April 23, 1914: Wrigley Field Opens

April 23, 1914: Wrigley Field opens on the North Side of Chicago. At the time, it is named Weeghman Park, and is the home of the Chicago Whales of the Federal League.

Just as Ban Johnson, still President of the American League in 1914 (and would remain so until 1927), offered the National League an olive branch when the AL was founded in 1901, and was rejected, so, too, did James A. Gilmore, President of the FL, offer essentially the same one to both the AL and the NL: If you will recognize us as a major league, we will respect your contracts, and will not raid your rosters to stock our teams. Both established Leagues refused to recognize the FL as "major."

And so, the FL was founded with 8 teams, just as the NL and the AL had. And 4 of them were direct challenges. The aforementioned Whales challenged the NL's Chicago Cubs on the West Side and the AL's Chicago White Sox on the South Side.

The Brooklyn Tip-Tops took up residence at Washington Park, which had been the home of the NL's Brooklyn Dodgers from 1898 to 1912, and so they were challenging the Dodgers and, less directly, the NL's New York Giants and the AL's New York Yankees.

The Pittsburgh Rebels took up residence at Exposition Park, which had been the home of the NL's Pittsburgh Pirates from 1891 to 1909, and so they were challenging the Pirates. And the St. Louis Terriers were challenging the NL's St. Louis Cardinals and the AL's St. Louis Blues.

Not up against an established team in their city, but in each case filling a void where there had once been a major league team, were the Baltimore Terrapins, the Buffalo Blues, the Indianapolis Hoosiers and the Kansas City Packers.

And the FL did raid the established Leagues' rosters, including the gaining of 5 men who would end up in the Hall of Fame. Cub shortstop Joe Tinker would go to the Whales. Cub pitcher Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown would go to St. Louis and Brooklyn, before pitching for the Whales in 1915. Pitcher Eddie Plank would go to St. Louis. Pitcher Albert "Chief" Bender would go to Baltimore. And center fielder Edd Roush, an Indiana native, would go to Indianapolis. Bill McKechnie, a 3rd baseman, would also play for Indianapolis, but it would be as a manager that he would make the Hall of Fame.

Losing Plank, Bender, and other players hurt the Philadelphia Athletics. They had won the World Series in 1910, 1911 and 1913, and would win the AL Pennant again in 1914. But Connie Mack, the team's manager, treasurer, and one-quarter owner, had to cut salaries to cut costs. As a result, more players left for the 1915 season, and the A's crashed to last place, going from one of the best teams of all time to one of the worst, almost in the blink of an eye. It would take Mack until 1927 to build another contender, and 1929 to build another Pennant winner.

The Chicago Whales were owned by Charles Weeghman. "Lucky Charlie" owned a chain of lunch counters throughout Chicago, and was a precursor to what would eventually be called fast food. He built a single-deck ballpark at the corner of Clark Street and Addison Street, adjacent to the Addison station on Chicago's elevated railway system.

And in that 1st game at the North Side ballyard, the Whales beat the Kansas City Packers, 9-1. Claude Hendrix was the winning pitcher. Art Wilson was the hitting star, with 2 home runs. The game also featured the man who, to this day, remains last among Major League Baseball players in alphabetical order: Edward Harrison "Dutch" Zwilling, a center fielder who would lead the FL in home runs that season with 16, and in RBIs the next season with 94.

Zwilling played with much less distinction with the other 2 Chicago teams: The White Sox in 1910, and the Cubs in 1916. Those would be his only seasons in the major leagues, although he remained in the minor leagues until 1926, with brief comebacks in 1934 and 1938, the latter at age 49.

These other Federal League games were played on the day that Weeghman Park opened, a Thursday: 

* The Baltimore Terrapins beat the Buffalo Blues, 4-3 at Terrapin Park. After the FL folded, the International League's Baltimore Orioles, still more popular than the FL team, would move into Terrapin Park, rename it Oriole Park, and stay there until a fire destroyed it in 1944.

* The Pittsburgh Rebels beat the Brooklyn Tip-Tops, 6-5 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh.

* And the St. Louis Terriers beat the Indianapolis Hoosiers, 3-0 at Federal League Park in Indianapolis. Harvey Keupper pitched a 5-hit shutout.

In the American League:

* The New York Yankees beat the Philadelphia Athletics, 5-3 at Shibe Park.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Washington Senators, 5-0 at National Park in Washington. It would be renamed Griffith Stadium in 1922. Tris Speaker went 1-for-4 for the Red Sox, making a winning pitcher out of Rankin Johnson, and a losing pitcher out of the great Walter Johnson (no relation).

* The Cleveland Naps beat the Chicago White Sox, 4-1 at League Park in Cleveland. Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, the Cleveland manager and 2nd baseman for whom the team was named, went 0-for-4. But "Shoeless" Joe Jackson went 2-for-4.

This would be the last season in Cleveland for Lajoie: After getting his 3,000th career hit late in the season, he was released, and the team became the Cleveland Indians the next season. They held that name through the 2021 season, and are now the Cleveland Guardians.

* And the Detroit Tigers beat the St. Louis Browns, 3-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Ty Cobb went 0-for-3 for the Tigers, but did have an RBI on a sacrifice fly.

And in the National League: 

* The New York Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 12-4 at the Polo Grounds. Fred Merkle, still remembered for his Pennant-costing "Boner" in 1908, hit a 3-run home run.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers lost to the Boston Braves, 9-1 at the South End Grounds. Or, should I say, the Brooklyn Robins lost to the Braves. This was the 1st season in which Wilbert Robinson was the Brooklyn manager, and the team was renamed the Robins for him. Despite leading them to Pennants in 1916 and 1920, he was fired after the 1931 season, and the Dodgers name was restored.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-1 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Honus Wagner went 1-for-3 for the Pirates.

* And the Chicago Cubs beat the Cincinnati Reds, 2-1 at West Side Park in Chicago. Interestingly, the attendance for this game was not published. In contrast, the Whales announced that they had a sellout crowd of 21,000.

Indianapolis won the FL Pennant in 1914. Despite this, they didn't make much money, and FL management wanted a 2nd team in what would now be called the New York Tri-State Area. So they became the Newark Peppers, playing at Harrison Park in Harrison, New Jersey, across the Passaic River from Newark.

Chicago won the Pennant in 1915, in a very close and controversial race. But the FL's owners simply couldn't keep up with the established Leagues. An agreement was reached in which Weeghman would be allowed to buy the Cubs, and move them into Weeghman Park; and Phil Ball, owner of the St. Louis Terriers, would be allowed to buy the Browns and their home, Sportsman's Park.

But Lucky Charlie would see his luck run out: The manpower drain of World War I drove his lunch counters into bankruptcy. He had to sell his shares of the Cubs, mostly to chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr. The ballpark was renamed Cubs Park in 1920. By 1926, Wrigley had become sole owner, and double-decked the ballpark, naming it Wrigley Field.

Wrigley died in 1932. His son, Philip K. Wrigley, hired sportswriter William Veeck as team president, and Veeck's son, Bill Veeck, to also work in the front office. It was Bill Veeck who guided the transformation of Wrigley Field into its familiar form, planting ivy and bittersweet on the brick outfield wall, and building the bleachers topped by a trapezoidal hand-operated scoreboard, all of which remain symbolic of the ballpark.

Bill Veeck would go on to be a successful team owner, winning American Association Pennants with the Milwaukee Brewers (not the current major league team), winning the 1948 World Series as owner of the Cleveland Indians, and owning the Chicago White Sox twice, winning a Pennant in 1959 and saving them from being moved in 1975.

Phil Wrigley died in 1977, and the Wrigley family sold the team and the ballpark in 1981. Wrigley Field has seen several modernizations, including becoming the last MLB stadium to get lights (in 1988), and big-screen scoreboards above the left and right field sides of the bleachers. In 2014, the ballpark's 100th Anniversary was celebrated.

In 2016, the Cubs finally won a World Series with Wrigley as their home field (although the clinching was on the road, in Cleveland). It was also their 1st Pennant there since 1945, although they had won 6 Pennants from 1918 to 1945. The Chicago Bears played at Wrigley from 1921 to 1970, before moving to Soldier Field, and won 8 NFL Championships there, from 1921 to 1963. But 2016 was the year the Cubs, so often unlucky at big moments, finally saw their luck change.

Wherever he was in the afterlife at that point -- he died in 1938 -- I have to believe that Lucky Charlie was smiling.