Day 186: Comiskey's Palace

     By 1910, the Chicago White Sox had been in their current ballpark(which stood on the site of a field that had been erected for festivities surrounding the 1893 World's Fair) for 17 years, and the small size(only 15,000 seats) was starting to constrict them.  So, owner Charlie Comiskey purchased the site of an old garbage dump located on 35th and Shields to function as the team's new ballpark.  Upon its opening, the 32,000 seat stadium was for a time known as the "Baseball Palace of the World".  The park had been designed with the input of one of the Sox' most prolific and well-known pitchers, making the field very hostile to hitters(a tale borne out in the fact that no player ever hit 100 home runs or more in the entire lifetime of the park).

     The park hosted the World Series three years in a row between 1917 and 1919.  First in 1917, the Sox defeated the New York Giants four games to two.  In 1918, the Cubs came down and borrowed the park, since it's seating capacity at the time was larger than Wrigley Field's was.  The next year, the White Sox played the Cincinnati Reds in the 1919 Series.  The Sox proceeded to drop the Series 5 games to 3(it was a 9-game set that year), which ushered in the Black Sox scandal that dominated much of the off season.  The fallout of that scandal left the White Sox decimated, and neither they nor their park were much of a factor in baseball again until the 1930s.

     But once that time came, the park shot to prominence once again by hosting the very first All-Star Game, the brainchild of a writer with the Chicago Tribune.  The field wound up getting lights in 1939, and by 1950 the All-Star Game came back.  This time, the biggest highlight was Ted Williams hitting a wall and ending his season.  The field saw the World Series for the final time in 1959.  Ten years later, the stadium saw the addition of a stop on the newly-constructed Red Line.  In 1979, the stadium witnessed a public execution(as well as a riot) when Steve Dahl marched in and declared Disco to be dead.

     By the late 80s, the ownership of the White Sox wanted a bigger stadium.  Under threat of the White Sox moving to Florida, the Illinois legislature(headed up by Jim Thompson[who is no relation to Big Bill Thompson]) voted to give money to build a new park(after they stopped time in its tracks).  In 1989, construction began on a new stadium across the street, which opened in 1991.  The stadium was demolished that same year, though the site of home plate and the foul lines are emblazoned on the parking lot of U.S. Cellular Field.  One final note: in 2005, the team started out their victory parade by taking a spin around the block, paying tribute to the former site of the park, and all of its important contributions to sports history.