Comiskey Park was demolished in 1991
Comiskey Park was demolished in 1991
Comiskey Park was the home of the Chicago White Sox of the American League.
In the late summer of 1990, my wife and I flew to Chicago to see a White Sox game at Old Comiskey Park. It was scheduled for the wrecking ball after that season and I wanted to see it before it was gone. This trip marked the first time that I actual did something so silly as to fly to another city for the sole purpose of seeing a baseball game. It was a great day in my life.
Comiskey Park sat on the south side of Chicago and we rode the El to get there, which is the only proper way, of course. Walking across from the station, the white brick ballpark looked very small next to the mountainous new stadium going up right next door. An understated structure, painted white with "Comiskey Park" in simple green lettering over the entrance.
Inside the tunnels under stands was like spelunking in a crowded cave and when you stepped into the seating area, the feeling of claustrophobia didn't lessen by much. This was a small, close ballpark. The lower deck was right up close to the foul lines and the upper deck was right down low over the lower deck. The seats and aisles were narrow as well. It made for a very intimate baseball experience.
We saw the longest nine inning game in baseball history, a record which stood until the Yankees and Orioles broke it a few years ago. The Texas Rangers battled the Chisox for nearly four hours, with Texas finally winning, 9-8. It was a torturous game where every batter seemed to run the count to 3 and 2. And with all of that, the White Sox did not hit a home run, so I never got to see the exploding scoreboard do it's thing.
This was a great old park, but it was clear that it's time had come. It wasn't very comfortable and there were a lot of bad seats. Other parks had pillars, but these pillars seemed to block whole chunks of the field. It's too bad they replaced it with something so ugly as the new Comiskey Park.
These photos were taken in September, 1990