NO!!MARY!!!

Sad. They should have hired Mike North when they had the chance. Just imagine the class, poise, intelligence and articulation he would exhibit in the booth. “DAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!! Murky nami bombs anudder one into da seats!! He’s so good at bombs dat [insert dumb ass joke about his Japanese ancestry]. DAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!”

I agree. It’s just that I see the attitude of “why did they tear it down” online a lot, or at least it seems like it. It also gets far more reverence as a “Baseball Cathedral” now than it ever did in its lifetime.

He won’t do it right because whatever happens will get criticized. People will move to the “They had a perfectly fine ballpark in the Rate, why did they knock it down?” line, along with “they tore down a classic ballpark in Comiskey. They never do anything right. And now they’re on yet another ballpark while Chicago’s true and only team will play in the Sacred Cathedral of Wrigley forever.” I know it seems like I’m Cubsessed, but the Sox will always suffer in comparison to them.

And it is only a matter of time before Ishbia does the same thing.

It happened to the old park. During its lifetime Comiskey Park was never accorded the venerated status of Tiger, Wrigley and Fenway. Good example was a 1990 Sporting News article that trashed it and the surrounding neighborhood, and got a bunch of quotes from players who also trashed it. Now that it’s gone, it suddenly has become one of those lost Cathedrals of Baseball, at least on social media. That being said, I don’t see it happening with this park.

The problem I have with this is the park has been getting terrible reviews since 1992 when Camden Yards went up. The team has done several things and effected several changes in order to remedy the situation. People moaned for green seats and got them. Seats were removed from the upper deck and the roof replaced with one to give it a cozier, old-timey feel. Other changes have been made to get rid of the “ball mall” feel and make it look more like a traditional park and it STILL ranks at the bottom and people still complain. At this point, is it truly THAT awful, or is it getting killed because of its past reputation? I mention all this because they have changed the park and got nowhere. I honestly think if they build a new park it will be the same thing. They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

The first solution will be to move. They will never-repeat-never be on equal footing with the Cubs. They haven’t been in a very long time and won’t be in the foreseeable future. Everyone who is pinning their hopes on Ishbia being the Billionaire Savior of the franchise will go back to bitter, angry ranting when he doesn’t run the franchise any differently than it’s been run by Reinsdorf or Bill Veeck.

The problem isn’t the stadium, it’s the location. They can rebuild old Comiskey across the street in its original footprint and the attendance woes would remain, just as they did in the late 80s when Wrigley, Fenway and Tiger Stadium were being worshipped by the nostalgia crowd while Comiskey was consistently ignored. They need a location other than 35th and Shields, though I don’t know where that is, honestly. The team has been unable to grow the fan base, so I don’t think any place would automatically solve the attendance issue.

Exactly. After all the blustering is over, Bears fans will sell out the new Indiana stadium and life will go on. The New York Giants and New York Jets have played in New Jersey for decades and their fans got over it a long time ago.

I am not going to cry, wring my hands and clutch my pearls over the Frank Thomas thing.

Not Louisiana? Paris, France? New York or Rome?

Not even close. The Bears can go 0-for the next ten years and they will remain popular.

Well, Bill Veeck himself called Comiskey Park “the world’s largest outdoor saloon” and there were drunken brawls in the stands. So I honestly can’t blame them for wanting to clean the place up. As for Harry, they made him an offer. He took less to go to the Cubs. I don’t hold them responsible for that. Caray didn’t want to work for them. Period. Einhorn was also a TV executive, he thought he could come in and be a loudmouth and bully everyone like he was used to doing in the world of television. It got so bad a PR firm they hired eventually told him to take a low profile. I did not forget any of that. I just think it’s only a matter of time before the new ownership says or does something to piss people off and make them vow never to go to the park again. It happened with Beck and the Allyns too.

I remember when new owners came in 1981 and changed the way the organization operated. They were greeted with anger, hostility, vows to never go near the park again, etc.

At least they tried. Ok. I’m sure if that happened here fans would say “at least they tried.”