Comiskey Park
333 W. 35th Street
(312) 674-1000
www.chisox.com
The original Comiskey Park, home to the Chicago White Sox,
was one of the oldest parks in the American League, opening on
the same day as Detroit's Tiger Stadium in 1910. Aside from that
little unpleasantness in 1919, with the "Black Sox"
scandal, everything was jake until the late 1980's when Sox
Chairman of the Board Jerry Reinsdorf threatened to move the Sox
to Florida (St. Petersburg, Florida!) if he didn't get a new
stadium.
Since Chicago has a long history of anti-historicism,
and demolishes landmark buildings at the drop of a tax-increment
financing scheme, Mr. Reinsdorf got his wish, and a brand new
state-of-the-art stadium was erected, (at a cost of some $167
million), right across the street from the old ball park. With
gruesome inevitability, the new stadium structure went up while
games were still being played in the old Comiskey. They
auctioned off the seats when the old park was demolished.
Hellmuth, Obata, and Kassabaum, known familiarly as HOK, is
the architectural firm that gave us a new interpretation of
historic Comiskey. They are well-known for postmodern “New
Traditionalist” sports facilities, including Baltimore’s
Camden Yards and Coors Stadium in Denver. The success of those
two projects, and their seamless integration into their
respective cityscapes, begs the question why Comiskey is so
gosh-darned ugly and offers such a different baseball
experience. It may be the mall aroma of its fast-food venues or
the distance of the average seat from the field, but comparing
the new Comiskey to the old...well, let's just say it's all a
matter of taste. The last time I looked at my watch, we creaky
few old-timey baseball fans still had Fenway Park and Tiger
Stadium.
The game, of course, is still a great game. The new park,
which opened in 1991, has a bluegrass field surrounded by 44,321
seats, including those in the 84 luxury skyboxes. A nice day in
Chicago just begs for a ball game. And getting to Comiskey is a
breeze. Take the El's Howard/Dan Ryan Red Line train to Sox/35th
station and you're only a block away. Tickets may be purchased
at 312-831-1SOX (831-1769).
Tip: Go ahead and buy a bag of peanuts from the guy hawking
them on the overpass over the Dan Ryan on your way from the
train to the park. They're actually delicious.
