Baseball is back, as White Sox fans head to Opening Day at Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side Thursday afternoon, while Cubs fans return to Wrigley Field on Monday for the home opener against the.
Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Thank you for the Sun-Times editorial pointing out that the 70 acres of parking lots surrounding Sox Park remain a lost opportunity for redevelopment. The White Sox would also benefit from their development, since White Sox fans would no longer face the prospect of every game being book-ended by traffic jams on the Dan Ryan. Sox fans could linger in the neighborhood to shop, eat and play, just as Cub fans do in Wrigleyville.
Let’s be honest: The difference in attendance between our two teams has more to do with their neighborhoods than with baseball.
Soon after the Chicago Journal, a now-defunct paper covering the Near West and South Sides, suggested in 2005 this vision for a “Comiskeyville” or “Soxville” on these vacant lots, the White Sox revealed plans to develop a portion of the parking lot north of 35th Street. That plan was started, and that’s when the Chisox Bar & Grill and Chicago Sports Depot were built. Those businesses were to ser