Slaughterhouse 16

START TIME: 9:22 PM
END TIME: 10:24 PM
WORD COUNT: 763

“If the lore and legend of the Chicago Cubs supersedes regular baseball play itself, why has there been no iconic or classic baseball movie made using the Cubs as a backdrop? The best I can think of is the bit part it plays in the Blues Brothers and Ferris Bueller. But those are movies about Chicago first. The Twins, the Indians, the Yankees, and the Red Sox all have theirs. Where is the homage to what may be considered the Holy Grail of Hollywood Demographics: the widest range of people willing to throw money at something regardless of whether it sucks? Is it possible to make this movie?” -Beth Badrov

I had a couple things run through my head when I first saw this question. The first was, “That movie “Rookie of the Year,” with the kid who could throw 140, had him on the Cubs, but it didn't really matter because that wasn't ABOUT the Cubs. The kid could have been wearing a Durham Bulls shirt and it would have been the same story. Wrigley was used as a backdrop in “League of their Own” and “Eight Men Out” so there has been a movie made about a women’s league and the Black Sox before an iconic Cubs movie."

The second thing that ran through my head was the iconic Cubs movie isn’t a movie; it’s the play. It’s “Bleacher Bums” by Joe Mantegna. That’s what gets romanticized about the Cubs; it has nothing to do with the players on the field. Who was the last Cubs PLAYER that had any sort of national prominence? That’s right, Cubs fans. It was Sammy Sosa. Yep, Sam-ME-no-speak-English-pass-the-Flintstones-vitamins-corked-bat-swing-at-a-58-foot-pitch Sosa. You could not approach someone who does not follow baseball and ask them to name a Cubs player.

The romance with the Cubs from a nationwide standpoint assumes that the ballpark is the same as it was 20 years ago. It is not. Those aren’t charming neighborhood residents watching from the rooftops; they’re corporate swine, same level of money as the idiots in the CBOE Options seats right behind home plate, deducting their Old Styles as a business expense. That’s no longer a Torco sign in right field, which was there originally because Ron Santo’s uncle was a distributor. That EAMUS CATULI nonsense, yet another pathetic attempt to get on television, has been there for a decade. Wrigley is an exercise in commoditized worship by sheep, and the sheep are famous.

The sheep are famous because the pattern of available television programming in the 1980s, the last generation to follow baseball on a consistent, growing basis, featured three teams on basic cable – the Cubs, the New York Mets on WOR, and the Atlanta Braves on TBS. All across the fruited plain kids came home from school or spent their summer vacations watching Chicago Cubs baseball. And the product on the field during the 1980s? It was sporting a .472 winning percentage. They did not have charismatic management (if you don’t count Lee Elia) so what could you sell? The geniuses at WGN sold sunshine, Harry, and the ballpark.

There are few things that speak to summertime in Chicago more clearly than a shot of a fly ball into the outfield with the ivy in bloom, guys in the bleachers shirtless and the women wearing just enough to stay on this side of legality. I’m not even a fan and I still had a hilarious moment upon moving out to Las Vegas, watching a Cubs game on television in April. It was gray. The ivy was still a bundle of sticks. The players were blowing on their hands between pitches, and I thought to myself, “Wow. Glad I’m not outside.” Then I looked out and remembered I’d moved, it was 75 and sunny, and all was well.

It’s that mystique that prevents the movie from being made. It would have to be made in the summer, to get the right feel for it – the way that they did in “Ferris Bueller” which intercut game footage with the scene of them in the stands. (No trouble getting in for a fall movie shoot in 1985, by the way – the Cubs finished 23.5 games out that year.)

The Yankees have winning and tradition. The Red Sox had losing. The Indians still do. The Cubs…have losing and a very pretty ballpark. The ballpark is prettiest when the team occupying it is playing baseball in the daytime – a hard thing to shoot. (The crowd scenes for Major League were filmed at County Stadium in Milwaukee in July starting at 9 PM and going until 4 AM.) Unless the Cubs play someplace with consistent light and neighbors willing to tolerate overnight movie shoots, a film, like the Cubs’ Series chances this year, isn’t gonna happen.