https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg4wZ_7Fxak

Old Comiskey looks go cozy nowadays

Comiskey Park was a dark and scary place. That was my impression as a kid. But I thought it was cool. I went to a dozen or so times as a kid. My Dad had tickets through his work. The company had season tickets that they would give to employees. Good seats. Upper deck right behind home plate. 3rd or 4th row.

You could smell the pot through the entire game. White trash people banging each other. Security beating the shit out of white trash people. Stepping over bottles of Jack Daniels from the white trash people That weird clown with his dirty costume would give me candy. It was great as a kid.

It was as ratty as Great America was the last time I went there 5-6 years ago. I have a thousand great memories of the ratty dump though.

And I always forget about the brief astroturf infield.

Odd hearing south sider Minnie Ripperton singing in the video though.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Awesome video. Thanks for sharing. Envious of you old fucks.

Good stuff. Went to my first game in person at that place.

Looks so strange to see them in uniforms with red in them.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I was at the game when Richie Zisk took a curtain call. I remember nothing else but that.

God, we worshipped those guys that summer.

Why did the Sox trade Goose Gossage away for Zisk who only played a year?

Did they just give up on him too early? The Yankees just knew how to develop him better than the Wsox did?

https://vimeo.com/58795166

Not 1970s but I'll share it anyways:

About 2006-08 (back when you could still smoke on the ramps in the upper deck) I went to have a smoke during a game and I saw a concessions worker working on the business end of a blunt roach. I instinctively stepped in front of him and said "don't worry I ain't trying to hit that but I got lookout for you" and used my natural gerthiness to our advantage.

Dude was like hell yeah so he told me to find him in the left field concourses and only buy beer from.him.all season. What he'd do was if I gave him a $10 he's give me $11.50 change like I gave him a $20 tip him the $1.50 and keep the $10 for the next go around. Idk how he pulled it off but I drank for free all season. That's Chicago baseball IMO.

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Rent-a-player. Had to do it because Veeck had no cash. It almost worked in '77.

A buddy's dad took us up there on a Sunday afternoon back in the day. It was raining the entire drive but we didn't care - we were 15, stoked and going to Comiskey Park.

We got into the park and of course the game was rain delayed. Not many people there yet because it was cold and miserable and the game was most likely going to be postponed. We roamed that park top to bottom dodging the streams of rain leaks throughout and having a great time.

When the rain let up a bit, pitchers Fred Howard and Randy Scarbery came out and warmed up throwing to each other along the left field line. We were inside the picnic area under left field behind the steel grate yelling goofy stuff at them. Nothing too harsh just harmless crap. Somebody asked for their autograph and they laughed. One of the other guys I was with (a Cubs fan) yells something about how they would never be Bruce Sutter no matter how much they practiced. Randy Scarbery threw that ball at us and hit that picnic grate so hard that the chipping paint flew at us and a couple of screws popped halfway out. He scared the crap out of us.



We quickly vacated the area after security ran us off. We roamed around inside the lower level and watched Chet Lemon taking batting practice. He was like a robot. He didn't let anything or anyone disrupt his focus or concentration. He smacked every ball as hard as I've ever seen,

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

I loved old Comiskey. We'd walk to the games back in the day. Bat day, Helmet day, just about any give away day we were on it. Remember seeing Reggie Jackson go deep when he was with the Angels.

I still remember when they clinched in 83. That winning ugly team is my favorite Sox team of all time.

I still remember how they just took off after LaRussa put Fisk in the 2 hole.

Still mad at that damn Tito Landrum for going deep in the playoffs and not allowing us to get to Lamarr Hoyt for game 5.

No it's not technically the 70's but i still take it.

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Me, too. I know towards the end it was in terrible shape but that doesn't matter compared to the years of memories and games attended with my dad.

He would work a 12 hour shift and say let's go to the Sox game. We would stay until the last pitch and he would get up the next day and work another 12 hours.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

Never have been able to embrace new Comiskey in the same way.

I still remember when they'd host Wrestling shows from time to time at Old Comiskey.

It was a raggedy old place but there was something about the spot that was cool.

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How about the boxing matches as well? My grandfather was a higher up in the Park District way back when. He knew everybody and could basically go to any sports venue in the city whenever he wanted. He knew the all the guys at the Stadium, Wrigley and Comiskey. He returned the favors by giving those guys unlimited access to Soldier Field and any other CPD event/venue. It was great. He had every autograph from the 1959 Go Go Sox. However, to this day, nobody in the family knows where they are?..

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

Same with me.

My BIL took me in '77.

It was always a surprise to me that my dad, who never really cared for sports, made sure to be there before first pitch and didn't leave early on a non fireworks night, ever.

Later I realized that his adult relationship with my grandfather often included Sox games as the background sounds.

But it was really springtime when my best friend and I got the schedule and picked out which games we were going to (And declared which out of market hats we were getting this year)

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

I was there the night there was a fire in one of the concession booths under the stands. Everyone was moved on to the field until the fire was put out. It was during the Astro-turf infield era and there was also a fence that made straight-away center field 400 feet. Wrote my name on it. Stood on the mound. Never happen today.

BOOM! He hit like .330 after the switch, and it seemed like they never lost. I remember them trouncing the Red Sox--it was the second or third victory as they climbed from 16-24 to 99 wins.

Britt Burns pitched such a good game....

1990 was my favorite season and team. They had 50,000 against the A's and won two out of three against them and Kaminsky was rocking....that team just didn't have enough, but they played with joy.

I remember flying to New York right after that point and the guy sitting next to me continually talking about how he thought how the cubs were the hot team getting ready to take off.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

And made no errors

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Here's an excerpt from my book that I am too lazy to finish. I have to say, even rough and unedited it's better than that crap that Roeper wrote:

Writers just love to use baseball and baseball teams as metaphors. Baseball as a metaphor for life. The Yankees with their pinstripes, fresh haircuts, plethora of championships, and fans who aren’t satisfied with anything less than a World Series victory each year as a metaphor for American corporate greed. The Cubs with their second division finishes, cute little ballpark full of hot chicks in tiny pinks tees, their Jimmy Buffet Parrothead party-on ethic, their sunshine, and “we’ll get ‘em next year” attitude as a metaphor for how great it is to be alive. The Red Sox with their mighty struggles and heartbreaking finishes, constantly playing second fiddle to the vaunted Yankees, rolling their rock up the mountain like some modern day twenty-five man version of Sisyphus only to have it come crashing back upon them in the most painful way possible just as they were about to reach the peak as a metaphor for the futility of living. The White Sox have never been used as a metaphor for anything. They’re just a baseball team.

In a certain way the Sox are like a minor league team. Not in the way that my grandfather was suggesting when he would deride them as such. But in the way their community relates to them. The White Sox are Bridgeport. And Bridgeport is the White Sox. The same can’t be said for most major league ballclubs. If the Yankees closed up shop, New York would still be the greatest city in the world, the heart of modern American civilization. If they steamrolled Wrigley Field, it would quickly be replaced by high-priced condominiums and fashionable restaurants and it, and the Cubs, would soon be forgotten due to the transient nature of much of Lakeview’s population.

But if you removed the White Sox from Bridgeport, you would be amputating the community’s soul, aborting its very identity. In much the same way Walter O’Malley did to Brooklyn when he uprooted the Dodgers and replanted them on the west coast.

And there have often been rumors and even outright threats with regard to moving the Sox to a different locale. One of them occurred in the mid-seventies before Bill Veeck put a group together and rode to the rescue saving our Sox for those of us who love them.

My old man wasn’t a big fan of Veeck. He thought he was a bush leaguer who made a mockery of the game with stunts like Eddie Gaedel and all the promotions that seemed like something a double A team might offer. But for me, Veeck brought fun to the ol’ ballpark. The Sox still weren’t winning but suddenly going to the games was a celebration rather than a funeral. From opening day when Sox Park presented a bi-centennial parade complete with Veeck himself as the peg-legged fifer, I knew ’76 was going to be a big year. Things just felt different.

One major difference was the new Sox uniform. It looked like something a sixteen inch softball team would wear at Clarendon Park. The new outfits featured clamdigger pants and loose fitting tops that were worn untucked. And the colors had changed once again. The home jerseys were bright white and the away tops were a deep navy blue. They were accompanied by pants of each color that could be mixed or matched. The real surprise, though, was that the uniforms also had shorts that could be worn in lieu of pants on very hot days. The shorts were immediately and universally mocked by sportswriters and fans alike. Once again, Bill Veeck had gotten the attention he craved. And although the White Sox actually only wore the shorts in three games, to this day I run into people who remember the season when the Sox wore shorts.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

That was probably my second most favorite team. The A's were a juggernaut at the time but that team was the team that just had the look of a future World Series contender. Rock star minor league system at the time and young guys like McDowell already in the majors.

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those early 90s w sox teams were really fun to watch. as a cubs fan i was so jealous but couldn't stop watching. young players, seems like they would come back in the 9th inning any amount of runs down.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

I only went to old Comiskey 3-4 times. A couple of times as a middle schooler, since somehow I would always get 4 upper deck tickets a year through some school program. Then I went in the mid 80s once with some friends from graduate school. I didn't buy the tickets, which was a mistake, because we got the last section of the lower deck in LF. I had the end seat, so the last possible seat, and I couldn't see the infield, I was facing straight towards the warning track in about the 15th row. Eventually I just stood up in the aisle and leaned against the fence and looked at the infield.

I enjoy going to night games at the new stadium as long as I'm in the 100s somewhere. I have friends who are die-hard White Sox fans so I'll go with them a couple of times a year, and if I'm in the office and once or twice a season if there's a good stubhub price for the RF corner (109/110) and the weather is good, I'll go there instead of going out for dinner.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

White Sox vs California Angels, last game of the 1980 season (yes, yes I don't care if the thread title is 70s) ... the full thing top to bottom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfseG1crmGQ ... 2 hours, 41 minutes for your viewing pleasure ... Chris Sale wouldn't watch this video, but perhaps you might.

(If you just want to see Harry lead the 7th inning stretch, https://youtu.be/vfseG1crmGQ?t=1h58m22s)

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Yes--great defense.....

Thinking back on it, while I loved our South Side Hitmen, there was always a subversive pride I took in them. They had no budget, sparse talent, no great history and a ballpark that had an odd beauty even while reeking of stale beer and grilled onions.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Absolutely. The Sox have been, at least since I've been alive, kind of the anti-hero, but that team especially--both the players (the transients, the long-timers, and the unheralded, like Chet Lemon) and the area. There's a bit of a "fuck you, world" aspect to being a Sox fan, a kind of reverse snobbery.

I loved Comiskey, but whenever I was in another park, I was always overcome by the cleanliness and the fact that my feet didn't stick to the flooring.