Here’s a beautiful photo that captures an era at Wrigley Field.
This beautiful photo of Wrigley Field is from the 1990s.
We know this before even looking at the scoreboard because of the center-field bleacher batters eye. It’s from a time after the artificial turf cover was removed, as well as the empty benches that were there, but before shrubbery was installed in the late 1990s. It has to be later than 1988, because light towers are visible at the right of the photo.
Here’s the full photo:
Of course, the first thing to look at is the scoreboard, to see the matchups and other information there. From the number of games listed as “NITE GAME,” this is almost certainly a weekday afternoon. There’s either no ivy on the outfield wall or it has just started to grow in, suggesting an early-season game.
The Cubs are playing the Cardinals, that’s pretty clear from seeing the ST. LOUIS on the bottom score line against the Cubs. The message board at the bottom, which had player statistics on it during innings, says that Scott Servais is batting, with a 2-0 count and two out. But it also says Servais is 2-for-2 in this game with a home run.
Paydirt. There is just one game in Servais’ Cubs career where he batted in the bottom of the fourth inning already 2-for-2 with a homer.
That game happened Wednesday, May 1, 1996. All the matchups on the board match that day, and the one NL game not listed as NITE GAME was Montreal at New York, which was a doubleheader that began at 5 p.m. Chicago time — as noted in yesterday’s post, this was something done by board operators if a game would begin earlier than 6 p.m Chicago time.
Servais had hit an RBI single in the first inning and homered in the third. The Cubs had blasted Cardinals starter Andy Benes out of the game by the fourth inning, scoring two runs in each of the first three innings.
The Cubs had already scored three more runs in the bottom of the fourth on homers by Ryne Sandberg (a two-run blast) and Mark Grace. Servais was batting with the bases empty and two out. He hit the very next pitch after the 2-0 count shown for a single to left, but wound up stranded.
The score was 9-3 Cubs after that fourth inning and that was it for the scoring in that game. Anyway, that’s when this photo was taken,
The 1996 Cubs muddled around contention much of the summer, hanging in there in the NL Central about four or five games out for much of June, July and August. They defeated the Phillies 4-2 on Sept. 13 and were 74-72, in third place five games out with 16 remaining, a large but not insurmountable deficit.
Unfortunately, they utterly collapsed, going 2-14 the rest of the way. Then they started 1997 with an 0-14 mark, thus losing 28 of 30 games from the end of 1996 through the start of 1997.