Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Visiting the Ghost of Honus Wagner

NOW

If you want to know where the Road to Wrigley (which is what they called Sunday's game between the Iowa Cubs and 51s in Chicago) narrows, I can tell you.

It's in the visitors' clubhouse.

You almost need a miner's helmet to make your way from the first base dugout to the visitors' clubhouse, which wends beneath the playing surface, around a couple of corners, back up and over the concourse beneath the seats, where Cubs fans line up to buy Frosty Malts and Old Style beer, and, finally, up another flight of stairs.

It's hardly worth the trip. The visitors' clubhouse at Wrigley is not much bigger than the one at Cashman Field. It's not exactly as well-appointed as a Chrysler Cordoba, either.

Nonetheless, I stood there in the middle of it, where most of the 51s weren't paying attention to the NASCAR race on the not-so-big screen plasma TV, soaking it all in -- if for no other reason to say I did it -- when I saw 51s broadcaster Russ Langer doing the same thing.

"To think that this is where Honus Wager once put on his uniform ... " Langer said, his voice trailing off in reverence.

Upon further review, forget what I said. It was totally worth the trip.

THEN

What I really wanted to do is pretend I was from Des Moines and talk my way into the home clubhouse at Wrigley, because that's where Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown put on his uniform.

But there simply wasn't enough time.

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