dr Elizabeth Wrigley-Field has never been to Wrigley Field.
“I’ve got it in my head that it’s going to be a big event,” she said. “I want to be on the scoreboard, reach out to the Cubs and kind of work it out with them.”
The name is pure coincidence. Born to a mother surnamed Wrigley and a father surnamed Field, they initially did not want to separate for fear of being overly teased. But at the age of 7, Elizabeth decided that she would prefer both. When her family moved to New York, her parents registered her in the school system with the hyphenated surname, and the rest was history. At 20, she legally changed her name from Field to Wrigley-Field.
“I love having the name,” she said. “We really weren’t a baseball family — my parents didn’t even realize it [the connection] until a family friend pointed it out to her. They didn’t take into account how fun it would be to have that name.”
Wrigley-Field, who is now a sociologist at the University of Minnesota and has spent her life traveling the Midwest and East Coast, said Chicago itself is her least responsive place to it.
“I think a lot of Chicago people think I changed my name,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, there are so many crazy Cubs fans, this one changed her name.'”
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But it’s a great conversation starter just about everywhere else — although many people assume she’s tired of being asked about it, Wrigley-Field feels the opposite. She says it’s an easy way to have fun interactions with strangers and has sparked some fun encounters with random people, whether it’s checking in for a flight or paying with a credit card.
“People are really into it most of the time,” she said.
Their newborn daughter has inherited her iconic last name, which Wrigley-Field believes will make her first visit to Wrigley Field even more special as there are two generations of Wrigley-Fields in the park.
Is she a Cubs fan?
“As far as I have a team, it’s the Cubs,” she said. “But I would say I’m more of a fan of the stadium.”
While there might be a Mr. Fenway Park somewhere, Elizabeth might have one of the last baseball names that doesn’t sound entirely ridiculous. I can’t imagine there being a Mary American Family Field or a John Minute Maid Park out there in the world.
