Cubs, Wrigley rebuilt to last
Architects of roster, park pave way for even brighter future
They both look awfully good a few years into the respective rebuilding plans — Wrigley Field and the 2016 World Series champion Chicago Cubs who call it home — but they're not done.
No question they've both generated an awful lot of excitement among Cubs fan.
But the easily discerned changes, such as the reconstructed bleachers and the addition of video boards, are squandered if the rest of the work is not completed. Same goes for the first title in 108 years, which the Cubs won Wednesday in Cleveland.
A century of patch jobs is what left both ballpark and ballclub in disrepair, requiring nothing less than a top-to-bottom rebuild. That sort of thing takes time, especially if it's meant to last not just for a season or two but for many years.
So the work to remodel 102-year-old Wrigley Field into a 21st-century ballpark — much like effort to remake the perennial also-ran Cubs franchise into not just a World Series champ but a regular contender — resumes again after Friday's victory parade and rally.
That should be the takeaway from 2016, looking ahead to 2017 and beyond at Clark and Addison.
Just as contractors are getting back to work at the ballpark, so will architects Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and company, looking at what's needed to reinforce a roster that's vastly improved from the crumbling mess the Ricketts family bought in 2009.
Fans sat under the upper deck then knowing it was only matter of time before something fell apart, and even if it didn't crush them it still could hurt.
Upgrades and repairs never really end in Major League Baseball, but a lot of the big work has been done, and the rest of the overhaul is on pace to be completed in the next year or two.
One obvious area to get attention is the bullpen, set to move under the bleachers in the next wave of rehab work at Wrigley.
As for the players who toil there, the midseason acquisition of closer Aroldis Chapman filled a need but was seen as a temporary relief fix. Manager Joe Maddon needs to have more confidence in more relievers.
Even if Dexter Fowler leaves via free agency, the Cubs seem well-stocked with position players. But there's always room for improvement, switching out old for new, with an eye on long-term fortification. If the team's young stars are to be counted upon down the road, it's best to have penciled out a strategy for long-term contacts and how to fund them rather than scramble at the 11th hour.
Perhaps it's easier to be patient and see the need for long-term planning when the overhaul to bring everything up to date involves actual demolition and reconstruction, real bricks and steel and concrete.
Going from 101 losses in 2012 to 103 victories in 2016, however, is a personnel engineering feat of the same magnitude, if not more so.
The Cubs' first World Series championship banner in 108 years looms even larger than the outsized video boards that now dominate the outfield.
Even those die-hards who think the electronics take away something that made throwback Wrigley Field special and worry about the bid to turn the area around the ballpark into a Ricketts-owned mall are unlikely to complain about the addition of a new flag to be raised in April.
Much of what's being done is fashioned to appear as though there has been no change at all, a mere facsimile of what was in place 100 or so years ago. The idea is to create the most modern and successful version of what Cubs fans say they long have wanted.
Simply adding World Series championship experience helps the Cubs roster in a meaningful way even if it's no more noticeable than some of the improvements to Wrigley.
Whether it was the team or the ballpark, it has been necessary to tear down what existed, haul the rubble away and build something stronger in its place with the best available elements, designs and know-how.
The economics of being the No. 1 team in the nation's No. 3 market should put the Cubs in the championship chase every year.
There, of course, will be disappointments and unexpected setbacks that may mask the overall progress. But assuming these dual rebuilding programs are completed more or less as planned, the franchise will be on a solid foundation.
With a winning tradition established and Wrigleyville becoming a virtual ATM to attract, retain, cultivate and employ the top material on the market, there will be no excuses for anything close to a collapse.
Fans understandably are thrilled by what they've seen and experienced so far. It's going according to plan, but there are more steps to go.
Rome neither was built nor rebuilt in a day.
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