ANN ARBOR — Long ago, Wrigley Field, one of the country’s iconic Major League Baseball stadiums, regularly hosted football games. The Chicago structure was built in 1914 and the Cubs began playing baseball there in 1916, but football shared the venue, as the Bears played at Wrigley from 1921-1970 and the Chicago Cardinals from 1931-1939.
The football field at Wrigley back in the day ran north to south between the left-field wall to the first-base dugout. Things were a bit tight behind the northeast corner end zone where a brick wall was located a foot and a half away, while the south end zone was a half-yard shorter than regulation to take the baseball dugout out of play.
But modern engineering has reconfigured the stadium for football, so that Northwestern can occasionally use Wrigley, especially now while its on-campus Ryan Field is being renovated. The Wildcats, who also play at Martin Stadium, are playing two at Wrigley this season, the first against No. 18 Michigan (7-2, 5-1 Big Ten) on Saturday. This is an important game for the Wolverines who need to win their final three regular-season games to keep alive their College Football Playoff hopes.
“It’s awesome,” Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore said Monday. “It’s a historic venue. We’re really excited about going there, but we can’t really worry about that too much.”
Northwestern (5-4, 3-3) has played five football games at Wrigley Field since 2010, including four in the last five seasons. The Wildcats, who are 4-1 at home this season, are looking to snap their winless streak at Wrigley.
Wrigley, which has a capacity of 41,649 for baseball, is slightly smaller for football. At last year’s Northwestern-Ohio State game, 38,147 attended. The stadium hosts other events, like concerts, and those take a couple of days to prepare the stadium. But converting the field for football is a month-long process, Dan Kiermaier, head groundskeeper for the Chicago Cubs said in a conversation with The Detroit News. It takes three weeks for most of the heavy lifting, like tearing out the sod and tearing down the Cubs’ dugout, which also involves removing some of the seating behind the dugout to make room for an end zone. The final week is used for painting and cleanup.
“We’ve done a lot of different events, none of which are a walk in the park by any means, but this one, it does take a little bit more time, just because we are completely transforming the stadium,” Kiermaier said. “With concerts, we can get it turned around in one day and be ready for baseball, but with this, it’s obviously just so many more moving parts that you know have to take place. It’s a longer, heavier lift than I’d say pretty much any other event that we do.”
The dugout teardown is extremely involved, but allows the change in field orientation which is diagonal across the baseball diamond. Kiermaier said they’ve made an adjustment this year adding a 3-inch drainage layer above Sytrofoam to avoid puddling issues from previous games. There also is new sod laid for the football field, and just like during inclement weather for baseball, it was covered with a tarp during Chicago’s 6-inch snowfall last weekend.
“You’ll obviously see the (baseball field) that’s not being used in left field. That will still have some warning track material out there,” Kiermaier said. “You can see that type of stuff, but the sod is blended in really well, so we’re hoping that everything will look good. We’ve had good success with pretty much matching all of our existing grass with all the sod that comes in the last couple of years. Our goal is always to make it look like it’s a football field, not a baseball field.”
The sidelines are less spacious than normal football games, but the Cubs staff was able to make changes after the 2023 Northwestern-Iowa game when both teams shared the sideline. Gary Hazelitt, Michigan’s director of equipment and internal operations, said the Michigan sideline will be contained between the 15- and 35-yard lines, because right field juts out. Northwestern will have the same setup despite having the entire outfield space on their side.
Hazelitt has been working in college football for 47 years, and Saturday’s game will be his 553rd consecutive, so he’s seen his fair share of unique college football settings. His first 10 years, for instance, were spent at Cal State Fullerton, which didn’t have a stadium, so he had to prepare for every game on the road.
“But Wrigley Field was obviously gonna be a challenge because of baseball,” Hazelitt said.
He and his crew went to Wrigley during Michigan’s bye week in late September and were there when the New York Mets played the Cubs to get a feel for stadium and what they would do in terms of the locker room. The Wolverines will use the visitors locker room, but there are several flights of stairs to the field. Ohio State last year decided to also have a makeshift locker room in the batting cages to avoid having to go downstairs during halftime, but Michigan plans to return to the locker room. An additional three minutes will be added to halftime, Hazelitt said, because of the lengthy walk, and the clock doesn’t start until the last player is off the field.
“Once we took a look at it, it is up a lot of flights of stairs, yes, but no different than Rutgers,” Hazelitt said. “Rutgers, you go up the stairs, then you cut over 100 yards. We’d rather the players be able to get back to their lockers. In case the weather changes, at halftime, they’re able to add an extra change of T-shirt, change socks, add another layer.”
The batting cages outside of the dugout will function as Michigan’s weight room and stretching area. Meanwhile, the coaches, like offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey who work during games from the press box, will not be in the baseball press box because that’s behind the end zone. Hazelitt said a box is created at midfield that’s enclosed, and the coaches will be sitting in stadium seats. The positive is that unlike at Michigan Stadium where the press box is on the side opposite the locker room and the coaches have to sprint there with a police escort for halftime, they will be on the same level as the locker room.
”I’ve never been to Wrigley, so I’m excited about the venue and seeing it, but once the game starts, it’s the same field,” Lindsey said this week. “It will be a cool experience.”
Wrigley’s famous ivy will be covered in the east end zone in right field, but it will be visible, although it is now dormant with most of the leaves fallen, in left field.
Hazelitt and his team will meet the equipment truck, which is loaded after Thursday’s practice, on Friday, set up the team’s hotel meeting rooms and then head to Wrigley to set up the locker room.
“Yeah,” Hazelitt said, “it’s going to be really special.”