April 2, 2006
BY DAVE HOEKSTRA Staff Reporter
There is a sense of wonder in every step Mike Reischl takes down Taylor Street.
Reischl has been walking around the city long enough to know how dreams can expire like empty parking meters. He's a Chicago cop. He's a lifelong Cubs fan. But he can't stop pondering what might have happened had the Cubs never left West Side Grounds.
From 1893 to 1915, the Cubs played in a 16,000-seat wood and steel park bounded by Taylor Street on the south, Polk Street on the north, Wolcott (then called Lincoln) on the west and Wood Street on the east. The Cubs won world championships here in 1907 and 1908. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Cubs-White Sox World Series. It was played at West Side Grounds. It was a long time ago.
"Listen to the crowd," Reischl says as he walks west on Taylor Street to the University of Illinois at Chicago campus where the ballpark once stood. He points at the L track and says, "Look at the vendors!"
There is no crowd.
There are no vendors.
But there is Reischl's vision.
Reischl, 38, wants to have a historical marker installed at 912 S. Wood in a tulip garden near what would have been the center field flagpole of West Side Grounds. The site is now the home of the UIC Neuropsychiatric Center. When the Cubs played at West Side Grounds, a psychiatric building stood behind the left field wall. Patients often yelled peculiar things out of their windows, which is widely considered to be at the root of the phrase, "That came out of left field." The left field alley in front of the old hospital still exists. Here, Reischl hears the echoes of a Cubs summer.
Since November, Reischl has spent two hours a day researching West Side Grounds. He's also called landmark commissions, aldermen, aldermen's aides and UIC staff.
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Map of where Mike Reischl wants to install a marker at the site of the old West Side Grounds. |
"My wife thinks I'm nuts," he said while carrying a stack of papers that would humble any sports agent.
Last week, Reischl formed a Way Out In Left Field Society to help raise the $2,817 needed for the marker. On April 8, he is hosting a fund-raiser at the Double Bubble, 6036 N. Broadway. He's even established an e-mail address (theway outinleftfieldsociety@hotmail.com).
'It's a civic thing'
Reischl graduated with a history degree from UIC in 1990. He knew the old Cubs home plate would have been at 817 S. Wolcott and he knew the Polk Street L station (at Paulina) was the West Side Grounds stop. He also knows there's a million things he could be doing besides trying to honor a ballpark where anyone who saw a game is dead.
"It's a civic thing," said Reischl, who worked security at U.S. Cellular Field during the 2000 White Sox playoff run. "We have to have a way to acknowledge this ballpark that had so much history. The Cubs won four World Series there. Tinkers to Evers to Chance played there. So did Ty Cobb. The Cubs were an absolute powerhouse in this ballpark."
That just doesn't sound right.
But Reischl has done the research. He also uncovered the fact that legendary field announcer Pat Pieper began his baseball career as a West Side park vendor in 1904. He became the Cubs field announcer in 1915 and remained as the Cubs public address announcer until 1974. In 1908, a woman gave birth to a baby in the bleachers at West Side Grounds. The infant did not scream woo-woo.
State Rep. Harry Osterman (D-Chicago) has known Reischl most of his life. They grew up together in Edgewater. They attended Cubs games together.
"Mike is a true Chicagoan and a true baseball fan," Osterman said from Springfield. "He keeps score of every pitch. We were in the bleachers once, the Cubs were winning, and they had a no-hitter. Mike wouldn't move his feet, out of fear the Cubs would ultimately lose. In true fashion, when we did move, the Cubs lost the game in extra innings."
Osterman is stepping in to help Reischl get the marker placed. Osterman contacted the Illinois State Historical Society in Springfield to see how to do it. The nonprofit society would develop the plaque.
"We have no problem with this," said Mark Rosati, associate chancellor for public affairs at UIC. "We would need to see the proposed size, language and placement of the plaque."
Osterman said, "It will get people excited about baseball and the history of Chicago. Any money Mike raises above and beyond would be reinvested in the community with a Little League or something to promote the game of baseball."
The move to the North Side
The Cubs didn't leave the West Side on such benevolent terms. Reischl explained, "The National League forced out Charles Murphy, who was apparently the shady front man for the half brother of President William Howard Taft."
Murphy and Taft's kin had put up front money to take control of the Cubs while they also had financial interest in the Philadelphia Phillies. They sold to a group led by Charles Weeghman, who built a new stadium at 1060 W. Addison, where Wrigley Field stands today. Murphy was what people today would call a "player."
"In the 1908 World Series, Murphy put the visiting press in the last row of the grandstands," Reischl said. "There were allegations that he put scalper tickets in the front rows. The press was so infuriated, they organized the Baseball Writers' Association of America. And now they're voting people into the Baseball Hall of Fame."
Chicago writer Ring Lardner was distraught when the Cubs left for the North Side. On opening day, 1916, Lardner wrote, ". . . Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight/Save for the chatter of the laboring folk/Returning to their hovels for the night/All is still at Taylor, Lincoln, Wood and Polk. . . ."
In 1919, West Side Grounds was sold to the State of Illinois for $400,000. The ballpark, on eight acres of land, was torn down, and state hospital buildings went up. The ballpark never got respect even in its afterlife.
"New York tried to steal the 'Out of Left Field' phrase from us," Reischl said. "They said people went to Yankee Stadium and sat in left field thinking Babe Ruth played in left field. So the other fans thought they were 'nuts' for sitting out there. But Babe didn't play for the Yankees until the early 1920s, and this ballpark closed in 1915. They can't get away with it!
"Just imagine what the West Side of Chicago would have looked like if they never moved. The Bears played at Wrigley Field. What if [Papa Bear] George Halas -- who used to sneak into West Side Grounds -- came over here with the Bears? Would the West Side have been gentrified with the Cubs here? What would have the '68 riots been like?"
Don't get Reischl started.
He will finish the job. He sees magic where others see dust.