The Mighty Mite

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jun 13, 2014 -> 07:50 AM) From 1953-1983 the Sox averaged more than 20,000 per game twice, so you should be used to seeing such small crowds. Different time and age, in the years of the Go Go Sox, 1,000,000 fans a year was the holy grail and the Sox drew over a million every year from 1951 through 1965 except for 1958. They led the A L in 1960 with 1,640,000. I believe that's the last time we led the A L in attendance.

20,000 to watch Sale go up against Scherzer. Piss poor. Something is seriously wrong up there, a big market team and we are averaging 19,000+ a game. 28th in MLB in attendance. We have a nice team with a great new star in Abreu and one of the best pitchers in MLB, the team does not give up and deserves some support. Right now if I owned the Sox and the stadium contract was up I would move this team to somewhere were it would be appreciated. Chicago does not deserve the White Sox. I want all of you to know that I'm a 68 year old die hard White Sox fan who has lived and died with this team since 1953, I still get up in the middle of the night and check the Sox score on my I Phone and for me the to say this is sacreligious. I know the Sox have addressed some of the pricing issues but Sox fans seem like they have just lost interest in the team. I have lived in Florida for over 20 years but I supported the team the 48 years I lived up there and would still do so, every year when the Sox come to Tampa you will see me at the Trop. I worked evenings when we lived up there but always tried to make one game every home stand. I also belong to another Sox Board and there were 3 threads about last nights game. That's sad coming from a membership of 8,000.

QUOTE (bmags @ May 12, 2014 -> 02:11 PM) I would never, ever go to a game if it were in sw suburbs. I love where sox stadium is. It has 2 major CTA train lines. It is right off of a major highway. It also has metra stops directly along it's route. I understand the criticism of "not enough stuff to do around park" but if it's that the stadium is hard to get to you aren't going to fix that going to the suburbs. I went to my first game at 35th and Shields in 1955 and never had a problem with the location but there are many many in the metro area that do including out of towers. When was the last time that you ran into a visitor to the city on vacation that wanted to go see a Sox game at USCF. Not one of my golf cronies down here in Florida has ever seen a Sox game but quite a few have been to you know where.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 12, 2014 -> 01:25 PM) None of those excuses were relevant for Mother's Day. What was?

Chicago is the third largest market in the USA and we drew 18,000, pathetic and embarrassing. Don't tell me it was Mothers day, it was Mothers Day all over the country, Baltimore had 45,000, Milwaukee, LA and NY all over 40,000. We are getting outdrawn by the Rays and the Marlins. Where are all the Sox fans? Down through the years we have had lousy ownership from cheap Charles Comiskey, to underfunded Bill Veeck to the current regime who if we hadn't won in 2005 we would begging them to sell. This franchise has never made the post-season 2 years in a row, that's amazing. High prices for seats and parking plus a lousy location not to mention alienating the fan base many times many times through the years has led to a very apathetic fan base and it saddens me to no end. I may be wrong but I think the franchise is in trouble and when the lease is up do not be surprised it the Sox move to another town.

QUOTE (Leonard Zelig @ May 11, 2014 -> 11:38 AM) You could get into the old Busch Stadium for free after the 7th inning but I don't know if they do that at the new place. Same at Comiskey and Wrigley when I was a kid in the 50s. IIRC it was after the 6th inning.

QUOTE (Tex @ May 8, 2014 -> 09:35 AM) You can insert any team in that statement, even the Cubs. The Cubs have killed us based on the out of towners that were drawn in by the huge TV advantage the team had through most of the second half of the 20th Century. When my daughter lived in Lakeview we walked that area headng to restaurants and clubs, I have to say the neighborhoods around Wrigley offer more before and after game options. I don't want to see it, but I really think a suburban stadium would have the team drawing 35,000 a game. Perhaps somewhere in Schaumburg close to all the trains and expressways, is there land near Arlington Park? I still contend the site they wanted in Addison would have been a gold mine for the Sox. I don't know how many of you remember where it was going to be, just off I-355 just south of I-290 and north of I-88. No public transportation close but that doesn't seem to hurt the Angels of Anaheim.

No doubt about it, hitting is contagious.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ May 5, 2014 -> 04:32 PM) Up until last year, it worked like a charm. In what respect? Profit wise probably yes as the Sox have a great lease. From a fans perspective, no. When you come right down to it the Sox down through the years have done numerous things to alienate the fan base and there just are not as many Sox fans in the metro area as we would like to have.

I'm an real old timer born in 1946 and it's very hard for me to comprehend why there are different prices for different games. I think a lot of fans like me have rebelled at this variable pricing, a MLB game is an MLB game. If a walk up fan heads to the park at the last minute most of the time in this day and age he has no idea how much the game is going to cost him to get in. In the old days you knew a general admission ticket was 1.25 and a box seat was 2.50. I'm know we will never see those prices again but why does one pay 50 bucks for a box seat for one game and the next game that same seat is 20 or 30 bucks. I know the law of supply and demand but it doesn't seem to working with White Sox baseball, this will be 7 years that attendance has declined at USCF.

QUOTE (flavum @ May 4, 2014 -> 02:17 PM) Hope so. Supposedly, he's a butcher in the outfield. If he's a butcher, who is our late inning defensive replacement for Tank?

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ May 3, 2014 -> 11:24 AM) Eaton seems like the type of player that will constantly run into small injury issues, maybe its partly due to his 110% go all out playing style. Eaton might be another Carlos Quentin, there is a fine line in playing too hard especially if you are injury prone.

Tank has to be the DH after this year, he's been a disaster in RF. We need to sign a left handed power hitting out fielder in the off season. Let some one else take a chance on Dunn.

Whatever the case, it's all behind him now.

Semien has to stay, platoon Beckham and Gillaspie at 3rd. With 3 HRs and 13 RBIs in 22 games he is on a pace for 22 homers and 95 RBIs.

QUOTE (thxfrthmmrs @ Apr 17, 2014 -> 06:46 PM) The danger of using raw numbers. Were we dead last in attendance in the 1960's? Time has changed man Every pro sport team that was around in those days draws more fans now then back then. US population was 200 million in 1964, its now 325 million. If a MLB team drew 1,000,000 in the 50s and 60s they were doing well. The Sox hit the million mark just about every year from 51 to 67 then for a ton a reasons attendance was horrible until Dick Allen showed up. First Blackhawk game I went to in 1960 drew 9,700. The Chicago Packers NBA expansion team of 1961 and 1962 averaged about 3,500 a game before they moved to Baltimore in 63 and became the Bullets. The Bulls in their early years were not a great draw very seldom over 10,000 a game. The only Chicago team that sold out their games all these years are the Bears but they only played 6-8 home games a year, not a fair comparison to other sports.

Robin was not a good choice to begin with, he has shown no improvement in his OJT. The Sox made it worse by extending him. No way should you run out of pitchers in a 14 inning game.

In the 50s and 60s the UD at Wrigley was closed more than not. It was a joke among Sox fans in those days that the Cubs couldn't draw flies, couldn't catch them either. I will never forget a game in the early 60s at Wrigley, it was the first televised event beamed by the Telstar satellite to Europe and the UD was closed but they wanted the folks in Europe to see a lot of people at the park so they let all the general admission customers sit in the lower deck boxes.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Apr 15, 2014 -> 08:19 PM) Yet the other 3 major sports teams in Chicago keep raising ticket prices and selling out every game. Might be comparing apples and oranges. Bears have only 8 regular season games, Sox have 81. The Hawks and Bulls play indoors so no weather issues except getting to the game, they sell out but the Sox still average more fannies in the seats. Would the Hawks and Bulls sell out a 40,000 seat arena for 81 games?

QUOTE (StRoostifer @ Apr 15, 2014 -> 06:19 PM) Good points Marty. Also like to add high taxes, high cost of living, high health insurance premiums and an Illinois' population has been declining for years. People just don't have the money they once had. Its really no surprise at all that attendance is declining year after year. I'm a Senior Citizen and paid 1.25 for General Admission seats back in the 50s and 60s. It's hard to believe how much it is now to go to a ball game or any sporting event. I think it's reached a point were people are saying I'm not going to pay this kind of money anymore to go to a ball game. 2012 was a defining year as Sox fans with a team that was in first place 117 days but did not even hit the 2 million plateau. I give Sox management kudos for trying to resolve the issues that have kept people away from the park such as dynamic pricing and crazy parking fees. All that being said it still hurts to see the Sox just about last in attendance, 10,000,000 in the metro area and only 14,000 on a Sunday afternoon?

QUOTE (Dick Allen @ Apr 15, 2014 -> 09:01 AM) White Sox fans are some of the biggest whiners in the league. Go read WSI and see what they complain about. It's unbelievable. Workers not smiling at them. There even is someone now saying the K-Zone for Chris Sale's starts is destined to be a "marketing disaster". And you get banned at WSI if you talk about attendance

Hoping to catch lightning in a bottle.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Apr 13, 2014 -> 08:09 PM) The 64K dollar question for sure. I am guessing Nate Jones but no one has done their job. I'm sure going into Spring Training Hahn was counting on Jones to be the closer. Let's hope he comes back soon.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Apr 13, 2014 -> 08:22 PM) How does one go about accomplishing that, haha? Frustrated would be better, fixed it.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Apr 13, 2014 -> 08:07 PM) You ruined a good post with this inane idea of trading Beckham. Semien hasn't proven anything yet Beckham has frustrated us since his nice rookie year of 2009, it's not like we would be trading a Nellie Fox or Ryne Sandberg.