Chicago Cubs: Classic Wrigley Field features that no longer exist

Chicago Cubs: Few seemed to know what it was, but the name was recognizable.

For decades the black and white sign with the simple name “Torco” stood high and tall on one of the buildings on Sheffield Avenue. Back before massive seating structures and party decks were erected on the roofs of the ancient Chicago brick buildings, the old Torco sign stood out quite well to the patrons at the ballgame.

Go back and watch old classic Cubs games from the 80s and early 90s and every time they show a side view of a runner at third looking towards right field, that Torco sign will be in the distance. Back then there was not much advertising at Wrigley Field, but that was one of the few signs.

“I dunno know what dat Torco-sign means,” says the fictional Chicago super-fan from the early 90s, “I just know I see it every time I watch da Cubs play!”

This particular sign was in reference to Torco Holdings inc, which saw its reign end a little over a decade ago. Since then the sign has sported the logo of a number of different companies including Southwest, Bud Light, and Gilbert’s Craft Sausages. In 2015 Gilbert’s crafted their ad to look like the old Torco sign with the same color scheme and design.

Today it does not matter what goes up there next because the right-field video board pretty much blocks that area.

Chicago Cubs: It has been over a decade since the classic Budweiser building stopped donning the famous red roof

3701 N. Kenmore Avenue is one of the oldest buildings in the Lakeview area, built 24 years before the ballpark in 1890. The building in reference is the one on the corner of Waveland and Kenmore just outside left-center field. Most people know this as the Budweiser building.

All sorts of advertising had run on that rooftop from local restaurants, to WGN TV, but most remember its days advertising Budweiser with the bright red covering the entire roof, hence the “Budweiser Building” nickname. Years of long home runs to left-center saw the ball fly in front of that classic sign; it almost felt like a part of the park itself.

Budweiser had been advertising on that building for several decades before 2008 would see it all come to an end. There were even disputes between Anheuser-Busch and the building’s owners on payments for the ad, causing to the owner to temporarily tarp-off the roof. By 2009, the ad was gone entirely when Anheuser-Busch did not renew their deal with the building, and fans at Wrigley Field on Opening Day saw Horseshoe Casino take up the ad space on the building’s roof.

Since 2009 other ads have been on that building including United Airlines and Guaranteed Rate, but like the Torco building, today it is just blocked by one of the video boards, so it now lives in the shadows.

Chicago Cubs: One of the best places to get refreshments outside of the park for many years is also long gone.

Sure a number of the bars around Wrigley Field have been around for a long time, but for a family with kids, a great place to go before or after the game was Yum Yum Donuts.

The small building right on Clark Street next to the park where Gallagher Way is today was a place to get coffee, donuts and delicious Chicago-style hot dogs. It was also nice to have during Bears season back in their Wrigley Field days to get something hot after a day in the cold Chicago air.

This little place had tons of signs all over it, including Vienna Beef, Budweiser, Pepsi and all their specials on soup, hot dogs, beef and polish sausage. It would be cool today if it were still around for nostalgic reasons, but the business closed in the early 2000s. For the next several years the building was used by the Cubs for business space until it was razed in 2009.

Next time you walk near those fountains at Gallagher Way, remember that was once the site of the famous Yum Yum Donuts.

Chicago Cubs: Before cupsnakes, the used up beer holders were used to spell things out.

One of the favorite things for bleacher patrons to do during an afternoon at Wrigley was head to the well areas in the left and right field corners and use old beer cups to spell out things like “Go Cubs” on the old well fences. The fences in reference were the 20-ish foot tall chain-link fences that were behind the small rows of seats in the old 1937-2005 bleachers.

Back before the two major bleacher renovations in 2005-2006 and 2014-2015, the old bleachers had those corner fences up for decades. They were pretty noticeable when the fans who had a bit too much to drink would either spell stuff out on them or start climbing them.

Seeing an occasional line-drive homer ricochet off that old rusty fence was part of the experience when sitting in that section. There was an odd year in 2002 when the Chicago Cubs decided to try to obstruct views from outside the park by covering the fences with a translucent screen.

Today there are not such chain link fences in the bleachers outside the basket. The bleachers go so much higher, and there is a much bigger concourse in the back there is not a need for one. For many years though, there was.

I am sure other fans much older than I can recall other classic features at Wrigley Field now gone. Heck, go back many decades to when there was a “Baby Ruth” sign across the street. Some things just come and go that may not always be noticed right away.