On July 1st, 1910, White Sox Park opened. The stadium, which became known as Comiskey Park, cost $750,000 to build. It was the oldest stadium in baseball when it was closed in 1990 and replaced by a new structure called then also Comiskey Park.

I went to a lot of games at Old Comiskey in the early 1980s when I was living in Chicago. I lived in Hyde Park for a couple of those years which is on the South Side of Chicago. Comiskey was the nearest ballpark.

I tried to get to A’s and Orioles games when they were in town and I would tag along with friends of mine from Kansas, Boston, and Minnesota when the White Sox were playing the Royals, Red Sox, or Twins.

Old Comiskey did not have of the quaint, neighborhood charm of Wrigley Field (which opened in 1914). There was no ivy. No Yuppies And the White Sox team did not have the Loveable Losers Mystique of the Cubs.

What Old Comiskey did have was a damned good baseball team. In 1983 they won the American League West by a margin of 20 games! That dominance combined with their butt-ugly uniforms led naturally to the phrase “Winning Ugly.”

Here is an example of the 1983 Sox uniforms:

The crowds at Comiskey were more interesting than the crowds at Wrigley. In 1984, when Willie Wilson was playing either his first game (or at least one of his first games) back after serving a 3 month prison sentence followed by a 6-week game suspension for cocaine, I was at Comiskey. The stadium was packed. And every time the visiting Willie touched the ball or came up to bat, the crowd roared and cheered. Even giving him a standing ovation one time. Fans held up signs that said “Coke is It,” and “Coke is the Real Thing.” South-Siders were a different breed.

My last time at Old Comiskey was in its final season, 1990. I was in Chicago for work and dragged along my boss and another co-worker to see the old stadium one last time before they tore it down. We had early meetings the next day and a storm was rolling in so we left before the end. And were in on the el platform when the rain started coming down in buckets.

My last view of Old Comiskey was an appropriate one. Looking out through dirty, wet subway car windows, I watched the shiny, lit-up, old stadium as it grew smaller and smaller until finally disappearing altogether into the stormy, Chicago night.