It's the 100th anniversary of the opening of Wrigley Field, and while the Chicago Cubs are trying their best to commemorate the historic ballpark, they're doing about as well with the celebration as they are on the field.
Early hiccups included the dumping a custom sculpted birthday cake in a dumpster and cutting 100-year-old Cubs fan Louis Reinhart from the pregame lineup for the opening day ceremonies because the wheelchair-bound centenarian was 15 minutes late arriving from his nursing home 150 miles away.
And the hits just keep on coming.
As part of the centennial celebration, the Cubs commissioned a series of murals around the park that honor its history. One of those murals is meant to commemorate aviator Charles Lindbergh's visit to Wrigley in 1927.
While waiting to get in to a game, Floyd Sullivan of ChicagoNow.com, who recently worked on the books, Old Comiskey Park: Essays and Memories of the Historic Home of the Chicago White Sox, 1910-1991, noticed something unusual.
"I didn't remember reading anywhere that he stopped at Wrigley Field," Sullivan wrote. "So I looked more closely at the photograph and took a hard look at the rather blurry background.
"Arched windows. Not distinct, but definitely there.
"I turned to others standing in line, or maybe to no one in particular, and said, 'That's not Wrigley Field. That's Comiskey Park.' "
A closer look at the mural also revealed that a photograph of President Franklin D. Roosevelt was taken at Wrigley but before he was actually elected, despite what the caption reads.
"We are now reviewing all of the photos," team spokesman Julian Green told The Associated Press.
And just as an additional, although surely unintentional kick in the teeth, the Cubs had a special guest to throw out the first pitch for Friday's game against the Milwaukee Brewers -- Julia Ruth Stevens, 97, daughter of legendary New York Yankees slugger Babe Ruth.
Not bad right? Except Stevens was there commemorating Ruth's "Called Shot" home run in the 1932 World Series. The Cubs even gave away "Called Shot" bobbleheads.
The Yankees won that series in a four-game sweep.
Still throwing
Former major league pitcher John Burkett is still mowing them down, just with a heavier ball.
Burkett, a two-time all-star with the San Francisco Giants and Atlanta Braves, will compete in the Professional Bowlers Association's Wolf Open, beginning today at FireLake Bowling Center in Shawnee, Okla.
Bowling as a professional has always been Burkett's dream, beginning as a youngster when his first job was setting up pins at Wedgwood Lanes, a duckpin center in Beaver, Pa., his hometown. He discovered tenpin bowling at a different center, but he said the day Wedgewood Lanes converted to tenpins was "the greatest gift I ever got.
"I told them I'd work for free if they'd let me bowl for free," he said. "I wanted to be a professional bowler before I ever took up baseball. Bowling was my favorite sport, for sure.".
His bowling aspirations got pushed aside, however, when he became a professional baseball player.
But the bowling dream lingered.
"Even when I went to spring training, I had my VCR in the car so I could tape shows and I had two bowling balls in the front seat of my car," he said. "And during spring training, I'd find some little local tournament with a $50 first prize for whatever. I couldn't wait for our workouts to be over to I could go bowl.
"Even now, people ask if I'm going to get back into baseball, coaching or something, but I say, no I'm doing this. ... now I have time to do what I want, and I have always wanted to bowl."
Sports on 05/19/2014