Quote Originally Posted by both-teams-played-hard View Post



Only 2 years late. I'm sure Dave M. is happy.

You're right, Warren.

Anyway, I rarely quote pictures in my responses (a pet peeve I know irritates many of you), but I made this exception for reference purposes.

Notice the short, solid wall separating the park from the street. Back in those days the area between the park's outisde wall and the outfield wall was a catwalk entrance to the bleachers. Some of the Wrigley ballhawks of the era would buy bleacher tickets (much cheaper and less in demand than today) and would stand next to the guard at the top of the ramp. When a home run landed on either catwalk (left or right field), the ballhawk, if he was lucky and had an "in" with the guard, would have the guard lift the restraint rope so he could run down and grab the home run.

Also...the high chain link fence behind that solid wall behind the catwalk appeared suddenly and without warning during an early 60s road trip (this photo is before the high fence was added). The existing 2-3 foot high fence was extended during the season to 10 or so feet high, apparently the response to the landady of the yellow apartment building after having a building window busted by a home run ball. Most of this information came from 50+ year Ballhawk Rich Buhrke, who was in school during that era.

Dave Miedema