In Chicago, ”a trip to the ballpark isn`t supposed to feel like a drive to the shopping mall,” Blair Kamin writes in ”New Comiskey: New neighbor not necessarily new friend” on June 26, ”yet that`s what the soul of this new baseball machine is all about.” How true. How regrettably and sickeningly true.
Writing from a fan`s perspective, Kamin mentions the intimacy with the game that fans have lost at the new stadium; the sheer ugliness of its external access ramps; the drab discomfort of and obvious disregard for the average fan that its Himalayan upper deck expresses; the mortal wound of wasted space that its parking lots have gashed into the urban fabric; and the sense of alienation from the game of baseball, as opposed to the business of baseball and conspicuous consumption, which the site forces on the innocent fan.
I`ve been going out to the old Comiskey Park and Wrigley Field since the early 1960s, and, speaking for myself, one thing is certain. Chicago now has only one great ballpark left.
Sure, the new Comiskey Park is fine if you want to get your pockets fleeced. And I`ll bet it makes the owners of the White Sox loads of cash. But it`s a lousy place for watching a ballgame. And an even lousier place for a sporting event to bring people together, the way it once did.
