Review by C.J. Bunce
If you’re a fan of Chicago Cubs baseball, Wednesday you witnessed a red-letter day, with 2024 All-Star pitcher Shota Imanaga leading only the second no-hitter by the Cubs in the history of Chicago’s Wrigley Field. The Cubs are forging ahead toward a possible post-season Wild Card spot in a few weeks that have seen Pete Crow-Armstrong run the bases in 14.08 seconds on an inside-the-park homer and recorded a sixth grand slam, all while clearing all sorts of pitching and hitting records. It’s a good time to shout out to the people behind the scenes who help make sports entertainment like this happen, and to check out former Wrigley Field vendors Lloyd Rutsky and Joel Levin’s firsthand account of selling hot dogs, beer, frosty malts, and more in the stands in the 1970s and 1980s. It’s in the book Wrigley Field’s Amazing Vendors, a one-of-a-kind throwback available here at Amazon. It’s this week’s Retro Fix.
I tracked Wrigley Field’s Amazing Vendors down as part of my own search for the brand of chocolate frosty malt I had at the Chicago Cubs’ triple A farm team the Iowa Oaks (now the Iowa Cubs) as a kid. At a Kansas City Royals game more than a decade ago I was surprised to see the same brand with a red logo on that four-inch Dixie cup with pull tabs that often ripped off, leaving you to wedge off the lid with the wooden stick spoon as your fingers froze to the sides. Was it Borden? Meadow Gold? Something else? I just know it has red ink, but I haven’t found it yet. Focusing on the 1970s and 1980s, this book celebrates the men and women working the stands for the MLB selling Borden frozen malts along with ball caps, shirts, pennants, pizza, Cokes, and more.
It is quite like another book reviewed here at borg, 3D Disneyland, another man’s firsthand account via unique personal photographs of a popular entertainment venue. Lloyd Rutsky, with the help of an uncle, secured a great Nikon at a good price and began photographing vendors while he worked as a Wrigley vendor, working his way up from selling Cokes to peanuts to hot dogs to the big moneymaker: beer. I was surprised to see he viewed $30 in daily sales as a big win, when only a decade later I was selling hot dogs as a vendor in a college town raking in $1,000 over a three-day weekend.
The book is a snapshot of everyman–a fun throwback for anyone and everyone who ever held a summer job, a photo essay of guys and gals, including old men who started in the 1920s, viewed as legends at the games by local fans. The authors’ research put names to faces, recounting the rules of working the stands, prices for food as they changed, how they got their commissions, and the types of people in the jobs. At times vendors would save the money for college, and it was not unheard of for practicing lawyers and other professionals to come back and work the stadium in the summer as a second job.
The book would be a great source for clothes, hair, and style (who came up with the idea of red vendor kung fu robes?) from the period for anyone making a retro movie or TV series. Everyone looks like they are players in either Meatballs or Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Some of the photographed subjects are like any of your friends growing up might have been–eyeballing the photographer like they don’t want their picture taken at work. For anyone who might have hoped this early job would vanish with memory, the authors even recount several of the workers’ nicknames, for good or bad.
Despite the age and era, the reproductions of the photographs in the book are superb, many close to their original 4×5 or 4×6-inch format and all in color.
Part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of Modern America library, Wrigley Field’s Amazing Vendors, is a great read for any fan of baseball history. Grab your copy or one for your favorite Cubs fan now here at Amazon. And if you have any photographs of anyone enjoying a frosty malt at an Iowa Oaks, Iowa Cubs, or Kansas City Royals game–or have marketing/ad information on these–from the late 1970s to about 2010, please send it my way at editor@borg.com.
