Cubs return to Wrigley Field and give their fans some home-opening hope

CHICAGO — Looking down at the crush of fans jammed into the Wrigley Field concourse before Friday’s home opener, I thought, you know what, the Cubs just might “break even” this season.

Looking at how the Cubs beat the San Diego Padres in a 3-1 matinee win, they might do better than break even … on the field. After two 83-win seasons and a too-long playoff drought, the Cubs look good enough to win 90 games, draw 3 million fans and win the NL Central.

Now, the Cubs haven’t drawn 3 million fans to Wrigley Field since 2019, the year everything fell apart. They haven’t won 90 games since 2018, when they choked down the stretch and lost a home wild-card game. They haven’t won the NL Central (in a full season) since 2017, which is the last time they won a playoff series.

As for the old saw about winning the World Series … in this economy? No, forget about that. The goals are modest and achievable in 2025.

That means Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts, he of the most cringeworthy quote of the offseason, can close up his open guitar case at the Addison stop. No need to sing the blues for tips. Not with the Cubs having some modest hope to peddle along with $90 bleacher tickets, $15 beers and $9 hot dogs. (Ricketts will be fine regardless. Only the Cubs fans will go broke trying to afford a day at the park.)

After a quixotic start to the season that saw the Cubs go to Japan, come back to spring training, open the season a second time in Arizona and then travel to Sacramento, they finally returned home.

“It feels like a bit of a journey to get here, right?” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “And it has been.”

The taverns were packed before the game as the schedule-makers doled out a gift to Wrigleyville with a Friday afternoon start. Warm bars and cold beers are always a winning combination when it’s 45 degrees and overcast on the North Side.

Wrigley Field and sunshine bring in a couple million fans no matter how the team is doing, but a winning Cubs team fills the bars and sells out the stadium when it’s cold outside. That’s how you become one of the top three revenue-producing teams in baseball, if not one of the top-eight payroll spenders.

My colleagues covered the very real concerns about the Cubs’ lack of top-tier spending on Friday. The team put itself in this awkward position by its obvious, self-imposed budgetary restrictions. That’s why fans are already fretting about the Cubs not signing Kyle Tucker, a star hitter who just played his first game at Wrigley Field.

Real Cubs fans, the kind that swear about the bullpen in December, have been frustrated for months by the mixed signals coming from the team. The team trades for Tucker, who turns free agent this offseason, but makes no other significant investments into the team. Ricketts shades people — at the team’s fan convention, no less — who think they should spend like the teams in New York and Los Angeles. (He hasn’t spoken to reporters since, skipping his usual spring training news conference, though he did an interview on CNBC.) The Cubs raise prices and lower the baseball budget. It would be head-scratching if it weren’t so expected.

But while fans can complain and the media can point fingers, for the Cubs, it’s time to produce. They might not have a team that can beat the Dodgers in a seven-game series, but they should be able to outlast the Brewers, Cardinals and the rest of the division.

“We’re certainly a better team than we were last year, both on paper and in reality,” Cubs president Jed Hoyer said in his pregame Opening Day dugout news conference. “Obviously, now it’s about going out there and playing. I think that the offseason is for talking about the team on paper and the season is for going out and doing it. So now we have to go out and do it.”

Before his 5th inning at-bat, Justin Turner walked up to the song “Danger Zone” – popular from the movie “Top Gun”, to honor the late Val Kilmer pic.twitter.com/12prHJ99xU

— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) April 4, 2025

Which is what they did Friday. No one was talking about Crane Kenney’s mythical wheelbarrow of money, Ricketts’ empty wallet, Hoyer’s future or where Tucker will play next year.

As the song goes, baseball season was underway. Right here, in the present.

A crowd of 40,244 cheered for Cubs ace Shōta Imanaga as he mostly rolled through the San Diego lineup, and booed Counsell when he pulled his starter with one out in the eighth inning. They bit their nails when this year’s shaky closer, Ryan Pressly, pitched the ninth. They reveled in the Cubs’ hitters taking advantage of shaky Padres pitching.

What’s the old Earl Weaver saying: pitching, defense and the three-run homer? The Cubs got that, but replace “three-run homer” with “bases-loaded walk, infield single and fielder’s choice,” because that’s how they scored all their runs. They failed to collect an extra-base hit (the Padres had three) and went 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position. On most days, that’ll get you burned. But on Friday, their hustle on the bases helped them score enough runs.

In the end, Pressly got a game-ending called strike with runners on second and third, they played Steve Goodman and raised a W flag for the folks on the L. Everyone went home cold and happy. Just how you draw it up.

You know, Cubs fans, as a whole, get a bad rap. Sure, the park draws scores of tourists and drunk goofballs from April through September, but hard-core baseball fans are packing the park and hanging on every Pat Hughes enunciated syllable. Those are the people who deserve a winner every year. And maybe this Cubs team will give them one.

(Top photo: David Banks / Imagn Images)