Is “The 78” Dead? Or even more alive? Fire announce plans for SSS

[The Mighty Mite]

14 minutes ago, 77 Hitmen said:

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.  

In the late 50s it was 75 cents for kids to sit in the bleachers or a dollar for unreserved grandstand and sometimes we would pick up seat cushions after the game that Wrigley would rent out to fans for 25 cents who sat in box seats or grandstand seats, if we could pick up 10 cushions each and return them  to the concourse booth where they rented them they gave you a free unreserved grandstand pass for the next home game and yes I remember many times the upper deck being closed at Wrigley especially when I was a vendor in 1962 when the Cubs drew only 600,000 fans. I made my money at Comiskey and stopped working games at Wrigley in early July, I would go back to my caddy job when the Cubs were in town.

Edited August 7 by The Mighty Mite

[Tnetennba]

2 hours ago, 77 Hitmen said:

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.

I have a certain bias because I live down the street from the park, and see the acres of empty space regularly during the 280ish days out of the year when the Sox aren’t playing. The sheer volume of cars that flood arterial streets before and after games also make getting around a giant pain in the ass. Anything would be better than empty lots on off days and traffic jams on game days IMO. 

[Lip Man 1]

2 hours ago, 77 Hitmen said:

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.  

As recently as 1983 the Cubs were closing the upper deck at Wrigley Field. The Sox of course had a terrific season while the Cubs were floundering. 

[Snopek]

3 hours ago, The Mighty Mite said:

Winning improves the experience.

Multiple things can improve the experience.

[WBWSF]

Youtube commentator  Brodie Brazil has  a interesting video about the White Sox maybe moving out of state to Nashville, Salt Lake City and Portland.

[77 Hitmen]

3 hours ago, WBWSF said:

Youtube commentator  Brodie Brazil has  a interesting video about the White Sox maybe moving out of state to Nashville, Salt Lake City and Portland.

I just checked out his video and he said he's pretty certain the Sox are NOT moving out of state.   He gave the same reasons a lot of people here have pointed out:  Ishbia has strong ties to Chicago, even as the "second" baseball team Chicago is a huge market for the Sox, Nashville isn't spending a ton of public money for a baseball stadium any time soon after they spent a fortune for the new Titans stadium, etc. 
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR42xeh2g7k

He does mention that SLC and Portland seem to be open to funding for a MLB stadium, but he wasn't suggesting he thought the Sox would move to either of those cities.

I also saw that he posted a video a few days ago where he practically gushes about how he loves Chicago (except for the weather).  

Edited August 8 by 77 Hitmen

[Lip Man 1]

4 hours ago, WBWSF said:

Youtube commentator  Brodie Brazil has  a interesting video about the White Sox maybe moving out of state to Nashville, Salt Lake City and Portland.

Are we starting that garbage again. Brodie Brazil says...LOL.

Who the hell is Brodie Brazil and why should I give a s%*#?  Oh he's on You Tube, well then maybe I should pay attention...NOT!!!!!!!!!

I've suggested to you once before to stop worrying about this issue.

It is NOT happening. You'd be better spent with your time writing JR about how you should be the next G.M.

[Lip Man 1]

1 hour ago, 77 Hitmen said:

I just checked out his video and he said he's pretty certain the Sox are NOT moving out of state.   He gave the same reasons a lot of people here have pointed out:  Ishbia has strong ties to Chicago, even as the "second" baseball team Chicago is a huge market for the Sox, Nashville isn't spending a ton of public money for a baseball stadium any time soon after they spent a fortune for the new Titans stadium, etc. 
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR42xeh2g7k

He does mention that SLC and Portland seem to be open to funding for a MLB stadium, but he wasn't suggesting he thought the Sox would move to either of those cities.

I also saw that he posted a video a few days ago where he practically gushes about how he loves Chicago (except for the weather).  

SLC and Portland in my opinion do not have the needed population size to support a club for 81 home games. 

[southsider2k5]

14 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Are we starting that garbage again. Brodie Brazil says...LOL.

Who the hell is Brodie Brazil and why should I give a s%*#?  Oh he's on You Tube, well then maybe I should pay attention...NOT!!!!!!!!!

I've suggested to you once before to stop worrying about this issue.

It is NOT happening. You'd be better spent with your time writing JR about how you should be the next G.M.

To be fair, you also told us for years that Jerry would never sell, so...

[WBWSF]

53 minutes ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Are we starting that garbage again. Brodie Brazil says...LOL.

Who the hell is Brodie Brazil and why should I give a s%*#?  Oh he's on You Tube, well then maybe I should pay attention...NOT!!!!!!!!!

I've suggested to you once before to stop worrying about this issue.

It is NOT happening. You'd be better spent with your time writing JR about how you should be the next G.M.

Better franchises have  moved  than the White Sox. Many years ago  the Brooklyn Dodgers (who were the 2nd most profitable team in MLB) moved to LA. The Cleveland Browns sold out their games forever and the team was  moved to Baltimore. Both the Dodgers and Browns  moved because both cities offered them better deals.  I don't know how much money the next White Sox owner has. I've read different  amounts. Rather than spend $1 billion on a new stadium in Chicago, could you blame him if he moved the team  if some other city gave him a sweetheart deal? I would feel better about this situation if some announcement was made about the White Sox stadium situation. Even if the announcement was extending the present lease. As far as me becoming the White Sox GM. All  I wanted was an interview with JR. I would have given him the most memorable interview he ever had. Maybe he would have been so impressed with me I might have been hired.

Edited August 8 by WBWSF

[southsider2k5]

Just now, WBWSF said:

Better franchises have  moved  than the White Sox. Many years ago  the Brooklyn Dodgers (who were the 2nd most profitable team in MLB) moved to LA. The Cleveland Browns sold out their games forever and the team was  moved to Baltimore. Both the Dodgers and Browns  moved because both cities offered them better deals.  I don't know how much money the next White Sox owner has. I've read different  amounts. Rather than spend $1 billion on a new stadium in Chicago, could you blame him if he moved the team  if some other city gave him a sweetheart deal? I would feel better about this situation if some announcement was made about the White Sox stadium situation. Even if the announcement was extending the present lease.

You might have faith in some ethereal BuT hE cOuLd soup of nonsense,  but there is quite literally no basis in fact to actually give any weight or belief to Ishbia wanting to move this team.  If he was trying to go somewhere else, he could have bought the Twins for cheaper and moved them.  Instead he came back to the team which is both in the city where is family business is and where he is putting the finishing touches on his 200,000,000 million dollar mansion.  If you want someone to take this seriously you gotta have something better than the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Cleveland Browns did it.

[Quin]

1 hour ago, WBWSF said:

Better franchises have  moved  than the White Sox. Many years ago  the Brooklyn Dodgers (who were the 2nd most profitable team in MLB) moved to LA. The Cleveland Browns sold out their games forever and the team was  moved to Baltimore. Both the Dodgers and Browns  moved because both cities offered them better deals.  I don't know how much money the next White Sox owner has. I've read different  amounts. Rather than spend $1 billion on a new stadium in Chicago, could you blame him if he moved the team  if some other city gave him a sweetheart deal? I would feel better about this situation if some announcement was made about the White Sox stadium situation. Even if the announcement was extending the present lease. As far as me becoming the White Sox GM. All  I wanted was an interview with JR. I would have given him the most memorable interview he ever had. Maybe he would have been so impressed with me I might have been hired.

The Dodgers and Browns are such hilariously bad examples.

There's no politician in Chicago (possibly Illinois?) that holds as much power over urban development as Robert Moses (who disliked baseball) when O'Malley wanted to move the Dodgers one neighborhood over.

Art Modell maneuvered himself into a hole and ended up with an expensive, decaying stadium.

The best recent comparison is the A's, and look how well that's going for them.

[nrockway]

3 minutes ago, Quin said:

The Dodgers and Browns are such hilariously bad examples.

There's no politician in Chicago (possibly Illinois?) that holds as much power over urban development as Robert Moses (who disliked baseball) when O'Malley wanted to move the Dodgers one neighborhood over.

Art Modell maneuvered himself into a hole and ended up with an expensive, decaying stadium.

The best recent comparison is the A's, and look how well that's going for them.

So O'Malley claims. I'm skeptical of this. And skeptical of pretty much anything in that Caro book (since better books about Moses have been written since 1974). Maybe he didn't like baseball (bummer), but O'Malley couldn't convince a lot of other powerful interests (or the public for that matter) and it wasn't so simple as "he hated baseball thus the Dodgers moved".

Here's a good article on the topic. I'm very much more so interested in 'revising' the view on Moses than I am about the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox and baseball in general. Nothing to do with the man himself but I think Caro did a lot of damage to the public sector with that book and opened the door for the sort of Reaganomics that still infects society; though I really liked his books on Lyndon Johnson. I digress, the article is pretty long and so I've excerpted some key quotes, but it's a worthwhile read in my opinion:

https://historycooperative.org/journal/revising-the-revisionists-walter-omalley-robert-moses-and-the-end-of-the-brooklyn-dodgers/ 

Fetter, Henry. 2008. Revising the Revisionists: Walter O’Malley, Robert Moses, and the End of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

 

Quote

Moses had rebuffed O’Malley in private for some time before O’Malley’s August 1955 announcement, and had no trouble doing so again once O’Malley went public. Moses again challenged O’Malley to justify having the city condemn land for the benefit of the privately owned, very-much-for-profit, commercial enterprise that was the Brooklyn Dodgers. Even apart from questioning the legality of such a process under Title I, Moses insisted that the price O’Malley proposed to pay to the city was far too low. “We have told you,” he had reminded O’Malley,”verbally and in writing that a new park for the Dodgers cannot be dressed up as a Title I project…. Let’s be honest about this…. Every conference we have attended over several years began with a new Dodger ball field as the main objective with other improvements a peripheral and incidental purpose.”[49] Moses wrote on August 26, 1955, to Brooklyn borough president John Cashmore, who had presented the details of O’Malley’s plan, “We have no confidence in Walter O’Malley’s scheme to put a Dodger Field at the Brooklyn terminal of the Long Island Rail Road.”[50]

Quote

In conclusion, if Robert Moses balked at underwriting O’Malley’s agenda, he was not alone. The failure to implement the downtown Brooklyn stadium plan was a collective decision. The entire spectrum of New York officialdom (extending well beyond Moses and embracing his most stalwart political enemies and some of Brooklyn’s own most prominent politicians ), and a solid consensus of newspaper and public opinion, opposed the massive subsidy of public funds (about $300 million in today’s dollars) that was required to implement O’Malley’s plan. “Moses,” as Joel Schwartz concluded, “operated within the grooves of municipal policy,” and that was the case here.95 To pin the blame on Moses for the fate of Brooklyn’s beloved “Bums” misreads the political context within which Moses operated, as well as the shifting parameters of power in the mid-century metropolis.

Fifty years after the fact—at a time when the Dodgers have played more seasons in Chavez Ravine than they did at Ebbets Field—the point is not to “beatify” Robert Moses, and thereby reverse what Dave Anderson characterized as the “revisionist” take on O’Malley.96 But it is to recognize that making Moses the fall guy shifts the spotlight away from the man who triggered the chain of events that inexorably led to the city’s loss of the Dodgers ( and the Giants too)—the Dodger owner himself. The embittered Brooklynites—or in many cases, ex-Brooklynites—who cursed O’Malley for stealing their team away from them did grasp that essential truth. Sometimes, the folk wisdom is right.

 

You can't blame public officials for the superwealthy manipulating people's emotions for maximum profit. I say it often, I think sport should be considered a 'public good' akin to how they do it in Germany. Even more than that because American culture is very much rooted in sports. Sports prints money and Americans have the best athletes in the world because that's pretty much all we focus on. This massive industry is culturally-produced and the 'owner' adds absolutely no value to the enterprise. He steals away value from it, in fact. Kids can throw a curveball or a perfect spiral or dunk a basketball but they can't point to Germany on a map, can't do math, don't understand the words they read in a book. I think kids should learn all of the above, but maybe we can take the 'money' from the profitable thing and invest it in the not so profitable things, like functional literacy. Municipalities don't have any money and have no source to raise any besides raising your property taxes or selling off our parking (I don't think we can do that again). Why shouldn't sports be a source of public revenue? It is in Green Bay and the Packers are one of the best sport franchises in the world. We the public are subsidizing these billionaire welfare queens anyway, why not just cut the useless people we all hate out of the equation entirely? Because we as Americans worship Supply-side Jesus and the 'market forces' are his angels?

Too late for the Sox. Maybe in 30 years. If it's profitable to move the team, he's gonna do it. So what about his expensive house. You don't afford a $200mil house by being kind and ethical.

[77 Hitmen]

2 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

SLC and Portland in my opinion do not have the needed population size to support a club for 81 home games. 

Portland has more people than Las Vegas...and Nashville for that matter.  If MLB does indeed expand to 32 teams some day, I'd imagine they'd want one of the teams to be somewhere west, so Portland is probably on that list.

SLC would be the smallest MLB market BY FAR.  It's only being mentioned because politicians there want to throw something like $900M in public money toward a new stadium.  As you said, I can't imagine they could support a club for 81 games.

[77 Hitmen]

2 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

Are we starting that garbage again. Brodie Brazil says...LOL.

Who the hell is Brodie Brazil and why should I give a s%*#?  Oh he's on You Tube, well then maybe I should pay attention...NOT!!!!!!!!!

I've suggested to you once before to stop worrying about this issue.

It is NOT happening. You'd be better spent with your time writing JR about how you should be the next G.M.

Whoever he is (someone who covers sports in the Bay Area), his YouTube video actually says Nashville is just an empty threat and the Sox are almost certainly not moving there.  

[The Mighty Mite]

The Sox will stay in Chicago and because there is no money available for a new stadium they will remain at 35th and Shields. Something has to be done to increase the fan base, it’s a fact that White Sox fans won’t support losing teams so the quickest way to solve the problem is to spend money on quality free agents and start and sustain a culture of winning. The Minor League system must be overhauled starting with finding the best scouts, instructors, coaches and managers available, this is something that Reinsdorf refused to do, he didn’t believe in spending money on potential but he wouldn’t spend money on quality free agents either, that’s why the Sox are on their way to a 3rd straight 100 loss season. It’s also a fact that the White Sox have not had a great manager since Al Lopez and some bad GMs also, this must also be addressed as JR gave us the likes of Jerry Manuel, Robin Ventura, a washed up over the hill Tony LaRussa and the horrible pathetic Pedro Grifol.

Right now Ishbia is an unknown but I'm sure he is very smart and has noticed that Reinsdorf is a terrible owner and won’t use the JR model in his ownership of the franchise.

Edited August 8 by The Mighty Mite

[WBWSF]

10 hours ago, nrockway said:

So O'Malley claims. I'm skeptical of this. And skeptical of pretty much anything in that Caro book (since better books about Moses have been written since 1974). Maybe he didn't like baseball (bummer), but O'Malley couldn't convince a lot of other powerful interests (or the public for that matter) and it wasn't so simple as "he hated baseball thus the Dodgers moved".

Here's a good article on the topic. I'm very much more so interested in 'revising' the view on Moses than I am about the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox and baseball in general. Nothing to do with the man himself but I think Caro did a lot of damage to the public sector with that book and opened the door for the sort of Reaganomics that still infects society; though I really liked his books on Lyndon Johnson. I digress, the article is pretty long and so I've excerpted some key quotes, but it's a worthwhile read in my opinion:

https://historycooperative.org/journal/revising-the-revisionists-walter-omalley-robert-moses-and-the-end-of-the-brooklyn-dodgers/ 

Fetter, Henry. 2008. Revising the Revisionists: Walter O’Malley, Robert Moses, and the End of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

 

 

You can't blame public officials for the superwealthy manipulating people's emotions for maximum profit. I say it often, I think sport should be considered a 'public good' akin to how they do it in Germany. Even more than that because American culture is very much rooted in sports. Sports prints money and Americans have the best athletes in the world because that's pretty much all we focus on. This massive industry is culturally-produced and the 'owner' adds absolutely no value to the enterprise. He steals away value from it, in fact. Kids can throw a curveball or a perfect spiral or dunk a basketball but they can't point to Germany on a map, can't do math, don't understand the words they read in a book. I think kids should learn all of the above, but maybe we can take the 'money' from the profitable thing and invest it in the not so profitable things, like functional literacy. Municipalities don't have any money and have no source to raise any besides raising your property taxes or selling off our parking (I don't think we can do that again). Why shouldn't sports be a source of public revenue? It is in Green Bay and the Packers are one of the best sport franchises in the world. We the public are subsidizing these billionaire welfare queens anyway, why not just cut the useless people we all hate out of the equation entirely? Because we as Americans worship Supply-side Jesus and the 'market forces' are his angels?

Too late for the Sox. Maybe in 30 years. If it's profitable to move the team, he's gonna do it. So what about his expensive house. You don't afford a $200mil house by being kind and ethical.

The Dodgers moved to LA because the City of LA  gave the Dodgers  a great deal . They gave prime LA real estate to O'Malley for $1.00.Bill Veeck said it was a land grab on O'Malleys part. New York couldn't/wouldn't match the offer. New York did offer to build the Dodgers a stadium in Queens which they would have leased. A few years later the Mets took the same Queens offer that the Dodgers turned down.

[NO!!MARY!!!]

20 hours ago, Lip Man 1 said:

As recently as 1983 the Cubs were closing the upper deck at Wrigley Field. The Sox of course had a terrific season while the Cubs were floundering. 

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

[nrockway]

41 minutes ago, WBWSF said:

The Dodgers moved to LA because the City of LA  gave the Dodgers  a great deal . They gave prime LA real estate to O'Malley for $1.00.Bill Veeck said it was a land grab on O'Malleys part. New York couldn't/wouldn't match the offer. New York did offer to build the Dodgers a stadium in Queens which they would have leased. A few years later the Mets took the same Queens offer that the Dodgers turned down.

The other side of the Dodgers move is even worse in my opinion. 1,800 or so Mexican-American families were forcibly removed from Chavez Ravine to build the stadium. The City used eminent domain and claimed they would be building public housing on the site before deciding public housing was something communists do (FDR is history's most famous communist I guess, but this was the height of the Red Scare), and gave it to a rich guy instead.

In an era of 'housing covenants', Chavez Ravine was one of the few places where non-whites were actually allowed to live in Los Angeles. City of LA was legally able to eminent domain the land for well below market value because it was deemed 'blighted' (nonsense term but initially well-intended) and the municipality received federal funds to purchase the land for the purpose of public housing. The plan was pretty ambitious and would have added 3,600 units of housing

Obviously that didn't happen. Public housing in LA never happened. Part of the reason it's such an expensive place to live and the poor are now being relegated to San Bernandino or Texas. Poulson was elected mayor with some rigorous campaigning from the "Citizens Against Socialist Housing" and canceled the 'Elysian Park Heights' housing project. The federal government told them that the land must still be used for "public use" and that's how they got the Dodgers, by being subsidized by a federal program designed to house the poor, in this case poor people of color. Everything the Dodgers baseball team was doing to improve the sport by signing Jackie and Campy, in my view, is unfortunately contradicted by the  Dodger Stadium saga. 

Anyway, the conservatives of the time decided that baseball was of "public use", I think it is of "public use", so why do we let billionaires administer it instead of the citizens in a democracy?

[Kyyle23]

Brodie Brazil doesn’t know s%*# about any of this.  Why is this even being discussed anymore ffs

[77 Hitmen]

On 8/5/2025 at 6:03 PM, caulfield12 said:

And to be honest the downtown area always had a bad reputation...whether it was racism, homelessness, the Olympics bomber, that location kind of was jinxed compared to the "safer/comfortable" suburbs.

It would be interesting to see the subtle and not so subtle shifts in the racial composition of Braves' fans across the two parks.

Plus all the complaints about spoiled Braves' fans not showing up even in the post season when they were on that run of consecutive appearances. Which tied into complaints about Paragraph 1 and ease of access at night from the suburbs.

I found a youtube video that does a pretty good job explaining why the Braves left Turner Field after only 20 years.  Interesting stuff.

The same guy also did a video about the whole "Ballpark at Arlington" situation and why it didn't last as the ballpark for the Rangers.  Obviously because it was an open air stadium in an area that gets intense summer heat.

 

Edited August 8 by 77 Hitmen

[Lip Man 1]

14 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

To be fair, you also told us for years that Jerry would never sell, so...

And also to be fair he's written the contract so that in all probability he will no longer be with us when the sale does go through. I think that's the reason it is worded the way it is.

I've consistently said and written that he will not sell as long as he is alive due to the tax hit.

Unless something happens in my opinion that still holds true, the sale will take place after he has departed.

But time will tell. 

 

[Lip Man 1]

31 minutes ago, NO!!MARY!!! said:

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

Fair point, let's say then the "last time" it occurred. 

[southsider2k5]

18 minutes ago, nrockway said:

The other side of the Dodgers move is even worse in my opinion. 1,800 or so Mexican-American families were forcibly removed from Chavez Ravine to build the stadium. The City used eminent domain and claimed they would be building public housing on the site before deciding public housing was something communists do (FDR is history's most famous communist I guess, but this was the height of the Red Scare), and gave it to a rich guy instead.

In an era of 'housing covenants', Chavez Ravine was one of the few places where non-whites were actually allowed to live in Los Angeles. City of LA was legally able to eminent domain the land for well below market value because it was deemed 'blighted' (nonsense term but initially well-intended) and the municipality received federal funds to purchase the land for the purpose of public housing. The plan was pretty ambitious and would have added 3,600 units of housing

Obviously that didn't happen. Public housing in LA never happened. Part of the reason it's such an expensive place to live and the poor are now being relegated to San Bernandino or Texas. Poulson was elected mayor with some rigorous campaigning from the "Citizens Against Socialist Housing" and canceled the 'Elysian Park Heights' housing project. The federal government told them that the land must still be used for "public use" and that's how they got the Dodgers, by being subsidized by a federal program designed to house the poor, in this case poor people of color. Everything the Dodgers baseball team was doing to improve the sport by signing Jackie and Campy, in my view, is unfortunately contradicted by the  Dodger Stadium saga. 

Anyway, the conservatives of the time decided that baseball was of "public use", I think it is of "public use", so why do we let billionaires administer it instead of the citizens in a democracy?

This was a really interesting piece of history I had never heard before.  It definitely goes along with all of the redlining and carving up of historic minority neighborhoods for interstates and other "public" projects back in that era.

[77 Hitmen]

15 hours ago, WBWSF said:

Better franchises have  moved  than the White Sox. Many years ago  the Brooklyn Dodgers (who were the 2nd most profitable team in MLB) moved to LA. The Cleveland Browns sold out their games forever and the team was  moved to Baltimore. Both the Dodgers and Browns  moved because both cities offered them better deals.  I don't know how much money the next White Sox owner has. I've read different  amounts. Rather than spend $1 billion on a new stadium in Chicago, could you blame him if he moved the team  if some other city gave him a sweetheart deal? I would feel better about this situation if some announcement was made about the White Sox stadium situation. Even if the announcement was extending the present lease. As far as me becoming the White Sox GM. All  I wanted was an interview with JR. I would have given him the most memorable interview he ever had. Maybe he would have been so impressed with me I might have been hired.

I have my doubts that he backed out of buying the Twins so that he can buy the White Sox and move them to....where?  Salt Lake City?  It doesn't sound like Nashville is ready to hand out another $1B in stadium funding after what they've spent for the Titans.

As far as any public announcement about the Sox stadium situation.  I'd be thrilled if Ishbia announced tomorrow that he's going to privately fund a new Sox stadium at the 78.  But I don't think that's a reasonable expectation.  It's not going to be as simple as him writing a one billion dollar check.  I'd imagine there's a lot of leg work involved in lining up investors for such a massive project not to mention some cost-benefit analysis to determine if investing $1B or so in a new stadium is worth it.  Less than 6 months ago, he was about to buy the Twins before suddenly backing out, so it's only been a few months since he became heir-apparent to Jerry Reinsdorf.

Or he might intent to keep the Sox at the current ballpark with a new long-term lease.  If that's the case, we're not going to hear anything public about that effort now - 4 years before the current lease is up.