Bob CollinsIn the temples of baseball — the old stadiums full of tradition — it can be a fulltime job keeping fans from spreading the ashes of the dearly departed.
Yankee Stadium had that problem before it was torn down a few years ago, and with the the spotlight on the World Series and tonight’s game three in Wrigley Field in Chicago, we learn that it’s no different in the Church of the Ivy.
“There are pounds and pounds of cremated remains at Wrigley,” a funeral director nearby tells the Sun Times, insisting that he’s not responsible for putting them there.
“We plug our ears,” said another funeral home manager, Eli Turnbough of Lakeview Funeral Home, 1458 W. Belmont. “It’s private property.
“I’ve heard a number of times people say, ‘Mom wanted to be scattered at Wrigley,’ ” Turnbough said. “But we don’t get involved with that.”
It’s against Cubs policy. No exceptions.
In the pandemonium after Saturday’s pennant win, Andrew Grexa, 24, says he scattered some ashes from his father, jeweler Ronald “Ronnie” Grexa, onto the field at Wrigley. The Denver-area software engineer posted a video of him and his aunt, Leslie Ruoti, shaking out a Ziploc bag with a gray substance as she exults: “To Ronnie!”
“I thought he was a good-luck charm,” Grexa said.
He said that, after they clinched it, “Oh, my gosh, I’ve never seen that many grown men crying in one place, including myself.”
One famous fan was the subject of an unofficial scattering. After his death in 1984 from leukemia at 36, friends and family spread some of Steve Goodman’s ashes at Wrigley Field. The singer-songwriter composed “Go Cubs Go” and “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request.”
Related cremation: No more spreading of ashes for Catholics (NewsCut)
