This is not only a blast from the Cubs past, but the view of bleacher fans shows hairstyles and dress styles for what could be said to be “average” fans in the mid-1980s.
Honestly, the fans you see don’t look that much different from what you’d see in the bleachers today. It is sobering for me, personally, to realize that everyone you see in this photo is at least in their 60s now, possibly older.
The photo is a little bit washed out, so the numbers on the board aren’t that easy to read. I put it through Photoshop, did a little bit of adjustment on the brightness and contrast and got this closeup view of the scoreboard:
It’s 3:45 and we’re in the top of the third inning, so this is a game that likely began at 3:05. There are no NITE GAME indicators on any of the other games, so this would at first glance appear to be a Sunday afternoon, possibly in the Cubs’ NL East title year of 1984.
This is where you go wrong with assumptions. The batter is Garry Templeton, so the Cubs are playing the Padres. (Yes, the city names are still a bit blurry, but Templeton was a Padre from 1982-91, so it’s got to be the Padres. We also know it has to be in the 1983-85 time frame, because that’s when those beer ads were on the board.
But I looked through all the Cubs/Padres 1984 games — including the two NLCS games — and nothing matched the Cubs having a 4-0 lead in the top of the third, having scored two runs in each of the first two innings.
Instead, this game was played Tuesday, July 9, 1985, in front of 33,085 on what’s clearly a gorgeous summer day at Wrigley. The pair of two-run innings were both courtesy of Ryne Sandberg — he hit two-run homers in each of the first two innings. Not an easy thing to do, incidentally! The Cubs got a couple more runners on base in the first after Sandberg homered with Billy Hatcher on base. Then in the second, a groundout was followed by a single by Steve Trout and a fly ball by Hatcher before Sandberg homered again.
In the top of the third, Bruce Bochy, then the Padres catcher, grounded out. That brought up Templeton, which is what we see on the board. There’s one out and one strike on Templeton. He eventually grounded to third base in this at-bat.
The Cubs won the game 7-3. Sandberg went 3-for-5 with three runs scored, including the pair of two-run homers. Hatcher, who later went on to have good years in Houston and Cincinnati after the Cubs ill-advisedly traded him for Jerry Mumphrey, went 3-for-4. Trout threw seven strong innings and got the win.
There were some night games on this day so I’m not sure why NITE GAME was not shown on the board. After this win the Cubs were 43-38, in fourth place but just 5.5 games behind the first-place Cardinals, theoretically still in the NL East race. But pitching injuries killed that team and they went just 34-46 the rest of the way and finished fourth at 77-84, 23.5 games out of first place.
Just another little slice of life from Wrigley Field, more than 40 years ago.