Backyard baseball: Cubs fan builds Wrigley Field replica

One Cubs fan doesn’t have to make the trip to Chicago to see Wrigley Field.

DJ Dick, a 16-year-old Palatine, Ill. high school student, built his own recreation of the legendary stadium in his backyard.

The ivy-covered outfield walls, the green scoreboard, the logo painted inside the on-deck circle. It’s all part of a playable field Dick uses with his friends, family and neighbors, according to MLB.com.

They play Wiffle ball on the field that has dimensions of about 65 feet in right field, 90 feet in center and 95 feet in left.

Dick started building it last year, but wasn’t able to make real headway on it until the coronavirus shut down society in March.

“Really, this quarantine was when I did everything you see now because I had so much time without sports going on,” he said to MLB.com. “The field was just a normal backyard wood fence with two PVC pipes for foul poles. It was pretty much all I had — and a net behind home to keep [the balls] out of the neighbor’s yard.”

His dad, David Dick, said neighbors are understanding when balls go over the fence into their backyards and are willing to leave lights on to help when night falls.

“D.J. and his friends will play out here probably until 10 p.m., 10:30 at night with the light shining and all of our neighbors come and watch ’em when they can and some have even come in and play,” David said to FOX2Now. “And so it’s been very critical in terms of how everybody’s kind of engrossed to the field itself.”

Neighbors aren’t the only ones fascinated by the sandlot-style Wrigley. David said others will drive over to see the field and watch.

“We live in a neighborhood without a lot of car traffic, so we get a lot of people who will stop by and look over our fence and watch a game as it’s going on for five or ten minutes and make their way,” David said.

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