Comiskey Park
| Comiskey Park | |
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The Baseball Palace of the World Old Comiskey White Sox Park |
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| Earlier names | |
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White Sox Park (1910-1912, 1962-1975) |
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| Data | |
| place |
 Chicago , Illinois
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| Coordinates | 41 ° 49 '54 " N , 87 ° 38' 1" W |
| owner | Chicago White Sox |
| opening | July 1, 1910 |
| demolition | 1991 |
| surface | Grass artificial turf (1969–1976) |
| costs | US $ 750,000 |
| architect | Zachary Taylor Davis Osborn Engineering |
| capacity | 28,800 (1910) • 52,000 (1927) 50,000 (1938) • 51,000 (1939) 50,000 (1940) • 46,550 (1942) 50,934 (1953) • 44,492 (1969) 43,951 (1990) |
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The Comiskey Park was a baseball stadium in the south of the city of Chicago , Illinois . It was the home of the Chicago White Sox .
history
Charles Comiskey had the stadium built in 1910. It has hosted the World Series four times and major league baseball games over 6,000 times . The heavyweight world championship fight between Jim Braddock and Joe Louis also took place in Comiskey Park in 1937.
In 1991 a new Comiskey Park was opened (on the same street), which was renamed US Cellular Field in 2003.
Comiskey Park was built on an old landfill that Charles Comiskey bought in 1909 to replace the old South Side Park . The stadium, which was initially called the White Sox Stadium, was very modern for the time. It was only the fourth stadium in the MLB, which was built from reinforced concrete , and had a capacity of 29,000 spectators, which was the record within the MLB at the time. Therefore, the park was soon referred to as The Baseball Palace of the World .
The White Sox lost their first game in the new stadium 2-0 to the St. Louis Browns . In 1917 the World Series took place in Comiskey Park for the first time . The White Sox won three games in front of their home crowd and beat the New York Giants 4-2 overall. The next year the World Series was held at Comiskey Park, but this time the Chicago Cubs were the hosts as Wrigley Field didn't have enough space. The Cubs lost the World Series 2-4 against the Boston Red Sox and could only win one game in Chicago. In 1919 the famous Black Sox World Series followed , which the White Sox deliberately lost to the Cincinnati Reds because some players had taken a bribe.
In 1933 the whole baseball world looked again to Chicago, where the first MLB All-Star Game was taking place in Comiskey Park . This won the American League against the National League .
Forty years after the Black Sox scandal, the last World Series took place in Comiskey Park in 1959 , in which the White Sox lost 4-2 to the Los Angeles Dodgers . They could only win one of three games in Chicago. In July 1979, the Disco Demolition Night took place as part of a game against the Detroit Tigers , during which the stadium was stormed and the field was devastated. In 1983 the All-Star Game took place again in Comiskey Park for the fiftieth anniversary and was won by the American League this time as well.
In the 1980s, the owner of the White Sox, Jerry Reinsdorf , received US $ 200 million after several demands and threats to move the franchise to Saint Petersburg to build a new stadium. The Comiskey Park II (now Guaranteed Rate Field ) should replace the Comiskey Park as the home of the White Sox. As a result, the stadium was stormed and torn apart by fans after a game against the Detroit Tigers . The entire stadium was later demolished and parking spaces were created for the new stadium.
Use outside of baseball
In the beginning, the stadium was also used a lot to host American football games. First, the Chicago Bulls used the stadium in the only season of the American Football League for their home games. Later, the Chicago Cardinals, the first and only NFL club, moved into the stadium. After moving to Normal Park in the meantime , the franchise returned to Comiskey Park in 1929. In 1944 a brief merger with the Pittsburgh Steelers to Card-Pitt followed . This team stayed in the Cardinals stadium and broke up after a year. Three years later, the NFL Championship Game, the most important football game ever played in Comiskey Park, took place. Twelve years after this great success, the Cardinals left Chicago and with it Comiskey Park for St. Louis .
In the 1980s and 1968 Comiskey Park was even used as a football stadium. The Chicago Mustangs , a team from the United Soccer Association , played their home games there because they belonged to White Sox owner Arthur Allyn, Jr. After one season, the league merged with the NPSL to form the NASL and there the Mustangs could no longer keep up and therefore became a semi-professional team. So they stopped playing in Comiskey Park from then on. Football then returned to the park in 1980. The Chicago Sting played at Comiskey Park for five years and won two championships during that time. In 1985 the franchise moved and from now on called Wrigley Field his home.
literature
- Irwin J. Cohen: Comiskey Park. Arcadia Publishing, 2004, ISBN 978-0738532448 .
- Peter Elliott: Park Life: The Summer of 1977 at Comiskey Park. Northwestern University Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0970727800 .
- Douglas Bukowski: Baseball Palace of the World: The Last Year of Comiskey Park. Nelson-Hall, 1991, ISBN 978-0925065452 .
