Honey, I've got a crazy idea'


By Colleen Mastony | Tribune staff reporter September 5, 2007 [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link.

FREEPORT, Ill. - At first glance, his little stadium might not look like much. A pile of gravel sits in center field. And weeds grow tall in the surrounding park. A humble wood stake, topped with a tiny orange flag and stuck into the brown dirt, marks the future spot for home plate.

But amid the jumble of construction equipment, a few hints of the future: a circular brick outfield wall bears a striking resemblance to a famous stadium 100 miles to the east, and on two yellow foul poles the familiar words: "Hey! Hey!"

On a recent day, Denny Garkey, 58, wearing bluejeans tucked in muddy rubber boots, a Cubs baseball cap perched on his head, surveyed the field - which looked a bit like an enormous mud puddle. "I am crazy for doing this," he said, shaking his head.





Over the last five years, Garkey has slowly constructed the largest replica ever built of Wrigley Field. With an obsessive attention to detail, this bespectacled insurance fraud investigator has worked nights and weekends, painting walls, mixing mortar and enlisting a small army of Cubs fans to help him in his quest. He has accounted for every last detail: the green scoreboard, the red marquee sign, the WGN press box - complete with the cartoon image of Harry Caray. Even a tiny copper penny has been positioned in the left-field wall, just like a penny rumored to have been pressed by bricklayers into the same spot at big Wrigley.

Known as "Little Cubs Field," and located in a public park on the west side of Freeport, it has become a real-life field of dreams in Freeport, where many hope - with an "if you build it, they will come" logic - that the stadium will attract tourists and bolster the local economy in this town of 26,443 which over the last few decades has suffered through a drumbeat of factory closings and corporate consolidations.

Already, there is reason to hope. Garkey has received calls from around the country, from Little League teams wanting to play at the mini-Wrigley to one woman who asked if she could hold a wedding at home plate. More than 100 people have signed up to rent time at the field (at $35 an hour) though Opening Day is still eight months away.

A third the size of the original, the stadium measures 100 feet down the foul lines and 112 feet to center field, and is planned for whiffle ball, kickball and peewee baseball games. Set to open next spring, the stadium's outfield walls are complete, the Indiana limestone trim is in place and steel girders stand ready to hold the famed marquee, which waits, along with the scoreboard, in a dusty warehouse on the east side of town.

Cubs officials have given the project their blessing and even provided clippings of the famed ivy. This autumn, sod will be rolled out over the field, and next spring Freeport officials will install a sign, set along the adjacent walking path, that declares the route: honorary "Waveland Avenue."

"I love the Cubs, and I love Wrigley Field," said Garkey, giving a tour of his half-finished field, slipping in the mud as he pointed to the place where he hopes to build the bleachers. "You cannot beat the ambience around Wrigley Field. It goes to the very roots of what baseball is. That's what we want to create in some small way here."

Idea born in a bar

Like so many ideas - both good and bad - the concept for Little Cubs Field was born in a bar. Five years ago, Garkey and a group of friends took a road trip to a baseball mecca: Rookies Food & Spirits, a sports saloon and restaurant in Mazomanie, Wis., which - as its main attraction - boasts a professional whiffle ball field.

Garkey looked out at the field that day and thought to himself: "It's too bad it doesn't look like Wrigley." Then a thought occurred to him. Why not build a little Wrigley Field? A few days later, he sat down with his wife and said, "Honey, I've got a crazy idea." Judy Garkey - an endlessly patient woman - told her husband, "Go for it." (Five years later, she says she doesn't regret supporting her husband's idea, but she does acknowledge that he has become "obsessed with completing it.")

Around town, others chuckled at the idea. When Mark Winter, 54, a friend and general contractor, heard the pitch, he asked Garkey, "Have you been drinking?" But Winter and others eventually agreed to help, and slowly, the idea grew.

Stressing the fact that the little field would run as a non-profit, Garkey persuaded Cubs officials to support the project. They gave Garkey a behind-the-scenes tour of Wrigley in May 2004, and allowed him to take detailed measurements and photos.

"We wouldn't have been supportive of a project that didn't care as much about protecting and preserving the identity of Wrigley Field," said Mike Lufrano, vice president of community affairs for the Cubs.

But to make the project a reality, Garkey needed major donations of labor and supplies. And for that, he tapped into a powerful network: the informal alliance of men, women, young and old who, for better or for worse, love the Cubs.

One fan called another and soon Yankee Hill Brick in far-away Lincoln, Neb., agreed to send 18,000 red flash bricks, specially blended to match to the color and texture of those at Wrigley. The Bricklayers Local Union No. 6 in Rockford laid the walls for free.

"I've been a Cubs fan my whole life, even though sometimes I don't want to admit it," said Dave Fleury, 40, field representative for the bricklayers union. He urged the union to take the job because, he said, "Wrigley is the best ballpark in the world."

Masons came out of retirement. Apprentices came to learn. They worked from photos to re-create the brick patterns at Wrigley - a Flemish bond behind home plate and curved walls in the outfield.

Wrigley officials sent three bricks, which had been removed from the big park during 2005 renovations. Duane Fridly, 71, who came out of retirement to work on the little park, handled the old bricks as if they were sacred antiquities. He helped install them in a place of honor behind home plate, where they will be marked with a plaque. "I thought, "Wow. You can't get any closer to Wrigley than working with the brick," he said. "This is part of history."

Restaurants and townspeople offered free meals to the workers, and hotels gave them complimentary rooms. Every morning, someone came to the field with doughnuts and steaming coffee. Every afternoon, Bobbie Yount, a 63-year-old retired factory worker, brought elaborate home-cooked lunches of fried chicken, green bean amandine and sweet potato pie.

Couldn't use Wrigley name

The project was far from easy. Wrigley Co. officials had declined to allow organizers to use the Wrigley name; so the project instead took the name - with the blessing of the Cubs - Little Cubs Field. It had taken two years to hammer out an agreement to lease land from the Freeport Park District.

The budget ballooned from an original estimate of $350,000 to $450,000. But most of those costs were covered by donated labor and supplies. Small cash contributions made up the difference, in part through the sale of $50 brick pavers to be placed in front of the stadium. One brick, to the chagrin of many, reads: "Go Sox."

Now, with the walls and the foul poles in place, the field is finally becoming a reality. Garkey still needs $40,000 to complete the bleachers. (Corporate sponsorship and naming rights are up for grabs.)

Re-creating Wrigley is like capturing "lightning in a bottle," said Garkey. "Little Cubs Field is a testament to the game of baseball. I wouldn't look at it as a homage to the Chicago Cubs or to Wrigley Field as much as to honor the traditions of baseball."

Already, neighbors are waiting to hear the crack of a bat against a ball, and the roar of the crowds. There's talk of constructing bleachers on the neighboring rooftops. Tony Sciutto, who lives across the street, said he was considering turning his front lawn into a parking lot.

"My kids suggested I put out a beer stand," said another neighbor, Arlene Kreeger, 69, whose front porch looks out over home plate. "They were joking, I hope."

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Now, I was BORN in Freeport!

And I think I know where the park is where this is being constructed.

Good. Means when I get some time off of work, I might have to go up there and cover the brick that says go sox.