77 Hitmen

I remember the days when the Cubs would close off the entire upper deck at Wrigley on days when there weren't that many people there. We as kids also just showed up the day of the game to buy bleacher tickets for something like $5. To anyone under age 40, that'd probably blow their minds. I'm talking about early 80s when this was happening, not way back in the 60s.

I've been to Citi Field and had a great time there. Since I like to get some food from the concessions that seem appropriate to the area I'm visiting, I got an arancini when I was there. I also remembered that they played (and the crowed sang along with) The Piano Man during the 7th inning stretch after Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

Yeah, we just had 2 or 3 pages of discussion about this in this very thread. I don't feel the need to rehash the same explanation again about all the factors that go into a successful MLB stadium these days.

MM, here are my thoughts: If Ishbia wants a new stadium he will have to pay for it. That's pretty much understood at this point. We have no idea what Ishbia has planned. It could very well be that he isn't going to foot the bill for a new stadium, but the idea that he'd pay for a new stadium isn't outlandish. There are several franchise owners in the major sports leagues that are committing something like $1B in private money toward a new stadium. In my uneducated guess, I'd say it's a coin flip as to whether the new owner decides to pay up for a new stadium as he takes control of this team. I don’t go to ballgames to see skylines and furthermore I don’t care if the neighborhood has tons of bars and restaurants around it, easy parking like at the Rate is more important. You don't. But you're a Boomer and I'm an older Gen Xer. Maybe that's what appeals to our age demographic groups, but it's been shown time and again that this isn't what people want these days when they decide how to spend their entertainment dollar. Fun (scary) fact: the oldest Millennials will start turning 50 two years after the Sox current lease ends. The oldest of Gen Z are turning 30 in a couple of years from now. Guess which generational age groups Sox ownership will have in mind when they decide where they want the Sox to play after the current lease ends? Back in the day I was a huge Blackhawks fan and attended 200 or so games at the old Madhouse on Madison, horrible neighborhood with maybe a couple of seedy bars that no one frequented, but it had good parking, the Blackhawks were the hottest ticket in town in those days. I'm sure that's 100% correct, but there are a lot of things that worked in the 1960s that are no longer the case today. We also had leaded gas and nobody wore seatbelts back then either. The Dodgers have played in a stadium for 65 years with not a restaurant anywhere close to it and surrounded by huge parking lots, True, but they're the LA Freaking Dodgers. They're in a metro area that has 18M people and they've won 13 pennants and 7 WS titles since moving out west. Meanwhile, we Sox fans want to think 2005 was yesterday and are still waxing nostalgic about 1959. Aside from the Yankees, the Dodgers are arguably the most elite, premier team brand in MLB. Right now I believe the biggest problem is what JR with his miserly ways has done to franchise and the fan base, Amen, Mighty Mite. You are 100% correct with no argument for me.

It's not the existence of parking lots that's a problem, it's the NON-existence of pretty much anything else in the immediate vicinity that's been a problem in bringing people to the park over the years.

Absolutely this. Working for the White Sox has definitely been a career killer for anyone involved in the train wreck that has been the White Sox organization over the last 15 years....except to get promoted within by Jerry, of course. What MLB team in their right minds would hire RH or KW? What about any of the post-Ozzie Sox managers?

Looks like I have some catching up to do.🙂 Seriously, I'd like to get out and see more MLB parks in the coming years. My previous visits to other parks was always an enjoyable experience. I'd say my favorite so far has been Petco Park. I've also been to two now-demolished ballparks: Old Comiskey and County Stadium in Milwaukee (which I didn't count in my 8 current out of town parks visited). I can't believe I've never been to the Brewers' new stadium. No excuse for me - it's been around about 25 years now.

That's because Royals Stadium was built in 1973, right at the time that every other new stadium was a multi-purpose, cookie cutter monstrosity. It was the only baseball-only MLB stadium built between Anaheim Stadium in 1966 and New Comiskey in 1991. Nobody in 1992 was going to turn their criticism to a 19 year-old stadium instead of one that was being built pretty much concurrently with Camden Yards. Has it ever been confirmed that Reinsdorf was presented with an option to build a retro-style ballpark and he rejected it? And yes, any new stadium would unfortunately be in the shadow of Wrigley. If they're smart, they wouldn't try to imitate Wrigley or try to be "retro" (whatever that means) just for the sake of being "retro." Though, some nods to Old Comiskey Park would be nice. And, of course, this is ***IF*** the Sox go ahead and build a new stadium. That'll be up to the Ishbia brothers because it'll be their money.

I've been to eight of the existing MLB ballparks that are not in Chicago. They all had great seats in the lower deck. Many of them (but not all) also had great food options. So even though we see those things as stand-outs at Rate Field, they're still nothing special compared to the rest of the league. Of the ones I've been to, I'd say Angel Stadium in Anaheim is the most "meh" to me. It does have that rock wall feature in the outfield, but it's otherwise a fairly generic ballpark surrounded by acres of parking lots without a lot to do in the area (other than Disneyland being a couple of miles down the street).

I also have my doubts about them being able to develop a "Comiskeyville" around the current stadium. Will the neighborhood allow it? If they did allow it, would it bring in enough people the 280 days a year that the Sox are not playing there to keep it thriving? As far as worrying that the Sox could build a new stadium at the 78 and it would still flop.....well, yeah that would be such a White Sox thing to happen. But if the Ishbia brothers are that afraid of failure, then they probably shouldn't waste their money on buying the team in the first place. And yes, a new ballpark would always have to live in the shadow of Wrigley Field's image since it's in the same city. But being right on the river and being walking distance to all the downtown attractions (including the Metra stations) with an iconic view of the skyline could allow it to successfully carve out its own niche if it's designed correctly and if the new owners invest in fielding a winning team on the field.

Again fair enough. It's still a decent view of the city from there. I've taken some photos up there with my family standing at the rails and the skyline in the backdrop. The view would be significantly more impressive if Ishbia decides he wants to invest his money in a new stadium at the 78. And like I said before, this isn't a make-or-break issue for Rate Field. It's certainly not its biggest flaw and some of the "ballpark that turned its back on the city" cracks are a bit melodramatic. But it's just one more piece to the puzzle of why we're all still debating whether its a good stadium or not 35 seasons after it opened.

Looking out toward the outfield in most other ballparks, you either get an impressive city view or at least there's an elegant asymmetry to the stadium itself. Rate Field has neither. The following website provides good views for all the MLB ballparks for a quick comparison. There are others that aren't very remarkable. So, I take back suggesting Rate Field is the blandest, but it's definitely up there. I'm not impressed with Chase Field. The view there is better when the roof and giant OF panels are open, but that's almost never the case in AZ's heat. Yankee Stadium looks pretty generic and the scope of the ads are much, much worse than at Rate Field. https://ballparkratings.com/ballpark-type/major-league/ https://ballparkratings.com/ranking-and-rating-all-30-mlb-ballparks-2024-edition/

Fair point. Here's the view from one of the ballpark ramps. The skyline wouldn't be as close up as in MLB parks in other cities, but it's still a decent view. I never thought this one issue was make-or-break for the current ballpark anyway, but it's just one of many things that take away potential character from the stadium and make it feel more generic.....and those things really add up.

Aside from the pinwheels atop the scoreboard that has to be one of the blandest, most generic views looking out toward the outfield in MLB. The giant billboards for Stanley and Ford (plus a 3rd one not pictured) that look like something I'd drive past on the Stevenson on the way to the park doesn't help.

Three Rivers only lasted 30 years. PNC Park is currently in its 25th season and is still considered by many to be one of the best in baseball. The Pirates averaged 30k a night there the 3 years they made the playoffs about a decade ago. The "Ballpark at Arlington" in Texas didn't last long even though it was a "retro park" because the Rangers decided they couldn't continue with an open air stadium in the intense heat they get there in the summer. I don't know why they didn't build a retractable roof park in the first place in 1994. It sounds like the issue with Turner Field is that the Braves wanted to have a place with enough land around it to build a baseball village, which they didn't have at Turner. The sure have made a killing on that baseball village.

Agreed. Having the '59 and '17 unis as Sunday throwback alternates would be great. I don't know if the Sox are still trotting out the '83 uniforms on Sundays. If so, those have to go. I've seen enough of them.

The one Cubs road uniforms that I thought were the worst were the ones that were powder blue with white pinstripes on them. I believe they wore them in the early 80s. IMO, all the Sox uniforms from 1976-1990 were pretty bad in their own particular way.

Good point. I suppose the term "retro park" is thrown around too loosely. Not every new ballpark going forward is going to be a time warp back to the 1920s, but since Camden Yards, most teams have tried to build in some unique character into their ballpark (some with better success than others) and/or the area around the ballpark. No one is building bland, generic-looking baseball-only stadiums surrounded not much but parking lots anymore. Interesting fact about all these post-Camden ballparks: many are now in the 25-30 year old range and while many are getting major renovations ($400M in renovations for Camden Yards!), no one is even hinting about getting rid of them. To put that amount of time into perspective, the old 70s era stadiums they replaced only lasted about 30 years before they became horribly obsolete and were torn down.

No. One of the few good off the field moves during the Reinsdorf era was to bring back the iconic "Old English" Sox logo and the current black pinstripes uniforms at the end of 1990. I see no reason to dispose of it when Ishbia takes over - none whatsoever. When I was growing up, the Sox went through a series of bad, sometimes laughable uniforms. First was those awful "old timey" uniforms of the Veeck era that made the Sox look like a joke team to me. Then we moved on to the Astros-wannabe ultra tacky uniforms of the early 80s that Jerry is still in love with. Then we ditched those and went to a super generic looking uniforms with an "Einhorn E" logo on the cap in the late 80s. The Sox kept bouncing from bad unis to bad unis every 5 years or so and that led to a lack of brand identity. Meanwhile, the Yankees, Dodgers, Cardinals, Cubs, Tigers, and many other teams had the same classic uniforms and logos year after year. Going back to the Old English Sox logo with black pinstripes was a total home run. And no, we shouldn't go back to the red pinstripes uniforms even if some Boomer fans still have fond memories of the Dick Allen era. Our team is not the "Red" Sox.

By the way, I did find a couple of sites that did league-wide MLB attendance rankings. The ESPN site only goes back to 2001. https://www.espn.com/mlb/attendance https://www.thebaseballcube.com/content/mlb_attendance/ Since 2001, the only time the Sox were higher that 15th in attendance was 2006 when they were 9th. They were also 14th in that weird 2021 season when they probably got a boost in ranking due to capacity restrictions. The best ranking ever at the new park was the inaugural season when they were #3. By 1994 (pre-strike), they were down to 11th (based on avg per game since teams didn't have an equal # of home games when the season was cancelled).

Yes, I don't remember the year, but that's what I remember happening. It wasn't just Stone, but his partner Chip Caray (Harry's grandson) who left after criticizing the Cubs. Caray does PBP for the Cardinals now. I can't imagine Stone going back to the Cubs.....or the Cubs wanting him back at age 78.

I don't know if any other teams have done this, but based on 35 years of attendance history since New Comiskey opened in 1991, I have no reason to believe the Sox can do this at the current stadium and it's current surroundings. Baseball Reference shows attendance ranking only among AL teams, not all of MLB. The Sox only finished better than 7th in the AL in 1991-94 (new stadium bounce/good teams) and 2006-2009 (post World Series bounce). They did rank 5th in the AL in 2021, but that's an odd year to make comparisons since there were Covid attendance restrictions in place around the league and that #5 was based on only 1.5M fans. The Sox hardly got any bounce in 2022 (8th out of 15) after winning 93 games and the division title the year before. https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/CHW/attend.shtml Maybe they'd shoot up to top 10 or even top 5 in all of MLB if they won multiple pennants or another WS title. Easier said than done. How many of those have the big market Yankees, Mets, and Cubs won in the last 15 years? Only 1 pennant each and only one WS titles between them. Or maybe they can draw better at the current stadium if they merely fielded competitive teams (without a WS title) AND developed the area around the current stadium to give fans things to do before/after the game.

That was a great ad campaign and great slogan.

This article from June includes a players survey on which organizations have good reputations and which ones have bad reputations. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6406636/2025/06/11/best-worst-mlb-manager-2025-player-poll/ Of the top 14 best ranked organizations, all but two are large market teams. The only exceptions to it otherwise being all big market teams are the Guardians and Rays. Among the bottom 16 teams, the only large market teams are the Angels and White Sox. And we all know that Reinsdorf has been running the Sox like they're a small market team for years now. The Nationals and Diamondbacks are in the lower half, but are basically neutral in this survey (one good vote for the D-Backs and one bad vote for the Nats). What struck me is how, with only a very few exceptions, this list splits out almost perfectly between big market and small market teams. Do people believe that nearly all the bad owners just happen to be in small markets while nearly all the good owners are in big markets with lots of revenue streams coming in? Of course there are a small handful of exceptions like how JR has run our favorite franchise into the ground, how the Angels are a mess, and how the Rays almost always overachieve. That doesn't mean I support a salary cap, though. This is the owners' problem, not a players' problem. But the competitive balance issue is real. Unfortunately, it seems like Manfred is intent on using a salary cap to fix their mess.

He now has 7 HRs since being called up. Nice 3-run blast today.