Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

51s fall, 5-4, at Chicago’s Wrigley Field

51s

Mary Beth Nolan / Special to the Sun

Las Vegas 51s outfielder Jason Lane signs autographs before a game with the Iowa Cubs Sunday at Wrigley Field in Chicago.

51s at Wrigley Field

Las Vegas 51s players, from left, Rommie Lewis, Brian Wolfe, Dirk Hayhurst and Bill Murphy stand at attention for Launch slideshow »

CHICAGO -- Welcome to the Road to Wrigley, which is sort of like the Road to Cashman Field, only with greener ivy.

A stiff breeze is rustling the leaves on the ivy-colored walls of one of baseball's most revered cathedrals as the Iowa Cubs and the Las Vegas 51s prepare to do battle in the second installment of the Road to Wrigley, a minor league baseball game featuring one of the Cubs' minor league affiliates.

It's just a tick after 11 a.m. Wrigley time and the I-Cubs are on the field taking batting practice. A few minutes ago, the Iowa team posed for a photo out in short center field and a few of the Cubs -- such as first baseman-outfielder Micah Hoffpauir who was just sent down this week by the parent Chicago Cubs, didn't look all that enthused to be here.

It's very warm and the humidity just steamed a few dozen hot dogs. The wind is blowing straight out and from my seat in the press box, you can see the sailboats on Lake Michigan.

If it's not an idyllic setting for a baseball game, it's pretty darn close.

A little girl just ripped through two practice versions of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Unlike Ozzy Osbourne and NASCAR's Jeff Gordon, she got all the words right. If she does that well during the seventh-inning stretch, she will do Harry Caray proud.

There aren't a lot of people in the ballpark yet. But just about everybody who is here is snapping pictures.

11:50 a.m.-- The 51s have arrived -- after a two-hour bus ride from Omaha to Des Moines and then a charter flight onto Chicago -- and are on the field taking batting practice. Balls are rattling off the empty bleachers -- the wind is still blowing out like crazy -- but several of the 51s pitchers, who had been shagging batting practice fly balls, have turned their backs on what's happening in front of them.

They are inspecting the ivy on the center-field wall just to the right of the yellow 400-foot marker. Wait a minute -- they aren't inspecting the ivy. They're defacing it. One by one, they yank a sprig of ivy from the vine and tuck it into the back pocket of their baseball trousers.

"All the guys starting pulling pieces of ivy," said 51s relief pitcher Dirk Hayhurst. "How many places do you go where guys are pulling weeds as souvenirs?"

"Wait a minute -- don't call it weeds. Somebody will get mad."

12:05 p.m.-- The humidity has finally gotten to 51s owner Derek Stevens, who for the better part of an hour was the only person on the field wearing long sleeves -- on a navy blazer. Stevens has sought sanctuary in a shady corner of the visitors' dugout, where one of the 51s made him an ice towel to hold on the back of his neck.

Stevens doesn't seem to mind the heat. What's a little perspiration compared to 94 years of history and tradition?

"It's pretty awe-inspiring," said Stevens, who I predict will lose more water weight today than Marty McLeary, the 51s' starting pitcher. "When you consider that this is the same field used by Hank Aaron and Willie Mays and Babe Ruth, the sense of history can be pretty overwhelming."

But when I mentioned if he'd like to replicate something like Wrigley Field in place of creaky, old Cashman Field back home, Stevens said he'd rather replicate something a little newer where people could use the restrooms without standing in line.

1:20 p.m.-- Buck Coats, one of the few 51s with Wrigley Field experience -- he got his first major league hit while playing for the Chicago Cubs a couple of years ago -- singles to begin the game. He is erased on a double play as Las Vegas goes quietly in the top of the first.

Nothing for the Cubs in the bottom of the first. Bobby Scales, who spent a good portion of the early season with the C-Cubs, singled to right but was stranded when Hoffpauir lined to center and John Ford Griffin flew out to the warning track in left. The fans sitting in the sun are fanning themselves with programs.

1:38 p.m. -- Travis Snider goes yard -- or at least ivy -- to give the 51s a 1-0 lead with a line drive well up into the bleachers in right-center. Will the I-Cubs fans' keep with Wrigley Field tradition and throw the ball back onto the field?

They do. Snider's home run ball comes sailing back onto the emerald green outfield grass, where the second-base umpire retrieves it and tosses it out of play. Las Vegas 1, Iowa 0 after two.

1:43 p.m.--A kid is shooting t-shirts into the stands with a cannon, reminding everybody, just in case they had forgotten, that they are watching a minor league baseball game.

Scales-ey -- as C-Cubs manager Lou Piniella dubbed Bobby Scales when he was up with the big club -- lines out to center to end the third. The 51s still lead 1-0. The first three innings are played in a snappy 48 minutes. Why, oh why, can't 51s games at Cashman Field go this quickly?

2:18 p.m.--The Red Line "L" train keeps making the stops at the platform beyond the right-field ivy on Sheffield Ave., but I'd say anybody who is coming to the ball yard is already here. The stands are maybe half-full. Last year, a Class A game at Wrigley pitting the Ryne Sandberg-managed Peoria Chiefs against the Kane County Cougars attracted a crowd of more than 32,000 but that was two Illinois teams, with one managed by a Sandberg.

51s still lead 1-0 after four. McLeary is looking like Fergie Jenkins (the Cubs' Hall of Famer whose jersey is not hanging from the foul pole as it does when the C-Cubs are the home team) out there on the pitcher's mound.

2:30 p.m.--The 51s tack on a run in the top of the fifth on a leadoff triple by Aaron Mathews and an RBI-groundout by Angel Sanchez. They might have scored more but for a diving catch in left field by the I-Cubs' Griffin. Wrigley fans not accustomed to seeing such feats of leather in left field -- that's where Alfonso Soriano plays for the C-Cubs -- responded with a nice ovation.

The I-Cubs slice the Las Vegas lead in half with an unearned run but the bigger cheer comes when the sun ducks behind the clouds for a little while. 51s 2, Cubs 1 after five.

2:55 p.m.--Nothing much happening in the 51s' sixth so now might be a good time to take a look at their road uniforms that few Las Vegans ever get to see -- they are a tasteful gray in color with tasteful blue letters and numbers. There are no aliens on them. The I-Cubs, however, are wearing what appear to be softball jerseys.

John-Ford Griffin, who is having quite a day, just hit a two-run bomb onto Sheffield Ave. to give Iowa a 3-2 lead. I don't think that one is getting thrown back. A wilting McLeary is knocked out of the game as the I-Cubs pick up another run to make it 4-2.

3:15 p.m.--They just announced the paid attendance -- 16,280. That's an Iowa Cubs' record. That's a Fireworks Night crowd plus about 5,000 at Cashman Field.

Practice makes perfect: The little girl hits every note, remembers every word of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh-innng stretch. Ozzy, Jeff, Coach Ditka -- I hope you were watching. Or at least listening on the Internet.

51s' third baseman Kevin Howard makes his second throwing error of the game as Iowa increases its lead to 5-2. Howard's first errant toss wound up closer to the Dan Ryan Expressway than it did first base. The second one appeared headed for the Eisenhower.

3:44 p.m.--Snider just hit his second dinger, into the second row in the right-field bleachers. The line drive might have knocked one of those Anderson Dairy ads off the wall at Cashman Field, but I don't think it would have been a homer.

3:57 p.m. --Sanchez homers into the left-field bleachers to trim Iowa's lead to 5-4 with one out in the ninth. Do the 51s have another long fly in them?

Nope. Coats flies to right and Howie Clark grounds to second. "I-Cubs win! I-Cubs win! Hey Des Moines, whaddya say? The Iowa Cubs are gonna win today."

Or something like that.

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