Bloomington restaurant displays Cubs World Series mural

Posted on April 13, 2017
Cheeks Bar and Grill
Mark Blumenshine painted a Chicago Cubs World Series mural at Cheeks Bar and Grill in Bloomington. (Photo courtesy Facebook/Cheeks Bar and Grill)

By Eric Stock

BLOOMINGTON – A local artist is giving Chicago Cubs fans their own brush with history.

Mark Blumenhine was commissioned by the owners of Cheeks Bar and Grill in Bloomington to paint an indoor mural of Wrigley Field and the title-clinching moment.

PODCAST: Listen to Scott and Patti’s interview with Blumenshine on WJBC.

Blumenshine explained the mural depicts the exterior of Wrigley Field in the background with Kris Bryant’s throw to Anthony Rizzo to end Game 7 of the Cubs’ World Series win “to seal the deal and end 108 years of pain for Cubs’ fans.”

The mural has grown from there. Blumenhine started painting faces of Cubs fans who asked to be included on the mural.

“I was toward the end of rendering the front of Wrigley and (Cheeks owner) Chris Hubbard asked me ‘Could you put a couple of my friends up there?’, Blumenshine said. “We were laughing about it.”

Blumenshine is now taking requests at $25 with a portion of the funds to go to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation.

He added there’s room for at least another 100 faces on the mural.

“I had a little girl come up and she said she was Anthony Rizzo’s girlfriend,” Blumenshine recalled. “She wanted to be as close to his right sock as possible.”

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].

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