Marquis Gone Marquee Forever

Yesterday the Cubs made more hot stove news by trading pitcher Jason Marquis to the Rockies for pitcher Luis Viscaino. Marquis' two year Cubs career record was 23-18 with and ERA around 4.50. His salary over the two years was $11,125,000, which means he was paid $483,695 per win. That is a pretty expensive fifth starter. The loss of Marquis is not considered much of a loss to most Cubs fans.

And what we got in return, Vizcaino - not too much there to get excited about. The deal was more of a salary dump for the Cubs.






Enough about a sucky Marquis....Let's talk about classic Marquee

One of the icons of Wrigley Field is the red marquee on the outside of the ballpark at the corner of Clark and Addison. It is instantly recognized by any baseball fan. A google image search of "Wrigley Field Marquee" brings up 7,580 images. Heck, I adapted it for the header on my blog! The city of Chicago has given the marquee landmark status, which means the Cubs can't do anything to it without the city's permission.

I did a bit of research on this famous sign and found out the following....

...The sign was installed in the early 1930's, but I haven't found a source that lists an exact year. It was fern green porcelain for the first 30 years and wasn't painted the familiar red until the early 1960's.

Here is a picture of the of the fern green marquee from 1957.



...The sign was changed over in the fall for the Bears, who played at Wrigley from 1921 -1970.

This picture was taken in 1939.



...The electronic message board was installed in 1983. You can go here to put your own message on the board - but keep it clean please, unless you want to put something on the classic marquee about the sucky Marquis.