FW: It's time for a new vision - today's column

-----Original Message-----
From: Benderoff, Eric [mailto:EBenderoff@tribune.com]
Sent: Monday, 12 June, 2006 12:56
To: irsslex@pacbell.net
Subject: RE: It's time for a new vision - today's column

Randy,
Great letter! Thanks for reaching out with this.
I couldn't agree more that Wrigley is the star attraction for the Cubs. I
just think we could make a bit more interesting for the fans considering the
product on the field.
Cheers,
Eric
-----Original Message-----
From: I. Randolph S. Shiner [mailto:irsslex@pacbell.net]
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 2:45 PM
To: Benderoff, Eric
Subject: Ref: It's time for a new vision - today's column
Dear Mr. Benderoff:
 
I write with respect to your column today in which you suggest “updating”
the scoreboard at Wrigley. I must demur.
 
I grew up in Rogers Park (eastside, Sullivan High, ’78) and subsequently had
more than one summer of my life ruined by the miserable Cubs. It had
absolutely nothing to do with the scoreboard. Fast forward the 27 years
since I left town full time, and what has changed? Well, we have the
internet, information overload, and the rotten, stinking Cubs. Oops. That
last thing hasn’t changed. They have always been, and always will be, the
stinking, bumbling, fumbling Cubs. Trust me when I tell you that the only
thing that even keeps people interested in the Cubs is the fact that they
play in the most beautiful place in baseball; where a person can get lost in
time, exactly a place where things have not changed. If they moved the Cubs
team to a high-tech stadium (say they switched stadiums with the Florida
Marlins, for example), do you think for a second that they would draw in
excess of two million fans every year to watch the stinking,
underperforming, (now) overpaid teams that have been fielded since history
began? No way. Do we need Diamond Vision in center field to magnify or
repeat the play of the relentless losers that take the field every year? The
question suggests its answer.
 
You make some excellent points that are hard to argue with. But you lose the
forest for the trees. Going to Wrigley is more than going to see a baseball
game. It is going to re-live your childhood whether you are 9 or 90. Wrigley
allows us all to get in touch with each of our proverbial “inner children”
every time we sit down in one of those hard green chairs. It is the luxury
of having group Freudian psychotherapy by dint of the existence of a stadium
that has not changed in nearly 70 years that allows us to somehow hope to
correct the mistakes of the past by allowing us to go back in time to a
place where, through the years, we thought about life differently lived at a
different pace, where we grew as people and, through our collective
suffering, as Cubs fans. Wrigley Field was no mistake. It lives and breathes
as much as you or me. It serves well its manifold purposes. Including its
timekeeper – the scoreboard. No fancy-schmancy high-tech scoreboard is going
to add to Wrigley Field’s aura, its essence, of “always”. Please. Let it be.
For everyone’s sake.
 
Best regards,
 
Randy Shiner
Still pulling for Kenny Holtzman like it was 1969…
 
 
I. Randolph S. Shiner, Esq.
12820 Via Nieve
Suite 72
San Diego, CA   92130
 
Voice: +1858.481.9900
Efax:   +1858.630.3337
Mobile: +1858.663.1690
Skype ID: irsslex   
 
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