Sevens: How Chicago Teams Have Fared Recently in Seven-Game series-- Part 2

CHICAGO CUBS:  October 15, 2013,:  One win from their first World Series berth since 1945, the Cubs fell to the Marlins 9-6 at Wrigley Field.  The Cubs took a 5-3 lead into the fifth, but Kerry Wood couldn't hold the lead.  (This was the year of the Bartman episode.)

CHICAGO WHITE SOX:  October 8, 1919:  Little-known fact:  The White Sox have never played in a decisive Game 7.  Their only game 7 occurred during the 1919 World Series against the Reds.  The Sox won 4-1 in Cincinnati to stay alive in the best-of-nine series, but lost Ga,e 8-- and the series--  a day later at Comiskey Park.

The Old Black Sox days.  --DaCoot

Born and Razed; Comiskey Park-- Part 4: Bad Shape Toward End

Sox manager Robin Ventura played many years as a White Sox player and remembers the last two years of the park in '89 and '90, saying, "It had to go, but there was a certain charm."

Sox batting coach Harold Baines also played many years at Comsikey and says it was pretty much uninhabitable toward the end: "The bricks were falling down in the outfield.  The playing surface was fine, but when I played the outfield bricks in right field would fall down.  It was time to go."

The home clubhouse was cramped, like Wrigley's, with a small kitchen run by clubhouse manager "Chicken Willie" Thompson.  It was not well-ventilated, and the aroma of fried foods wafted through the tunnel toward the Sox bench.

Ventura said: "You'd sit on the bench and smell Chicken Willie's fried chicken.  And by the seventh inning, you're like, 'You know, I am kind of hungry right now.' You'd be able to sneak down there and get something to eat to get you through the game until the end of the game."

Sneaky Robin.  --

Born and Razed: Chicago's Comiskey Park-- Part 3: What I Lost

However, when they tore down the old Comiskey Park, among things that were lost was the site of the first All-Star Game in 1933, Negro league games, Beatles concerts and the first exploding scoreboard as well as the Go-Go Sox, the 1919 Black Sox and Disco Demolition Night.

I myself lost my first-ever major league baseball game site, Milt Wilcox's near perfect-game for the Tigers in 1983, the only foul ball I ever caught hit by Don Baylor off Britt Burns, sitting in the outfield for the 1983 All-Star Game, the 1983 Sox, the 1983 playoff games when my heart was broken when Tito Landrum hit that home run in the 11th inning to close out the Sox season.

Then, there was my all-time favorite Sox team in 1967 as well as my second favorite one from 1983.  Then, there were the drives to Comiskey and rehashing the games going back home with David and later Pudge (we had bought 20-game ticket packages for the 1983 season so we could be guaranteed seats for the All-Star Game.

And, I always prefer to save something as oppose to tear it down. My own thought was that Comiskey was not beyond saving, but Reinsdorf had let the park go for too long.

Anyway, No More Old Comiskey Park.  --DaCoot

Born and Razed: Chicago's Comiskey Park-- Part 2

We'll never know how much hoopla would have gone with the 100th anniversary of Comiskey because it is now a parking lot for the new Comiskey Park across 35th Street, later renamed that other name which I shall not mention.

Said Sox fan (yes, there are a few of us) Doug Bukowski:  "With all due respect to Wrigley Field, it's not that important that Jimmy Buffett and Bruce Springsteen went there.  What is important is there is a place on the South Side where the color line fell in the American League, and where Joe Louis became heavyweight champion of the world."

"And, yes, Babe Ruth went to Wrigley Field.  But guess what?  He did it like twenty times a year at Comiskey."  It was the Babe that owner Charles Comiskey to double deck the outfield stands to pack more fans in to see him.

Bukowsky, now 61 was even part of an effort to save the old Comiskey Park back in the late 1980s.  At that time, most Sox fans were more worried about losing the team to Tampa-St. Petersburg, in Florida where the club owners Reinsdorf and Einhorn had threatened to move if they didn't get a new, state-funded stadium.

Well, the Sox didn't move and are still here.  Thankfully, but....

Always a Sox Fan.  --Cooter

Some More of Chicago's Innovations-- Part 2: White Sox Exploding Scoreboard

Chicago can credit its rebirth after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. It was a spirit on innovation, entrepreneurship and ambition that led to its recovery and continues on to this day. //// Phil Rosenthal would like to add ten more things to the list of Chicago innovations. //// #10. SCOREBOARD AS ENTERTAINMENT //// White Sox owner and showman Bill Veeck introduced his pinball-inspired "exploding" scoreboard at Comiskey Park in 1960 (the year after the Sox appearance in the World Series). To say entertaining scoreboards have caught on is putting it mildly. //// Even the Cubs with their beloved old-fashinoned, hand-operated scoreboard say they desperately need a massive video screen. //// That 1960 scoreboard was cued by Sox homeruns with strobe lights, electric pinwheels, sound effects and two-three-four or so fireworks. There was even a modest Sox-o-Gram message board and its own sound system. //// That original 1960 scoreboard reportedly cost $300,000, about $2.3 million today. Last season, the Seattle Mariners installed a scoreboard with a 202-by-57-foot video screen in Safeco Field for $15 million. //// So Next Time You're Entertained By a Scoreboard, Thank Bill. --RoadDog