NO!!MARY!!!

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.”

Which annoys me to no end. f*** those so-called “fans.”

I don’t buy that at all. They won only one World Series, then broke up that team by letting the two biggest stars leave via free agency and starting a rebuild. You would be happy with that? Come on.

I see them moving in a few years. Ishbia and his brother own the Nashville Soccer club. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University and sits on its board. There has been no talk of a stadium situation in a while. I think this deal was done to facilitate a move.

“Reportedly.”

Bill Veeck was still the owner in April, 1980. E&R did not take over until 1981.

If it is true that Ishbia is threatening the move, then they’re as good as gone. Nashville was first floated in 2023, before he was part of the equation, so he was either behind the scenes much earlier, or he’s jumping on the threat bandwagon. I find it hilarious and infuriating at the same time when fans who live a thousand miles outside of Chicago say “good riddance, I hope they move.”

My feeling is if the area around it hasn’t been developed by now, it never will be.

Downer post, but true. Also recall that in 2012 they were in 1st place most of the season and didn’t even crack 2 million in attendance. I don’t see that ever changing, especially now.

I wouldn’t call 42 years ago “recently.”

No, I am not.

To me it’s a funny thing that it’s 35 years old and still gets referred to as the “new” park.

Then that’s something they won’t be able to correct until they get a new stadium, because they’ll never be able to build up a “Comiskeyville” where they are now, because from my understanding the neighborhood won’t allow it. Even if they do, I still worry that it would flop because they’re the White Sox and they don’t have a large fan base.

It’s just that telescopic camera views of downtown have fooled people into thinking that downtown would be practically on top of the place.

I say this out of die hard cynicism, of course. Earlier in the thread I pointed out that old Comiskey never got the “Sacred Cathedral of the Holy Game” treatment during its lifetime and was trashed when it wasn’t being ignored. Also “new” Comiskey wasn’t trashed until Camden Yards came around, at least that’s my memory. I admit I could be wrong. The park was designed with Royals Stadium in mind, yet somehow that park escaped the constant criticisms of the second Comiskey. Also, there is the shadow of Wrigley Field looming large. They’ll never escape that. They could build the retro-iest ballpark in history and I truly believe we will hear, in Chicago and elsewhere “the White Sox *sneer* offer the phony retro atmosphere that Wrigley actually has (if you ignore the towering scoreboards and mostly-new bricks).”