Baseball Way Back: When old Comiskey Park was new

It may be hard to believe, but a White Sox stadium was actually built in Chicago with private funds.

Even more astonishing, the home team not only played in it for more than 30 years before it needed a new ballpark but held its last game there 80 years later.

This was, of course, Comiskey Park, the Baseball Palace of the World, as it was called even in its first year, 1910.

It was the vision of the Old Roman, Charles A. Comiskey. “Commy,” as he was known before the word acquired its pejorative connotation, would be “using his check book in providing a new home for his new team,” The Inter Ocean newspaper reported on April 17, 1910.

It would have “the largest seating capacity of any plant used exclusively for baseball purposes,” with more than 35,000 seats.

The Chicago paper went on to remind us that this wouldn’t be the first time that Commy opened his checkbook to build a large ballpark. He had even taken some heat for it.

When the 39th Street grounds was built a decade earlier, the paper reported, a friend told him, “Commy, you are only throwing away money building these stands so large.”

But, the paper said, after the first three years there were several times each season when the size of the crowds was limited by the capacity of the park.

Comiskey boasted to reporters when plans for the new park were made public in September 1909, “Just put it down that we will have the finest park ever. We will spare no expense in giving to the Chicago public a park that they will be proud of.”

By Jan. 30, 1910, contractors were ready to begin construction, with a July 1 target date for opening. Reports the same day also noted, in retrospect ominously, that Comiskey had signed Pacific Coast League first baseman Chick Gandil to a contract. Gandil would infamously play a role in throwing the 1919 World Series.

By Feb. 19, the excavation began at 35th and Shields, but the baseball season started at the old South Side grounds at 39th and Wentworth in April with a series against the St. Louis Browns.

The Browns were also the opponent for the opening of the new grounds at 35th Street July 1. In a preview of the game, the cost of the new park was given at $750,000.

Ed Walsh and Billy Sullivan wee battery mates that day for the Sox, with Walsh yielding only two runs. The Browns, however, denied the Sox a single run, much like the Tigers did in 1991 on Opening Day at the new Comiskey Park.

A paid crowd of nearly 25,000 passed through the turnstiles, although the total was actually 28,000. Prior to the game, an “automobile parade” of hundreds of cars stretched across 33rd Street before dropping notables at the entrances.

A regimental band played, “Hail to the Chief,” as Comiskey, accompanied by Chicago Mayor Fred Busse, received a banner at home plate.

The Chicago Tribune pointed out that “new electric score board worked finely.”

The first Sox hit at the new park was registered by future White Sox manager Lena Blackburne, who also recorded the second Sox hit. But Browns hurler Barney Pelty limited the Sox to only five hits total, one of them by Sox pitcher Walsh.

As Comiskey Park rounded out its first year, an intriguing hint of things to come arrived in the form of electric lights. Yes, decades before Major League Baseball played its first game under the lights, there was night baseball at Comiskey.

On Aug. 28, 1910, the Chicago Tribune reported, “Night baseball played under the glare of nineteen arc lamps was tried successfully last night at Comiskey’s new Sox park, Callahan’s Logan Squares defeating Rogers Parks in a well played contest 3 to 0.”

According to the article, “The ball could be followed as readily as if thrown under natural light, and the players declared that nothing interfered with their vision.”

Charles Comiskey would not live to see the White Sox play their first night game at Comiskey Park. The opponent on Aug. 14, 1939 was the St. Louis Browns, and this time the Sox beat the Browns 5-2. The winning pitcher was John Rigney, who would later marry Charles Comiskey’s granddaughter Dorothy.