigleyville neighborhood, Wrigley Field is on an irregular block bounded by Clark and Addison streets to the west and south, and Waveland and Sheffield avenues to the north and east. Wrigley Field is nicknamed "The Friendly Confines", a phrase popularized by Hall of Fame shortstop and first baseman Ernie Banks. The oldest park in the National League, it is the second-oldest in the majors after Fenway Park (1912), and the only remaining Federal League park.[8] The park was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2020.[9]
Wrigley Field's features include its ivy-covered brick outfield wall, distinctive wind patterns off Lake Michigan, the red marquee over the main entrance, and the hand-turned scoreboard. The stadium is situated in a primarily residential neighborhood without parking lots, and spectators have views from the rooftops behind the outfield. Additionally, it was the last Major League park to have lights installed for night games, in 1988. From 1921 to 1970, the stadium was also home to the Chicago Bears of the National Football League, and from 1931 to 1938, it was the home of the Chicago Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals) of the National Football League. The elevation of its playing field is 600 feet (180 m) above sea level.
Commemorative stamps[edit]
In 2001, a series of commemorative postage stamps on the subject of baseball parks was issued by the U.S. Postal Service. Most of them were engravings taken from old colorized postcards, including the illustration of Wrigley Field. In the case of Wrigley, the scoreboard was cut off to hide the original postcard's banner containing the park's name. The stamp and its sources also show the center field bleachers filled with spectators, a practice that was later discontinued due to the risk to batters, who might lose the flight of a pitch amidst the white shirts. This led to the development of darker backgrounds to the pitcher's mounds.