Comiskey Park - Final Years

Final Years

In 1969, Astroturf was installed, in the infield only, much like Tim McCarver Stadium in Memphis would be in the 1980s and Telus Field in Edmonton in the 1990s. This was removed in 1976. The outfield in all three stadiums had remained grass.

During the last 8 years of its existence, Comiskey's annual attendance surpassed the 2 million mark three times, including the final season when the team contended for much of the year before losing the division title to the Oakland Athletics.

White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf received more than $200 million in public financing for the new stadium after threatening to move the club to St. Petersburg, Florida. An interesting phenomenon occurred in the Illinois state legislature, in that the Speaker literally stopped the clock on the evening of June 30, 1988 so that the legislature could report that the money had been granted on June 30, and not July 1. The stadium now called Tropicana Field was constructed by officials in St. Petersburg in an effort to lure a Major League Baseball club to Florida. The deal was sealed in a last-minute legislative maneuver by then-governor James R. Thompson.

Comiskey Park was demolished in 1991, a process that started from behind the right field corner, and took all summer. The last portion to come down was the center field bleachers and the "exploding" scoreboard. The site of the old park was turned into a parking lot to serve those attending games at the new Comiskey Park (later renamed U.S. Cellular Field).

At the time Comiskey was demolished, Chicago's two baseball stadiums were a combined 157 years old.

Bill Veeck once remarked that "There is no more beautiful sight in the world than a ballpark full of people!" On its best days, Comiskey was stuffed to the gills, with 55,000 people or more lining the aisles and even standing for nine (or eighteen) innings on the sloping ramps that criss-crossed behind the scoreboard. The nearly-fully enclosed stands had a way of capturing and reverberating the noise without any artificial enhancement. As a Chicago sportswriter once remarked, "Wrigley Field yayed and Comiskey Park roared."

'Old' Comiskey's home plate is a marble plaque on the sidewalk next to U.S. Cellular Field, and the field is a parking lot. Foul lines are painted on the lot. Also, the spectator ramp across 35th Street is designed in such a way (partly curved, partly straight but angling east-northeast) that it echoes the outline of part of the old grandstand.

Shortly before the park's demolition, the ballpark was featured in the movie Only the Lonely. John Candy's character (on a first date) arranged to have a private picnic on the stadium grass under the lights with his date (Ally Sheedy). Candy referenced the stadium's impending demolition during the date.

When the Sox won the 2005 World Series, their victory parade began at U.S. Cellular Field, and then circled the block where old Comiskey had stood, before heading on a route through various south side neighborhoods and toward downtown Chicago.