Comiskey Park
333 W. 35th Street

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 cake 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.