This could only happen to the most snake-bitten team in sports history. How could a gorgeous 400-pound replica cake celebrating Wrigley Field’s 100th anniversary receive truckloads of pomp and circumstance before the Chicago Cubs-Tampa Bay Rays game Wednesday afternoon…
…only to wind up splayed in a dumpster like this just a few hours later?
Well, turns out the organization only has itself to blame…but they aren’t happy about it.
The massive confection was the creation of TV’s “Cake Boss” Buddy Valastro and his bakers at New Jersey’s famed Carlo’s Bakery. After being displayed before the game, the cake was taken to the Cubs Charities Bricks & Ivy Ball fundraiser at Chicago’s Field Museum that night.
As documented by Crave sports site NESN, the Cubs made the right decision in determining the cake shouldn’t be eaten since it’d been sitting outside all day on display and most of the field replica pieces weren’t edible, anyway.
Where the Cubs (and the Field Museum) fouled up was in enlisting a museum worker to grab a forklift and go dump the monster in a nearby dumpster. Oh yeah, and by not telling the guy NOT to snap pictures of the mangled cake and upload them to Reddit.
So of course, that’s just what Joe Clueless did…sparking a whole lotta ticked-off Cubs fans to lose their collective shit.
Upon viewing the pics online Thursday and understanding a giant PR blunder when they see one, the Cubs immediately shot off a statement, saying:
“The Chicago Cubs are disappointed in how our Wrigley Field display cake was disposed of by the Field Museum following our successful charity event. The team made a decision not to serve the edible portion after the cake was on display outside Wrigley Field for most of the day. Though the cake was mostly made up of non-edible material, it certainly does not excuse how a celebratory cake artfully created by Buddy Valastro and Carlo’s Bakery was handled.”
Field Museum spokesperson Nancy O’Shea followed up with a statement of her own, apologizing to the Cubs and assuring the public that the museum was “…taking steps to ensure that nothing like it happens again.”
So rest easy, Chicago. When a world-renowned baker creates ANOTHER 400-pound Wrigley Field replica cake, be secure in the knowledge the Field Museum will only destroy it when no one is looking.
Problem solved.
