I'm Not Sure If This Is Cool Or Sad: A Mini-Wrigley?

A guy in Freeport, Illinois has spent the last five years building the largest replica ever built of Wrigley Field. I can't decide if this is one of the most awesome things ever done or one of the stupidest. You tell me. (Click the pic to view a video of it.)

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.

Okay, he thinks he's crazy, so I am going with that.

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.

Now I think it is cool as Hell. I am so torn.

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.

Yeah, it's cool. That cinches it. Now I have to go up there and get a wiffle ball game going.

Like so many ideas - both good and bad - the concept for Little Cubs Field was born in a bar.

Perfect.

(Tribune)
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