The gates at Wrigley Field opened early on April 4 for the Chicago Cubs home opener against the San Diego Padres.
It was a cold, 44-degree afternoon. Shota Imanaga mowed down Fernando Tatis Jr., Luis Arráez and Manny Machado in order in the first inning, and the Cubs were on their way to a 3-1 win before a nicely chilled crowd of 40,244.
More than six months later, the Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers prepared for Game 4 of the National League Division Series on Thursday night at Wrigley, the second straight elimination game for the Cubs after finding themselves with a 2-0 deficit in the best-of-five affair.
Matthew Boyd got the start, looking for redemption after his Game 1 flop.
Eight of the nine men in the Game 4 lineup were in that lineup for the Wrigley opener, albeit in a different order, and the other one, catcher Carson Kelly, was available off the bench.
That consistency was a hallmark of Craig Counsell’s managing style. He trusts his players to figure a way out of the normal slumps that invade everyone’s season. His players trust him to give them that opportunity.
That’s why criticism over his lineups, which peaked in the second half when several regulars hit a speed bump, always fell on deaf ears. Counsell was going to win or lose with his guys, whether the internet and social media agreed with him or not. That ability to shut out the noise was one of the reasons he was hired, and also why the Cubs won 92 games.
Counsell’s decision to leave the Brewers for the Cubs will be talked about for years, no matter the result of this NLDS series. He clearly doesn’t want to be the focus of the Cubs-Brewers rivalry and has been uncomfortable in the villain role in his hometown of Milwaukee since the day of the signing.
“That’s been part of why this has been a hard week for me, for sure,” he said in his opening news conference. “And I underestimated that. That was my miscalculation there a little bit.”
He might have underestimated the harsh reaction of Brewers fans, but one thing Counsell didn’t get wrong was the atmosphere he envisioned on the day he signed a five-year deal after the 2023 season — a late-afternoon game at Wrigley Field in October with a Cubs playoff team desperately needing its fans to create energy in a do-or-die scenario. A pregame rave outside the park led by popular DJ John Summit led to a frenzied atmosphere inside that led to the Cubs win, setting up Game 4.
Game 3 photos: Chicago Cubs 4, Milwaukee Brewers 3 in NLDS at Wrigley
The crowd was expected to follow in lockstep Thursday on another seasonably cool night, and whether the Cubs would ride the rave again was the question of the day.
Wrigley Field is a special place to work, whether you’re a manager, reporter, usher or vendor. When it’s as electric as it has been during these playoffs, the atmosphere is hard to beat. It almost makes you forget how quiet it was in the 2018 wild-card loss to the Colorado Rockies and the empty ballpark in the 2020 wild-card series against the Miami Marlins.
Game 4 was my 39th playoff game at Wrigley Field since 1984 as a credentialed Chicago Tribune reporter, and I’ve witnessed a lot of emotion and heartbreak over those 12 postseasons. But the cascading sound that greeted the game-ending groundout by Christian Yelich to Nico Hoerner in Game 3 was one of the loudest moments I’ve experienced at the ballpark.
It might even be in the top six, along with Bobby Dernier’s leadoff home run in Game 1 of the 1984 National League Championship Series, Kerry Wood’s home run in Game 7 of the 2003 NLCS, Kyle Schwarber’s video-board shot in Game 4 of the 2015 NL Division Series, Miguel Montero’s grand slam in Game 1 of the 2016 NLCS and Kris Bryant’s home run off Trevor Bauer in Game 5 of the 2016 World Series.
Of course, results may vary, depending on mileage. Maybe your ears processed those moments differently, and included home runs from Rick Sutcliffe, Javier Báez and Anthony Rizzo or the final out of the 2016 NLCS that put the Cubs into their first World Series since 1945.
Either way, the return of postseason baseball to Wrigley has reminded all of us in Chicago how fortunate we are to call this ballpark home. After Thursday’s game, the Cubs have hosted only 52 postseason games at Wrigley. They were 19-32 there entering Game 4.
They’ve had legendary moments, such as Babe Ruth’s “called shot” home run in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series and the fateful foul ball that deflected off a fan’s hands in Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS, and forgettable moments such as James Loney’s ballpark-deflating grand slam in Game 1 of the 2008 NLDS.
The names have changed on the backs of Cubs uniforms, and the faces in the press box have come and gone.
But the neighborhood ballpark with the vines and an ancient scoreboard endures, a testament to a city that appreciates its past and looks forward to its future. Hopefully it lasts for generations of Cubs fans to come.
Rave on, Wrigley.