Minnesota has played in two baseball stadiums for recent bowl games and won them both — an 18-6 win over West Virginia in the 2021 Guaranteed Rate Bowl at Chase Field in Arizona and a 28-20 victory over Syracuse in the 2022 Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium in New York City.
“We’ve played in a lot of baseball stadiums in a lot of bowl games,” Fleck said. “But Wrigley Field has a special place in my heart, and I think that will be a lot of fun.”
Wrigley Field does not have heating coils, so the new grass surface, which just had a game on it, is expected to be less than ideal. There is also a chance of rain in Chicago on Friday, and the Gophers are exploring different cleats to match the field.
Slipping and sliding were issues in the Gophers’ bowl games on baseball fields.
Fleck grew up a Cubs fan in Sugar Grove, Ill., which is 55 miles west of Wrigley Field. In 1998, Fleck took a high school field trip from Kaneland High to watch Kerry Wood’s 20-strikeout game. It was rainy that day, so Fleck and friends worked their way down from “bad seats” toward premium spots.
“I wasn’t one of the kids holding up the Ks in the bleachers,” Fleck said. “But we were right there. There wasn’t a ton of people there, so we just kept moving down as the game went on.”
His favorites Cubs players were Ryne Sandberg and Mark Grace, and he watched Sammy Sosa hit so many home runs in the white and blue pinstripes.
“Growing up near Chicago, you pick one or the other,” Fleck said. “My dad was a Chicago White Sox fan, so you kind of pick the opposite, so you can cheer against him, just to make it fun.”
Briefly
The Gophers-Wisconsin game for Paul Bunyan’s Axe will kick off at 2:30 p.m. Nov. 29 at Huntington Bank Stadium. It will air on FS1.
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