Weather causes Fourth of July chaos as storms leave historic stadium flooded

One could be forgiven for thinking it was fall and not summer.

The weather has been treacherous across parts of the United States and Mexico this summer, which has impacted the 2026 World Cup and various other sporting events such as Major League Baseball.

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Wrigley Field, the iconic home of baseball juggernauts the Chicago Cubs, is no exception.

Overnight thunderstorms across the Chicago area left some parts of the suburbs without power, affecting an estimated 70,000 people, while Wrigley Field had to deal with severe flooding due to heavy downpours in the Midwest.

This weather forced the cancellation of some Fourth of July events, on the 250th anniversary of the USA, with flood warning in effect for many counties in the Chicago area through Sunday evening, until about 9:30 p.m per reports.

Despite the adverse weather conditions, many fans still gathered at Wrigley Field for the Cubs’ game against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.

Some may have wished they hadn’t after the Cubs suffered a 17-1 loss just two days after they roused the San Diego Padres 23-3.

This marked the first time in MLB history that a team won by 20-plus runs and then lost by 10-plus runs in the next game.

According to OptaSTATS, it was only the second instance in which a team won and then lost consecutive games by 15-plus runs, the last being back in 1894 by the Boston Beaneaters.

On July 4, the weather had a say again, with the start of the game at the iconic North Side ball park being delayed for an hour due to rain.

Play was disrupted again after the sixth inning due to fog, albeit only for 15 minutes on this occasion.

As fans waited for play to resume – all 38,872 of them – they joined together in singing John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” which has received a revival in popularity across the U.S. of late, largely as a result of the World Cup.

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The Cubs wound up losing their second successive game, this time, though, only losing 0-3 to the 47-39 Cardinals.

“Yeah, that was brutal,” Cubs All-Star center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong said after the game.

“I’ve never seen anything like that so, I’ll just leave it at that. It was reminiscent of when like I was kid playing rec ball, soccer and stuff like that. Yes, you could see the ball hitting the bat, then not so much.”

Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn also shared a similar view of playing through the tough elements.

“Right when they hit it, you could see kind of the direction of where the ball was going” Winn said. “And you know, as soon as it touched, like light level, it was gone. It was weird.

“At first I was like, ‘Oh this is pretty damn cool.’ It felt like this was a sick game to play on July 4. But by the end of it, I was, like, ‘This is crazy.’ Nobody could see anything.”

The Cubs and Cardinals will meet again on Sunday for the series finale, with Chicago hoping to avoid a series sweep, and in doing so, become the fifth team in the National League to hit the 50-win mark on the 2026 season.

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