77 Hitmen

Good point about the footprint needed. Just doing a quick online search of a few random open air and retractable roof stadiums showed that the retractable ones took up something like twice the amount of acreage. Something like 12-15 acres vs. about 25 or so. And yes, it's a legitimate question as to whether (no pun intended) such a thing is necessary in our part of the country. The only cold weather cities with retractable roof ballparks are Toronto and Milwaukee. The other northeast/midwest cities seem to have managed without a roof.

Yep, it would easily add a few hundred million to the cost of a stadium. That would be on the new ownership's dime and it's not clear they even plan to pay for an open air stadium to replace the current one. On the plus side, such a stadium could be used for other events like concerts during more of the year - especially since the chances of an indoor football stadium, which would compete for such events, being built nearby are close to zero. But do such events and the number of times the Sox play in bad weather justify the cost? I don't know - it's not my money.

I just searched for images of the Houston ballpark. Wow, I didn't realize that it opened up so completely. That looks pretty good. Thanks for the views of Miami and Milwaukee, too. Chase Field in AZ also has panes in the outfield that open when the roof is opened. Those are nice touches, but Milwaukee and AZ still feel like a "building" and such a design at the 78 would still block the skyline. I've been to Seattle's ballpark and it really opens up great, but that stadium is not climate controlled.

Paul Sullivan has an article in the Trib today says he believes if Ishbia is going to build a new stadium at the 78, it's "imperative" that he comes up with plans for a retractable roof stadium. He says the intense heat/humidity we've had in recent days is a good argument for a retractable roof stadium. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/06/25/chicago-white-sox-stadium-retractable-roof/ Thoughts on this? One obvious downside would be that it costs a lot more to build such a stadium vs an open air ballpark (which is already very expensive at over $1B). But what about aesthetics? One big selling point of a ballpark at the 78 is a stunning skyline view it would offer. Wouldn't that be negated/blocked by the structure needed for a retractable roof stadium? IMO, comparing most retractable roof stadiums to an open air stadium is like comparing a car w/ a sunroof to a convertible. The parks in Arizona and Milwaukee lack a certain charm due to the roof structure IMO. That being said, I would probably change my tune if I had to sit there in frigid early season games, a rain out, or when the heat index is 110.

So many "that's the last straw" moments to choose from for Sox fans under Jerry's ownership - the mid/late 80s bottoming out and threat to move to Florida, JR being a ring leader for the '94 strike as the Sox were serious pennant contenders, the White Flag trade, so many "unlikeable" teams over the last 15 years, and finally totally reaching rock bottom with 121 losses. Whew - we've put up with a lot despite the 2005 glory. It's no wonder the bad guys on the North Side of town are as dominant in the Chicago market as ever. I'd say I totally tuned out the Sox around '86 to '88. But, by mid-1989, I did start getting excited again with the young core of talent they were putting together. Again I tuned them out after the '97 WF trade coming on the heels of the '94 strike. But again by mid 99 I was getting excited again by young talent like Maggs and CLee. Yeah, hindsight is 20/20, but I see no end in sight and no exciting new core coming now. IMO, I just have to wait until ownership is finally passed from Jerry to Justin Ishbia. Until then, I have little to no reason to be optimistic.

If the Ishbias intend to build a privately financed ballpark at the 78 for the team they are buying, I suppose we'll find out about it soon enough. And yes, I'd imagine the city and Related Midwest would be thrilled to have 2 privately financed stadiums built on that site. If their plan for owning the Sox is to get a new long-term lease at the current stadium, I don't expect to hear any discussion about that anytime soon since there are still 4 years to go before the current lease ends - and 4 years until Jerry's option to sell kicks in. They're not going to negotiate a new lease now in the press.

We're still here, but I believe that this is the conclusion that many, many Sox fans have come to at this point and that they've stopped paying any attention to the team altogether.

Agreed. At this point it'll all be about whether the new owners want to pay up for a new stadium. With a framework for a sale to the Ishbias in place, the current park's lease being up at the same time that Jerry's option to sell kicks in, and his expressed desire to have a new ballpark, I would imagine franchise sale price is intertwined with the whole ballpark situation going forward. I don't expect to hear about the stadium situation anytime soon....though the Fire announcement might spur the Sox into action if the Ishbias indeed want a new ballpark (I have no idea if they do or not).

Caution fellow Sox fans who have a fragile ego, are easily angered, and/or have a huge chip on their shoulder about ballpark "best to worst" rankings, do NOT click on the link in this article that says "*Rankings listed based on USA Today's rankings". Reality hurts. Here's a more complete list of ballpark seating capacity rankings. Dodger Stadium is the highest by far. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2025/05/23/mlb-stadiums-ranked-by-capacity-biggest-smallest/83815207007/ Yes, the new A's stadium would be the lowest capacity. Though the Rays have artificially lowered the seating capacity at Tropicana Field (which was not on the list) in recent years to about 25k by putting a tarp over the upper deck and closing it off to fans. Otherwise, the 2nd lowest after Las Vegas will be the 3 you mentioned with Cleveland the lowest of the three at 34,830. "Jacobs Field" used to seat 42k and they actually had 455 consecutive sellouts there up until 2001. But those days are long gone and they've lowered seating capacity after a couple of renovations. Rate Field is #19 as far as seating capacity goes.

It'll be very interesting to see how that glass dome view of the Vegas strip looks when this place opens. I noted some interesting items from this article: - The ballpark will sit on only 9 acres of the 36-acre property. The same amount of acreage of the proposed Fire stadium at the 78. - Fisher is paying $1.4B in private financing toward the stadium. Did you hear that, Jerry? - The A's will go from the largest foul area (in Oakland) to the smallest foul area in the majors - Seating capacity is only 33,000.

Interesting, that was before my time and I don't remember hearing about them. I do remember that the Sting played at both Comiskey and Wrigley and won the NASL championship at Comiskey Park in 1981 - the first Chicago pro sports championship since the 1963 Bears. I also remember that their big star was Karl Heinz Granitza.

I remember Lillian. She was posting here when I was lurking and before I officially signed up. Looks like her last post was almost 2 years ago (Aug. 2023). Sorry to see that she's no longer here. And Steff - LOL - same name and same description of someone who was on WSI maybe 20 years ago. She was often angry at other posters there too. Not a very pleasant person from what I remember. I'm pretty sure she got banned from that site- probably an example of where it was actually justified.

Some bans were justified IMO. There were a few bad apples back in the day who were pretty obnoxious or constantly hijacking thread after thread derailing lots of discussions who deserved to get the boot, but they definitely took it too far. And you're right about the weird invisible line. I remember several times where posters were legitimately puzzled as to why they were banned. I also remember them having some strange issue with people talking about their post counts and accusing people of being "armchair mods". I know being a mod is a thankless task on any site, but it seemed like a power trip to some of those guys.

And an expert crossbow hunter - therefore no posters better piss him off!

JR and EE certainly made bad PR moves almost right off the bat - the first being insulting and alienating Bill Veeck. Bill Veeck certainly had his faults, but this got them off on the wrong foot with the Sox fan base and with Chicagoans in general not long after the ink dried on their team purchase. Not long after that was the whole SportsVision debacle and letting Harry Caray get away to the Cubs. And again, Harry certainly had his faults, but there was no denying that he was a fan favorite on the South Side and that he quickly became a Cubs legend after he left. And then a whole string of PR disasters that we all know too well and don't need repeating. At least they did quickly breathe new life into the team by bringing in Fisk, Luzinski, Bannister and almost winning the pennant in 1983 after being a laughingstock team in Veeck's final couple of years. Then it was quickly downhill for the rest of the 80s bottoming out with the near-move to St. Pete in 1988.

I'll add MarySwiss to one of the great posters there in addition to those already mentioned. She was always kind, friendly, and had interesting things to say. Sadly, I saw that Fenway posted on a Facebook site a couple of years ago that she has passed away. I have no idea why Fenway was permanently banned. He was always courteous and insightful. He was a huge BoSox fan and talked about them often, so maybe that's why the mods hated him so much and ultimately banned him. Kind of par for the course for that site, unfortunately. Doublem23 sure was opinionated. I have no idea what happened to him. He was perhaps the most prolific poster there and then suddenly one day......poof - his posts came to a sudden stop and no one ever mentioned him again. Voodoo, Dumpjerry, and Nellie Fox are good guys and good mods. There were some other good mods, too. They weren't the problem. I'd say FarWest and Daver were a big part of the problem. West never failed to remind everyone that he was smarter than everyone else and Daver never failed to remind everyone that he was tougher than everyone else. And yes, I realize West was the one who keep the board running until his untimely death. I thought Brian26 was a total d-bag and was part of the problem after he became a mod. I cut back on my participation there after he became a mod and continued being a total condescending smartass to people. What a jerk.

The guy who owns it is the problem with this org.

Terry Bevington must be thrilled that Grifol came along.

Dear Sox fans, if we weren't fielding a shitty team, you'd love our shitty announcer. White Sox Fever.....CATCH IT!

They moved to a totally new server shortly after FarWest died since he was the one who was maintaining the old server and no one else could keep it going. Unfortunately, I don't think any of the old stuff was archived. The current site is wsiforumstoo.com, but it doesn't have any of the old posts from its glory days. Yeah, it would have been great if the old posts were archived somehow, but I don't think they were.

I want to say that Phil Rogers from the Trib posted there too for a time. It's a shame that Grobstein died suddenly a few years ago.

We already had our PCA. We traded him on June 4, 2016 for some magic beans.

I do not doubt this at all. This level of delusion is why this team is on pace for 112 losses this year and why that number of losses would actually mean a 9 game improvement.

And Hawk did have some credibility of actually knowing what he was talking about. Not that I bought every line of BS that Hawk fed to us, but he did have some insight into the league being a former player and having a track record as an announcer before coming to the White Sox. Also, later-years Hawk is what we all probably remember. He was much better as an announcer in his earlier years with the team. The Hawk and Wimpy era was great - no comparison to Schriffen and Stone. I think a more appropriate comparison is between Schriffen and Bennetti....the guy JR didn't like and helped send out of town. I'll take Jason any day of the week - and it's not even close.

I remember that site's heyday. I think they even had some local sports reporters posting on the site. The number of members they had was impressive. Yes, there long had been a dispute between the person managing the website and the people managing the message boards and that was an ongoing problem for them. But I think their downfall was overzealous mods who seemed to dare people to get banned. It got to the point where they seemed disdainful of posters in general. It wasn't a community of Sox fans sharing their passion for their favorite team anymore, it was (in the view of the mods IMO) a group of utterly disposable knuckleheaded fans who better not cross any lines with ignorant posts. Sure, there needed to be some moderation against some of the more obnoxious posters and some people needed to be banned, but they really took it too far and it ultimately killed* the site. And it wasn't just the outright banning, people who dared criticize the direction the team were mocked as a pants-pissing dark cloud. And this was post-2008 when it was obvious that the Sox organization was starting to rot from within. *The site is still there, but it's a shell of its former self.