MILWAUKEE — If you ask Cubs manager Craig Counsell, the term “Wrigley North,” used widely in Cubdom to describe American Family Field, home of the Brewers, isn’t pejorative at all.
“Look,” he said Sunday, an off day in the National League Division Series between the Cubs and Brewers, “just logistically, for a lot of Cubs fans, this is easier to get to than Wrigley Field. I hate to be logical about it, but that’s just the facts.”
Fans rolling up I-94 for a ballgame isn’t really any different than what the Cubs experience elsewhere on the road, Counsell maintains.
“There are Cubs fans all over the country, and they travel well, and we feel them at every park we go to,” he said. “It’s a great thing, and we’re lucky to have that.”
Counsell knows of what he speaks, having spent many a season punching the clock as a Brewer and now two years into life as a Cub.
But let’s tell it like it is here. He’s either not being forthright on what “Wrigley North” really means, or he’s simply missing the point. Not that it even matters, because this isn’t about Counsell. This is about a nickname for the Brewers’ ballpark that’s used smugly, dismissively and with more than a little intent to needle the Cubs’ rivals who play there and the small-market fans who bleed navy blue and gold.
Calling this place “Wrigley North” isn’t a compliment; it’s a dig. It’s big-city snobs looking down their noses at the goobers from Podunkville and saying, “You know we can take over your lame ‘stadium’ any time we want to, right?” That’s how many here take it, anyway.
Not that there’s anything so wrong with that in and of itself. File it under rivalry trash talk, which can be very funny. A little rivalry trash talk can liven the conversation, elevate the mood around important games and even create, albeit in a twisted way, a sort of bond between fan bases.
But a snag has developed in recent years when it comes to the use of “Wrigley North” by Cubs fans, Chicago media, the Cubs-centric company Obvious Shirts (which hawks a T-shirt that says, “Wrigley North: Because playing in Milwaukee feels like a home game”) and even the Cubs themselves (at least one of their minor-league affiliates made “Wrigley North” posts on social media as this NLDS began).
Figuring out the snag is as easy as chanting, “SCORE-BOARD!”
The Brewers own the Cubs. The Brewers are the ones raising NL Central championship banners. The Brewers are the ones who rolled out of bed Saturday and put nine runs on the board before the Cubs even woke up for Game 1. The Brewers are the ones with a 67.9% chance of winning this series, according to Fangraphs.
The Brewers are former Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers in this scenario — “I own you!” — and the Cubs are a gaggle of Bears defenders sprawled helplessly in the end zone. OK, now I’ve gone too far. Strike this paragraph, pronto!
The Cubs should have to do something really wild and crazy like, oh, let’s say win a playoff game here before anyone gets to utter the words “Wrigley North” again. That goes double for the group of young men in Cubs jerseys who sized me up outside the stadium before Game 1, clearly took me for a local — from Fox Point? Maybe Wauwatosa? — and chanted “Wrigley North!” at me in scornful unison. Yes, that really happened.
Game 1 of the #NLDS at Wrigley North. Here is today’s starting lineup for the @Cubs. First pitch at 2:08pm ET. #LetsGoCubs #Cubs #Brewers #GoCubsGo pic.twitter.com/1VKAGHbopZ
— South Bend Cubs (@SBCubs) October 4, 2025
Once Game 1 started, the Cubs fans in attendance didn’t have that much of a presence. There was a ripple of happy noise when Michael Busch homered leading off the first inning, but nothing more than that. And when the Brewers began wailing away, it got as raucous and electric as any other place at playoff time, the actual Wrigley included.
“I heard the Brewers fans,” Brewers second baseman Brice Turang said. “I didn’t hear anything else. I heard them cheering, and it was loud. It was a good time. It was fun.”
Or as Brewers manager Pat Murphy astutely put it, “Yesterday wasn’t Wrigley North.”
“They were difference-makers,” Murphy said of the home fans. “Our guys feel that.”
The Cubs surely felt it, too. They were in unfriendly confines, and there wasn’t a doubt about it.
The locals probably didn’t know what to do with themselves Sunday. There was a day off in the baseball series. The Packers were on a bye week. Thank goodness God put a bar on every corner when He made the Dairy State.
But they’ll know what to do Monday night when Game 2 arrives. They’ll get loud. They’ll boo Counsell. They’ll wave yellow towels, which create a visual no less striking, believe it or not, than the blue ones waved at Wrigley. Did I mention booing Counsell?
At the Unfriendly Confines, it’ll be a real scene.
“It does have an effect,” Murphy said.
And not a helpful one for the visitors.
