JOE SOX

Comiskey Park under construction on Chicago's South Side in the spring of 1910 — a ballpark rising in steel and concrete on a former city dump at 35th Street and Shields Avenue, where White Sox owner Charles Comiskey was building the game a palace. Comiskey hired architect Zachary Taylor Davis — who would design Wrigley Field four years later — and sent him touring the country's ballparks with pitcher Ed Walsh. Ground was broken on February 15, 1910, the cornerstone was laid on St. Patrick's Day, and the fireproof park went up in about four months despite a five-week steelworkers' strike, at a cost of $750,000 — a pitcher's park, 362 feet down the lines and 420 to center, exactly as Walsh wanted. It opened as White Sox Park on July 1, 1910, and the housewarming was spoiled: Barney Pelty of the St. Louis Browns threw a five-hitter to beat Walsh 2-0 before an official crowd of 24,900. Soon renamed for Comiskey and billed as the Baseball Palace of the World, the park then held 80 seasons of Chicago baseball: the 1917 World Series title, the 1919 Black Sox scandal, the first All-Star Game on July 6, 1933 — where Babe Ruth hit the first All-Star home run in a 4-2 American League win — night baseball's arrival on August 14, 1939, the 1959 pennant, Bill Veeck's exploding scoreboard in 1960, and Disco Demolition Night on July 12, 1979. The last of its 6,247 major-league games came on September 30, 1990, a 2-1 win over Seattle before 42,849 fans; demolished in 1991 as the oldest park in the majors, its home plate is now marked by a marble plaque in a parking lot across 35th Street from the new stadium. ⚾ Comiskey was still the oldest park in the majors when the wrecking ball came in 1991 — should it have been saved, the way Fenway Park and Wrigley Field were? 👇️