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A Nice Little Place on the North Side:
Wrigley Field at One Hundred
by George Will

As a newspaper columnist and television talking head, George Will has been the epitome of elitism and snobbery, all wrapped up in a bow-tied package that serves only the interests of the wealthy masters who pay him handsomely for such representation. But every once in a while, Will steps away from his political role and chooses to celebrate his other--perhaps only legitimate--passion, baseball. And when Will writes about baseball, he becomes...well, not exactly likeable. Tolerable is probably a better adjective for this other dimension of Will's character.

Loveable is not the correct adjective either, though it is one that is often attached--along with tag "losers"--to Will's subject in his latest baseball book, the Cubs. For while A Nice Little Place on the North Side is ostensibly about Wrigley Field, the ballpark is just a building, and it would be of little note to anyone but for the actions of the team that has spent most of the park's history as its primary tenant.

George Will's
A Nice Little Place on the North Side

That's a problem, because, while a reader should absorb an author's work with a dispassionate mind, the fact is that when a professional sports team serves as the bulk of a book's subject, only a non-fan can maintain that kind of stoic disassociation. And those who are not sports fans rarely pick up sports-related books. Those who will crack the spine of a newly minted baseball book are most likely baseball fans, who will bring to those pages their own thoughts, feelings, and memories regarding the team in question.

Hence, the central role played by the Cubs in A Nice Little Place... can undermine the reader's enjoyment of the book (unless, of course, you are--like Will himself--a long-time Cubs fan). While a baseball fan may be able to appreciate a telling of the highs (rare) and lows (legion) of the Cubs' history, he is unlikely to be moved in any great sense by the vignettes presented in this book. (Will eschews a straight narrative history of the park and instead offers a more episodic, mostly chronological telling of Wrigley Field lore.)

That is probably why A Nice Little Place... is at its best when Will shifts away from idle tales about the Cubs' fortunes and relates more information about how Wrigley Field has affected the team's performance. Nowhere is this clearer than in Will's portrait of P.K. Wrigley, the son of the field's namesake and "reluctant owner" of the Cubs through the much of the middle of the 20th century (when losing records became Chicago's hallmark). In the junior Wrigley, Will gets to portray a near perfect idol for why the Cubs have underachieved for so long; the man actually came out and plainly said that his goal, in emphasizing the Wrigley Field experience (rather than winning teams), was to cater to "people not interested in baseball." Will builds a solid case that such a philosophy--ballpark as showcase and team as afterthought--has been the ruin of many a Cubs season.

One wonders then, if the ballpark has been so guilty, why would a true blue Cubs fan be so quick to lionize the place? Will, however, never wavers from his Cubs fan bona fides, even expressing some cautious optimism that the current Ricketts family ownership will put a stop to all this "just have a good time" stuff and put a winning team on that hallowed field. How quaint. Anyone who's been paying attention knows that recent renovations aren't going so well, and the neighborhood around Wrigley Field is getting restless.

So it goes for the Cubs, and partisans such as Will will have to endure the tribulations for a while longer before they see better days for their favorite team. And if things keep working out as usual for the team on Chicago's North Side? Well, Will and his friends will still have their favorite ballpark--in at least some of its glory--to comfort them with memories good and bad. Such is life and baseball.