Pushing Ivy?

By Benjy Lipsman in News on Sep 12, 2008 8:30PM

Marriage may be til death do us part, but apparently allegiances to one's baseball team last even longer. Which, we guess makes sense—how often does one hear of anybody abandoning their team for another? Even those Cubs fans who've lived close to a century without ever seeing a World Series title on the north side of town remain loyal forever to their Cubbies.

So perhaps we shouldn't find it so surprising that some have decided they need to be interred in a virtual replica of the "friendly confines." Dennis Mascari broke ground on Friday for his Beyond the Vines. He purchased a number of burial plots in Bohemian National Cemetery on the city's Northwest Side in order to construct what he calls "eternal skyboxes." The 35-foot-long, 14-foot-high brick memorial wall will be covered in ivy reminiscent of Wrigley's outfield wall and will include a stained glass window to evoke the park's scoreboard.

One of the 280 Cubs-themed resting places for your ashes won't come cheap. The "home run" option will run $5K, while the single, double and triple options will be more affordable. As Mascari said in July when first unveiling his plan, "It will be a comfort knowing that your loved ones are in their own perpetual skybox resting in peace with other Cubs fans." And really, how can you put a price on that?