The Cubs yesterday "installed 74 portable toilets at Wrigley Field," and the team believes the porta-potties will "eliminate the long lines and discomfort suffered by fans during Sunday night's season-opening 3-0 loss to the Cardinals," according to Mark Gonzales of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. Forty portable toilets "were placed on the left-field side of the main concourse in front of two restrooms that are under construction;" the others "were placed outside Gate K on Sheffield Avenue." All the portable toilets "were placed on the left-field side, where their largest restrooms that are under construction are located." Problems surfaced Sunday night when two of the four restrooms on the upper deck "were shut down because of a flooding issue," causing fans to go to the bathrooms on the main concourse and "wait in line for up to an hour" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 4/8). In Chicago, Paul Sullivan writes the "uproar brought the Cubs' brass back to earth after taking bows before Sunday's game for the new video board." The Cubs "warned us last week there would be a few minor inconveniences, and asked fans to bear with them as they improve the 101-year-old ballpark." Still, "having a plumbing catastrophe" on Opening Day after "selling the naming rights of your spring training home to a plumbing valve manufacturer [Sloan] is a weird coincidence" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 4/8).
TOO SOON? In Chicago, Rick Morrissey writes the "bombed-out ballpark" that is Wrigley Field "has no business hosting baseball games this season." The unfinished bleachers "are an embarrassment, no matter how much the franchise tries to hide them" with images of late Baseball HOFer Ernie Banks. With construction work "cutting down the number of bathrooms, the concourses are more congested than normal, and normal already was bad." It is "difficult to understand" how Cubs Chair Tom Ricketts did not conclude that playing at the White Sox' U.S. Cellular Field "was the way to go this season" (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 4/8).
