The more things change...

It doesn't matter if the Cubs began the season on the road, there's something special about the day of the home opener, even writing from 1,000 miles away.

Seeing the ballpark in action for the first time in months, the ivy brown and still waiting to come back to life, it doesn't matter if you're expecting to lose 87 games. You've made it through another long winter. There's a sense of promise, of hope. It means eighty-one more times we'll see that familiar scoreboard full of numbers, where the ones that matter most are between the red lines in the lower left corner.

That was threatened this off-season. It's happened before, typically little more than political posturing and puffery, mostly hot air. This time the mayor of Rosemont injected himself into the conversation via the media, like the skeezy guy at the bar witnessing a couple fighting and telling his buddy with a jab of the elbow that, "If things don't work out, I'll treat her right. You know what I'm sayin'?"

In the end, we all know something will be worked out. The Cubs have been in Chicago since 1876, the only team that's been a constant in one city since the beginning of the league. There may be a Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the other league, or a New York Giants of East Rutherford in football, but for a ballclub that markets itself on tradition, the Chicago Cubs of Rosemont just wouldn't seem right.

Somehow or another, changes will be made without changes being made. While people talk about Wrigley Field as if it's been untouched since the Chicago Whales played there, every generation of Cub fans has seen major changes to their longtime home, and life still went on. The kids of today will tell their kids about sitting in the old bleachers, or before whatever changes the Ricketts family has in mind. My generation watched lights installed, one section at a time through the first half of the 1988 season, and seeing the bottom section of the scoreboard grow from a digital clock (beneath... an actual clock...) to a message board to a bigger message board to a bigger one - never mind that the original scoreboard would be unrecognizable to a modern-day Cub fan. We also watched year by year as a couple of guys standing around on top of buildings across the street evolved into a bunch of guys, rudimentary bleachers, then major construction and exclusive clubs. My dad talks about when the basket went up, and seeing games before the batters-eye section in center field was blocked off. My grandfather talked about going to games before the ivy, the scoreboard and even the upper deck were installed.

A little bit here, a little bit there, it's all changed except the address made famous by the Blues Brothers.

"I falsified my renewal. I put down 1060 West Addison."
"1060 West Addison? ... That's Wrigley Field!"
"Yup."

For the 100th time, today baseball will be played there for the first time of the new year. Let's go, batter up. I'm taking the afternoon off.