AT THE PARK

George Castle, a Chicago sportswriter, gave us a quick tour of the Waveland Avenue side outside Wrigley Field.

We saw the firehouse, the spot where a 600-foot Dave Kingman home run landed, and the persons who gather outside the left-field wall waiting for balls. Some of them have been doing this for 50 years. It was two hours before game time, and about five of them were standing in the street, looking up. Castle told us about one who has 6,000 balls.

One thing I didn't know, maybe you did. The people who watch games from the rooftops, that isn't really the cozy, neighborhoodsy thing I thought it was. It used to be. Now all those apartment houses have been renovated and are worth lots. Each one has 7-10 rows of bleachers on top. You pay to sit there -- more than a Wrigley ticket, but a party is included. So it's not like, "I live across from Wrigley, I watch all the Cubs games from my roof." It's a business.