But if you move fast enough, you don’t have to use ‘em. “In the summertime they can heat up to like 100 or 125 degrees if the sun’s beating on it. He’s not the only one getting hot, the metal plates are also feeling the heat. Within a few minutes of entering the box in the summer, he’s got sweat gathering at his temples. Wilson says the temperature in the box can easily run 10 to 15 degrees hotter or colder depending on the season. During the hot and humid summers, the opposite. In the winter, the Chicago chill means the scoreboard gets brutally cold. There are plates for the starting pitchers, city team names and the scores themselves, to name a few. The plates weigh anywhere from five to 35 pounds. While most scores are now updated on an electronic scoreboard with the push of a button, here, stacks of flat, rectangular, metal plates of varying sizes lay around, waiting to get the job done. A few strategically placed lightbulbs shed light here and the only slivers of natural light creep in at the corners of the box. Three sets of metal platforms stretch the length of the scoreboard connected on either end by stairs. Once inside, the dark and dusty workspace looks like it’s been frozen in time. There’s only one way in and out of this metal behemoth that path requires climbing up a narrow ladder that ascends sharply into the scoreboard’s solitary trapdoor. ![]() READ: MLB will remove marijuana from list of ‘drugs of abuse’ and test for opioids under new drug agreement Tim Boyle/Getty Images North America/Getty Images The scoreboard is shown at Wrigley Field. He started as a janitor then and more than 28 years later has since found his way up – literally, into the scoreboard. However, a chance job opportunity in his twenties landed him at Wrigley Field. “Cubs fans are banned from my neighborhood,” laughs Wilson. It’s also where the MLB’s Chicago White Sox claim home turf. In a city known for its multitude of legacy sports teams, loyalty and allegiances are often determined by unofficial and invisible geographic lines.įor Wilson, the South Side of Chicago, is home. There is one man, though, who has spent the better part of his lifetime in it.ĭarryl Wilson grew up the exact opposite of a Cubs fan. Not many people get to see the inside of Wrigley’s scoreboard access into the guts of the metal box, built in 1937, is fiercely protected by the Cubs management. READ: Babe Ruth’s 500th home run baseball bat sold for $1 million Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images North America/Getty Images The scoreboard at Wrigley Field is seen before the Chicago Cubs take on the New York Yankees. Their workspace is one of only two manually operated scoreboards left in Major League Baseball. Scorekeepers here are the few left of their kind. This scoreboard hasn’t just seen history. And the one that witnessed Wrigley’s largest ever crowd as they came to watch Jackie Robinson’s first appearance at the stadium. It’s the same scoreboard that tallied baseball’s home run king Hank Aaron’s 50 home runs at Wrigley. At Wrigley Field, one thing remains the same. Technology and creature comforts have upgraded everything from stadium seats to the locker rooms. Over the past century, stadiums across the nation have been modernized. Run or out, ball or strike, it keeps careful count during the game. Perched high above the bleachers in center field, the scoreboard sits for all to see. Then, eyes flit up to the big green scoreboard. Throughout the nearly four-and-a-half-hour game, everyone is laser focused on the action happening on the field. The home team here, the Chicago Cubs, hasn’t won a World Series since 1908, before Wrigley Field was built. ![]() The fifth game of the 2016 World Series has started, and more than 41,000 baseball fans have gathered to watch in nervous anticipation as the innings tick up – from the bottom of the seventh to the top of the ninth. It’s a Sunday night in Chicago and the stands at Wrigley Field are packed.
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