There used to be a ballpark

This is the 95th season of baseball at Clark and Addison streets on Chicago's north side. Off-the-field talk centers on the pending sale of the Cubs and Wrigley Field, and a proposal to sell naming rights to the park. That's ludicrous: no one will ever call it anything but Wrigley, no matter how much a company pays to call it otherwise.

The larger issue is the ballpark's future. I never thought I'd come to this, but I'm now accepting Wrigley is in its twilight years. Modern baseball economics would require too many changes to keep the park viable (more signage, corporate sponsorships, restructured seating), plus millions of $$$ in maintenance and repairs necessitated by its age.

Let the park age gracefully, rather than giving it so much cosmetic surgery that it obliterates the pristine qualities we loved about Wrigley in the first place. Plan now to build a new park (not a Wrigley clone), using all the design acumen that has made the rest of Chicago an architectural treasure. Allow six years for site procurement, design and construction. Open the new park in April 2014.

Meantime, enjoy Wrigley Field for its final seasons. Let's not be all maudlin about it. Just play baseball there, as it was meant to be. It its final season, its 100th, in 2013, don't sell season tickets. Instead, make single-game tickets available for every home game, and distribute them to schools, boys and girls clubs, church groups, families, and the legions of Cubs fans who haven't been able to get into the sold-out park for years because of the obscene prices and the overrun of ticket demand in this second-smallest park in the major leagues.

No one would miss Wrigley Field and grieve its passing more than I. I've attended more than 100 games there in 35 years, despite never living closer than a six-hour drive. I've saved every ticket stub, and most every scorecard. The memories are priceless. But I'd rather see Wrigley reach 100-years-old intact rather than watching it mutate into something unrecognizable for years to come. That would be far sadder.

Once the new park is open, allow Wrigley to remain the landmark it already is. Allow special games to be played there. Turn its concourses into a museum. It has every bit the charm of Cooperstown, and just as much history.