A national treasure: Wrigley Field turns 100 years old — sportsillustrated.cnn.com

This story appears in the Sports Illustrated Presents commemorative issue Wrigley: Celebrating 100 Years Of The Friendly Confines. Copies can also be purchased through the Sports Illustrated magazine app on the iPad, Kindle Fire, Google Play and Nook Tablet or by calling 800-274-6800. To buy other past issues of SI, go to backissues.si.com. The great patriarch of baseball calls us home every year with benevolence, familiarity and heaps of that epoxy that binds a family: memories. Wrigley Field puts us on his knee, the summer air redolent of freshly cut grass, grilled meats, cold beer and suntan lotion, and begins again, "Did I ever tell you about that time...?" We're entranced, childlike in wonderment at the simplicity of it, losing ourselves in this comforting continuum that is baseball at the corner of Clark and Addison. Wrigley is grandfatherly, comfortable in its wrinkles and proud of its aging. Largely without filigree, accoutrement or other architectural baubles, Wrigley at 100 years old is not necessarily beautiful. Certainly it does not try for such effect.

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