On Saturday, April 22, 2006 the Chicago Cubs had a garage sale at Wrigley Field. Here's the scoop on what was sold, the atmosphere, and a guide on how to attack events like this in the future:
What was sold
Ticket windows by main gate:
--Brick: $25 each
--Bench: $50 each
--Bracket (for the bench): $10 each
Right Field store:
--Tshirts: $5-$20 (mostly sosa shirts, or red cubs shirts)
--Green vendor shirts: $10
--2003 Cubs books: $1
--Sammy sosa photos: $1
--Ugly hats: $1
--Sealed big surprise bag: $20
--Sealed small surprise bag: $5
--Ernie Banks Bobbleheads set of 2: $10
--Ryne Sandberg, Kyle Farnsworth, Sammy Sosa Bobbleheads. All 3: $15
Wrigley Field flags flown at Wrigley: $100
Main Gate:
Game used items
--Bats
--Jerseys
--Bases
beanie babies
Waiting in Line to enter
I got in the sheffield avenue line 15 minutes before the gates opened. I stood in the Right Field Gate line (Gate D: corner of Sheffield and Addison Streets). (See map of
Wrigley Field). It went down to about the 2nd apartment building (where the fire hydrant is just beyond the "looking in area." Not a bad position, but it would probably be worth it if you got there an hour early. (Read the section about the game plan of attack at the end of this post for details on how to handle this event efficiently).
There was also a line at Gate K (on Waveland Avenue). I don't know how long that line was. But looking back, I bet Gate K would have been shorter, because people who come from the el would naturally just go to Gate D, because it's the first line they see.
While waiting a Wrigley Field employee walked down the line and handed out maps to indicate where items were being sold in Wrigley Field. Very nice.
The Gates open
Right on on time at 8:00, they started to let people in. The line moved pretty fast going into the gate.
Right Field Store: Discounted merchandise
Upon entering Wrigley Field, they were letting people into the Right Field store. The store was PACKED. As expected. But it was all from the traffic trying to work through the store and go outside to the outdoors store.
The outdoors store didn't have much, but I did snag a couple vendor shirts for $10 each. There was a ton of Sosa shirts. It's amazing that just how much people don't buy sosa stuff anymore, and that everyone there was saying how much sosa crap there was and that nobody would want it. That was the entire buzz what people where talking about in the discounted merchandise store.
Then I went in line to wait to go back inside to pay. It was a 20 minute wait to pay, because they were also selling Wrigley Field flags for $100 at the counters and people were clogging up the lines trying to decide which flags to buy.
Behind the registers were stacks of boxes with flags and other stuff. All the flags were in boxes unlabeld to the public. There was one confused employer lady who knew nothing about baseball yelling out what flags they had left. Pandemonom. People couldn't hear her yelling out the names.
I decided not to get a flag--a hundred bucks? But in retrospective, maybe I should have, because I could probably sell it on eBay for twice as much. And they were nice and big, like six or nine feet long. I always imagined those flags where like 3 feet long.
I grabbed a bunch of the 2003 cubs books for $1 each and paid in cash. After squeezing out of the store, I walked down to the main entrance store.
Home plate store: Game-Used Items
They had the area at home plate the turnstiles normally are all gated off to sell game used jerseys and other crap like beanie babies. For this store they had people line up to pay at the food concession stands along the wall. Pretty funny.
What wasn't funny was the line to get into this store. People were lined up going from the home plate gate all the way down to the bleachers gate! And there weren't even walking. Just standing. Waiting. To get in to get passed over merchandise that the previous 500 people didn't want.
The line wasn't going to moving anywhere, because after waiting so long, people would take their sweet mamma time in there. I coud see them thinking, "I waited so long to get in here, I'm gonna look at EVERYTHING." By the time the end of the line finally got in, there would be nothing left. I bet it would take them about three hours to get in.
Bud Light Bleachers open to public
I passed over this line and went to the bleachers that was open to the public. Great move by Tribune here. So many hardcore fans were coming out, it was nice of them to open up part of the ballpark--especially since the bleachers were completely new.
Tribune could have thought, "we don't want them to have a free pass to look at the new bleachers, we want them to have to buy tickets to go out there." Which economically would kinda make sense. But opening them up was just much more smarter. It says that Tribune is proud of what they did with the bleachers and they really want their hard core fans to see them for free. They could have even made people pay like $3 to get in. But nope, it was free.
It was fun to see parents with their kids walking around taking pictures. Looking at the scoreboard close up.
Probably the coolest part was being able to climb up the old metal ladder that goes to the scoreboard. Granted the door was closed at the top of the ladder, but it was still neat to actually go a few rungs up the ladder. Very old school. And i'm sure during the game, they would never let you even get up the first rung.
It was also neat to try out the new stadium seating in the right field. I'm gonna miss the old 3-row family section in left field, but at least they have regular seats in left field. Although, I'm not sure if they are only for groups.
It would have been really cool if they let us go into the restaurant in center field.
It was also surprising how the juniper bushes in the outfield are just in these boxes sitting on concrete steps. I always though they were one continous row of bushes planted in a field of dirt out there. Kinda disappointing.
Ticket window: Bricks, Benches, Brackets
They were selling these the benches and bricks at an area outside the main gate by the ticket windows on Clark Street. The line went from the ticket windows on clark, around the marquee, all the way down Addison, curved around the right field gates and about 50 feet down Sheffield Avenue.
Uh right. It's tempting to go to the front of the line, give someone $30 to buy a brick for you. But they had so much Wrigley Field personnel walking around, that would have been difficult.
There was a limit of 50 bricks you can buy. Ok, so who is going to buy fifty bricks? And do you know how much 50 bricks weigh? One brick is eight pounds. Fifty bricks would be 400 pounds. Although someone there did say that it would be fun to make a patio out of Wrigley Field bricks. The cost of fifty bricks: $1250.
The benches weren't impressive. When I imagine the bench, I would think it's like six feet long. A real bench. But these things weren't even big enough to sit on. They were a mere 12 inches long. Chopped up wood 12 inches long. To sit on it, you'd have to buy two benches put them together, and buy two brackets. $120. Stick that on your Wrigley Field brick patio.
Staff
The sale was very well staffed with people directing traffic, but they really needed more cashiers. The line to buy something was insane.
I can see why they had just two areas to buy stuff, so it was easier to control traffic, but it really need to be split up into like four or even six areas. Just too many customers.
It was nice that they handed out a map indicating where to buy the items.
Game Plan of Attack for future Cubs Garage Sales
In the future, you really need a team of five people. We will call them Person A, B, C, D, E.
--One person (Person A) waits at the brick/bench line at the main gate under the Marquee.
--Two people (Person B, C) wait at Gate K (on Waveland Avenue).
--Two people (Person D, E) wait at the right field gate.
Once the gates open, Person B and C goes into the game used store. Person B immediately waits in the purchase line. Person C shops around to find items to buy. When the person C finds the items, they hand them off to person B that is waiting in line.
While this happens, Person D and E enter the right field gate and immediatley go the discounted merchandise store in right field. Person D heads immediately to the purchase line. Person E shops for items and hands them off to person D who is waiting in line.
Everyone is in constant communication with cell phones to ask what items other people would like to purchase.
The future
Given the incredible success of the garage sale, I would think that Tribune would continue to have these. Probably not every year, because that would water it down, but maybe every five years or so.
If anyone else attended this event, please leave your experiences in the comments below. Thank you.
