For almost a year now peace has reigned at Wrigley Field. The Cubs have their lights, the fans a pennant run, and the residents of nearby Lakeview, well, they’ve more or less accepted the fact of night baseball.
Not that it matters how Hansen or local residents feel. The law was passed with almost no opposition. Mayor Daley did not publicly endorse it. But his brother–state senator John Daley–did. Worse, the proposal was introduced by a Chicago state senator–Thaddeus Lechowicz, a Daley ally from the northwest side. Lechowicz introduced it near the end of the spring session as an amendment to the bill that set aside state money for a new basketball-hockey arena on the west side.
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The aide did not speculate as to why Daley did not vociferously push to pass the stadium deal without the Wrigley Field amendment, or why a Chicago Democrat like Lechowicz would be so gullible as to do the Tribune Company’s bidding. Other observers, however, have their opinions.
In general, the public’s attitude toward the Cubs has been much different since the Tribune Company bought the team. The previous owners, the Wrigley family, treated the Cubs like an adorable plaything. Under the Wrigleys there were no box-office lines, no TV-hyped excitement. With the exception of a few misguided fanatics, no one took them seriously.
In the early days public opinion seemed to side with the residents. Mayor Washington and his chief aldermanic rival, Edward Vrdolyak, courted their support. The General Assembly even passed a law–barring the Cubs from operating mechanical sound equipment after ten o’clock–intended to block night games. The Tribune Company sued, calling the law unconstitutional. But it lost the case. It wasn’t until 1987, when the new Sox stadium was approved, that the tide turned.
Little did they know what the Cubs had in store for them. Cubs officials would not respond for comment, but they have sought to deny residents prohibition powers for several years.
Unfortunately for the Lakeview residents there were few politicians in Springfield willing to plead their case. “No way we could stop it in the senate,” says Marovitz, who opposed the amendment. “Dawn Clark Netsch [another north-side state senator] and I were like Don Quixote fighting windmills. The attitude down here is that they want this lights issue to go away. People who don’t live on the lakefront figure, “Lights have not been terrible. There are more-pressing problems. Just forget it already.”‘
