Cubs seriously considered moving 2015 home games to Milwaukee

Miller Park in Milwaukee is often referred to as “Wrigley Field North” because of the large numbers of Cubs fans who make the 90-mile drive north and take over the ballpark whenever Chicago visits the division rival Brewers. However, as we learned on Wednesday, Wrigley Field North nearly became a real thing this season with the Cubs beginning renovations to the original.

According to CBS Chicago, the Cubs realized their plans to renovate Wrigley Field with a four-phase, $375M project were ambitious. That complications could easily arise during the unpredictable winter months in Chicago that would delay progress and leave them unprepared. And it was with that in mind that the Cubs seriously considered a contingency plan that would have seen them move all 81 of their scheduled home games in 2015 to Miller Park.

“We did, really with the help of the Brewers, we did an extensive amount of work looking at going up there,” Kenney said in an interview with the Mully and Hanley Show on Wednesday morning. “They hosted us. We talked about the logistics of playing a full season there to try to truncate our work to two-and-half to three years instead of four years. And ultimately, sitting down with the entire team — ticket sales, operations, etc. — we just thought it was too much displacement to move our fans that far.”

The Cubs are instead gambling on the renovations going smoothly and all four phases being completed without too much overlap into the MLB season. However, as they’ve already learned in phase one, there are no guarantees that mother nature and other complications won’t arise.

In fact, in January, Cubs president Crane Kenney confirmed that the revamping of the outfield bleachers suffered multiple setbacks during the offseason. When the weather was mild, the City of Chicago ran into problems installing a new water pipe system. Once that was sorted out, the Chicago winter arrived in full force, guaranteeing the bleachers wouldn’t be ready before their April opener against the St. Louis Cardinals.

With construction crews expected to put in full days whenever possible, May 11 has been set as the hopeful date for the left field bleachers to be ready. It’s believed the right field bleachers could open in early June. That will leave 4,500 seats unavailable through at least the first five weeks of the season, which puts them in a bind and obviously hurts revenues. Bleacher season ticket holders have been offered refunds, credit and relocation to satisfy their displeasure and displacement.

At the end of the day though, that seems like a small price to pay to keep the Cubs operating in Chicago. And for now at least, the Cubs aren’t regretting their decision. .