Wrigley Field football

Remember playing touch football?
Maybe the field wasn't much of a football field. It slanted up or down hill, or there was some obstacle at one end.
Or maybe you were just lazy.
The team that scored would stay on that end of the field while the other team would have to head to the other end to await the kickoff.
Well, that's going to happen in major college football Saturday.
Illinois and Northwestern are going to play a Big Ten football game at Wrigley Field.
Sounds like a great idea. Bringing football back to Wrigley, where the Chicago Bears played until 1970.
There's a wave of nostalgia going around pro sports, fed by wildly successful hockey games played outside -- including one at Wrigley Field.
And, let's face it, for the average sports fan, putting wildly successful and hockey in the same sentence ... well, just try it with a straight face. And this from a hockey fan.
So college football is giving it a go. If it works for hockey, well, college football ought to be a smash, right?
Notre Dame and Army are trying out the nostalgia thing at the new Yankee Stadium on Saturday.
The old Stadium, of course, was the home of the New York Giants until the 1970s.
The House that Ruth Built also played host to a 1946 showdown between Notre Dame and Army, then the elite teams of college football. The result: a 0-0 tie.
New York's "Subway Alumni" of Notre Dame alone should guarantee a packed house Saturday. And NBC (the Notredame Broadcasting Company) should get good ratings numbers despite two blah teams.
So what's wrong with football at Wrigley? Worked before, right?
What's wrong is how they chose to lay out the field. Seating was given a higher priority than the field of play.
Instead of putting one end of the field near home plate and the other in center field, or across the outfield, it was laid out along the first-base line.
You know, those old-style baseball stadiums -- Wrigley, Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium (the Jets' early home), or Cleveland's old "Mistake by the Lake" -- weren't built for football.
A baseball field is just laid out differently, a triangle instead of a rectangle.
So a lot of the seats were built well away from where a football field would be.
Rather than bring temporary seats along both sides of the field, they figured they'd use Wrigley's first-base seats and temps on the other
OK. The field they set up at Wrigley does have enough room for a 10-yard end zone at each end. The problem is that there is ONLY 10 yards at one end, where the bricks and ivy of the Wrigley outfield wall stand.
So what's the problem? It's still 10 yards, right?
Well, the problem is that some plays happen at the back of the end zone, and players can wind up crossing that back line at full speed.
Cross that line at Wrigley on Saturday and you're going to pay a heavy price.
Strangely enough, football players aren't used to recognizing a warning track beneath their feet and slowing down the way baseball outfielders do.
Somehow, this fact escaped the planners of Saturday's game until, well, Friday.
So the decision was made to turn Big Ten football into a backyard game.
Both teams will go the same way -- away from the bricks and ivy -- when they're on offense.
This one will go beyond touch football's "we scored, you walk."
On every change of possession the teams will change ends. Following a punt, play will stop while the ball is marched to the opposite end before the other team sets up on offense. Same with a turnover.
Wonder if they'll actually let you see the switch, or cover it up with commercials.
Might be worth hititng the clicker and watching a little of this one.
To remember what it was like to be a kid playing touch football -- or just to laugh at the idiots who set this thing up.