Editorial: Cubs scoreboard a perfect home for a home run ball

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The Cubs should leave the ball right where it is, on top of Wrigley Field’s new scoreboard.

Forever.

Cubs fans a generation from now will bring kids to ballpark and point and say, “See up there, Wendy? That’s where the great Kyle Schwarber, now in the Hall of Fame, hit a huge home run way back in 2015.”

In such ways is baseball lore made.

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The Cubs say the ball, now encased in protective plexiglass, will remain atop the right-field scoreboard for the duration of this postseason run. But they haven’t said what they’ll do with it next. Maybe they’ll give it to Schwarber. Maybe they’ll auction it off for charity.

Here’s the thing: A lot of Wrigley Field purists hate that big new scoreboard with its Budweiser sign. How gauche! But now that Schwarber has plunked a ball on the board, baptizing it, it is just a little less of a tacky intruder.

All the best ballparks have their holy relics.

U.S. Cellular Field has one blue seat in a field of green seats near the left-field bullpen that marks where the grand slam hit by Paul Konerko in Game 2 of the 2005 World Series landed.

Fenway Park in Boston has Pesky’s Pole, the right field foul pole line named after Johnny Pesky, an infielder for the Red Sox in the 1940s.

Camden Yards has two orange seats in a field of green that mark home runs by Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken Jr.

This Cubs team is making history. Let’s lock in the Wrigley Field lore.

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