The Original Comiskey Park: Chicago's South Side from 1910 to 1990
The story of the original Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox for 80 seasons, from the 1917 champions and the 1919 scandal to the exploding scoreboard and the final game in 1990.
For 80 seasons the Chicago White Sox played in a steel-and-concrete ballpark on the city's South Side that was named for the man who owned the club, Charles Comiskey. The original Comiskey Park opened in 1910, saw a champion in 1917 and the club that lost the 1919 World Series, introduced the exploding scoreboard, and closed in 1990 after a final season in which the Sox won 94 games. It was replaced by a new park across the street, and the old one was demolished.
The building mattered less for its architecture than for how long it lasted and what it saw. It was the park where a championship team in 1917 became the club that threw the 1919 World Series, where a generation of fast, thin-hitting teams in the 1950s won a pennant by running, where a showman owner turned the scoreboard into a fireworks display, and where one of the most notorious promotions in baseball history ended in a riot in 1979. It also hosted three All-Star Games.
This article follows the park through those stages, using the historical record for the club's records and attendance, and it stays inside what is well documented about the building itself. The club's current ballpark has had several names since 1991, and this guide is about the old one, the first Comiskey. Where the details of the structure are not settled in our sources, we say so.
Before Comiskey: South Side Park
The White Sox were charter members of the American League in 1901, and the historical record lists their first home as South Side Park II, where they played from 1901 through 1909. The park's best attendance in those years was 687,419. The club won pennants in 1901 and 1906 while based in this older building, and it beat the Cubs in the 1906 World Series, four games to two, in a championship contested entirely within the city of Chicago. That team had a weak offense and a strong pitching staff, and its nickname, the Hitless Wonders, has lasted.
In 1910 the club moved into a new ballpark. The historical record lists the 1910 home as South Side Park II/Comiskey Park, which reflects the fact that the new park opened during that season and the club used both. The next season, 1911, is the first full year at Comiskey Park, and the database uses that name through 1990. That is 80 seasons in a single building, a long run by the standards of American ballparks, most of which were replaced after a generation or two.
The park was designed by Zachary Taylor Davis and built of steel and concrete, a material that was replacing wood in the major leagues in those years. It stood at 35th and Shields on Chicago's South Side. For the club's owner, the new building was a statement that the White Sox were a first-class operation, and the first seasons gave him reason to think so.
The 1917 champions and the 1919 scandal
The park's early years produced a championship and a disgrace within three seasons of each other. In 1917 the White Sox went 100-54 and won the American League, and they beat the New York Giants in the World Series, four games to two. It was the club's second championship, and it remains one of only three in franchise history, with the others in 1906 and 2005.
In 1919 the team was even better in some respects, finishing 88-52 in a season shortened by the war, and it won the pennant again. The World Series that year was a best-of-nine, and the White Sox lost it to the Cincinnati Reds, three games to five. The result was a shock, and rumors circulated at once that members of the White Sox had accepted money to lose. A grand jury investigation followed in 1920, and eight players were indicted, a jury acquitted them in 1921, and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banned all eight for life regardless of the verdict. The affair is the origin of the name Black Sox, and it is the subject of continuing research.
The consequences lasted for decades. The club finished second in 1920 with a 96-58 record, but the departure of the banned players broke up the roster, and the White Sox did not win another pennant until 1959, a gap of 40 years. During that stretch the park hosted some of the weakest teams in club history, including the 1932 club that went 49-102. The attendance that year at Comiskey Park was 233,198, among the lowest in the park's history, and the Great Depression was only part of the reason.
The park was not only a baseball venue. The Negro Leagues played their annual East-West All-Star Game there, and the National Football League's Chicago Cardinals used the building as a home field. These uses are part of what the building meant to the neighborhood, even if the historical record cannot measure them.
The Go-Go Sox and 1959
The next championship season, 1959, did not look like the teams that came before. The White Sox hit only 97 home runs as a team, which is a low figure for the era, and they won the pennant by running, bunting, defending and pitching. Nellie Fox won the American League's Most Valuable Player award and Early Wynn won the Cy Young Award, a pairing the club would repeat in 1993 with Frank Thomas and Jack McDowell. Luis Aparicio, the shortstop, led the league in stolen bases and finished his White Sox career with 318 of them, a club record second only to Eddie Collins's 368.
The team's final record was 94-60, good enough to finish first, and Comiskey Park drew 1,423,144 fans that season. The Sox lost the World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers, four games to two. It was the club's first World Series since 1919, and the team's style of play gave rise to the nickname Go-Go Sox.
The team's style also tells us something about the park. The historical record includes a park factor for each season, with 100 meaning neutral. Averaged by decade, Comiskey's factor stayed within a couple of points of 100 for most of its life: 97.8 in the 1920s, 99.3 in the 1930s, 97.6 in the 1940s, 100.5 in the 1950s and 98.5 in the 1960s, then 102.0 in the 1970s. In other words, Comiskey was not an extreme park in either direction, which suggests that the 1959 style reflected the roster as much as the walls.
Bill Veeck and the exploding scoreboard
The feature the park is best remembered for arrived in 1960, the first full season after Bill Veeck bought the club. Veeck was a promoter who believed that a game should be entertainment in addition to competition, and he had a reputation for gimmicks. At Comiskey he commissioned a new scoreboard that did more than show the score. When a White Sox player hit a home run, the board shot off fireworks, set off pinwheels and flashed lights, in a display that could be seen and heard across the park.
The exploding scoreboard became a signature of the White Sox. It was a visible sign that the club's home games had a flavor of their own, and it outlasted Veeck's first tenure as owner. When the club built a new park in 1991, it included a scoreboard that echoed the old one, which tells you how much the tradition mattered.
Veeck returned to the club as an owner in the mid-1970s, and his second run was as inventive as the first, though less successful on the field. The park hosted an organist, Nancy Faust, whose game-day music was a fixture of the 1970s and 1980s, and the broadcaster Harry Caray led the crowd in singing during the seventh-inning stretch from the mid-1970s until he left for the Cubs after 1981. These details are not in the numbers, but they are part of what people mean when they remember the old park.
The 1970s and Disco Demolition
The 1970s were a lean decade for the club on the field. In 1970 the White Sox went 56-106, one of the five worst records in franchise history by winning percentage. A bright spot was Dick Allen, who won the American League MVP award in 1972. The 1970s also produced the park's most infamous night.
On July 12, 1979, the White Sox held a promotion called Disco Demolition Night between games of a doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers. Fans were invited to bring disco records, which were gathered in a crate on the field and blown up. Thousands of people rushed the field afterward, the playing surface was badly damaged, and the second game of the doubleheader was forfeited to the Tigers. It remains a case study in how a promotion can overwhelm a game, and it is often cited by people who study the business side of baseball.
The incident is part of the Veeck story, since the promotion was a product of the same ethos that created the scoreboard. It also shows the limits of the approach. A ballpark that depends on spectacle can produce unforgettable nights, and not all of them are the ones the owner intended.
1983: winning ugly, and a third All-Star Game
The White Sox rose again in the early 1980s. In 1983 they won 99 games and the American League West by a wide margin, losing the American League Championship Series to the Baltimore Orioles, three games to one. LaMarr Hoyt won the Cy Young Award that year, and Ron Kittle was the Rookie of the Year. The team drew 2,132,821 fans, among the best crowds in the old park's history.
Comiskey Park hosted the All-Star Game three times, in 1933, 1950 and 1983. The 1933 game was the first All-Star Game ever played, and Chicago staged it as part of the city's world's fair celebrations. The 1983 game marked the 50th anniversary of the original at the same site. For any ballpark, hosting the game three times is an unusual honor, and the old Comiskey is among the few to have done so.
The best-attended season at the old park, according to the historical record, came in 1984, when 2,136,988 fans came to see a club that went 74-88. The figure shows that attendance at Comiskey did not simply follow the standings.
1990: the last season
The final year at the old Comiskey was a strong one. The White Sox went 94-68, finished second in the American League West and drew 2,002,357 fans. Closer Bobby Thigpen saved 57 games, a total that stood as the single-season record in the historical record until Francisco Rodriguez saved 62 in 2008. And in August 1990 a young first baseman named Frank Thomas made his debut, beginning a career in which he would hit 448 home runs for the White Sox, the most in franchise history.
The final game was played on September 30, 1990, against the Seattle Mariners, a young club whose pitching staff that year included a tall left-hander named Randy Johnson. Home plate was moved across the street to the new ballpark, a gesture that tied the two buildings together.
Why was the park replaced? The age of the building and the economics of the period, when clubs and cities were negotiating for new stadiums, are the usual explanations, and the details of the negotiation are a matter for the civic record, which this guide leaves alone.
What the old park left behind
The new park opened in 1991 as Comiskey Park, and the historical record lists it as Comiskey Park II through 2002. Later names followed: U.S. Cellular Field from 2003 through 2016, Guaranteed Rate Field from 2017 through 2024, and Rate Field in 2025. The old site is now a parking lot.
The old park had a long list of players who passed through. Luke Appling collected 2,749 hits for the club between 1930 and 1950, the franchise record, and Nellie Fox added 2,470. Ted Lyons won 260 games, Red Faber 254, and Ed Walsh posted a career earned run average of 1.81, the lowest of any pitcher with 1,000 innings in the club's records. The old park's records and the franchise's are intertwined in the lists.
Comparing the old Comiskey with other ballparks that closed in the same era shows how common its fate was. Old parks like Crosley Field, Candlestick Park, Tiger Stadium, Shea Stadium and the original Yankee Stadium all gave way to newer buildings, each leaving a gap in the sport's memory. If you want the long view of how a franchise relates to its park, those articles tell the same story from different cities. For a look at the man who pitched for the Mariners in that final series, read about Randy Johnson.
Common questions
When did the original Comiskey Park open? In 1910, partway through the season. The historical record lists the White Sox's 1910 home as South Side Park II/Comiskey Park and then as Comiskey Park from 1911 through 1990.
What was the exploding scoreboard? A scoreboard installed in 1960 under owner Bill Veeck that set off fireworks and pinwheels when a White Sox player hit a home run. A version of the idea was carried into the new park in 1991.
Where did the Sox win their championships? The 1906 title came while the club played at South Side Park II, and the 1917 title came at Comiskey Park. The 2005 title came at the new park, then called U.S. Cellular Field.
What was the final game? The White Sox played the Seattle Mariners on September 30, 1990. The club finished the season at 94-68.
Was Comiskey a hitter's park? By the batters' park factors in the historical record, it was close to neutral in most decades, with a decade average from 97.6 to 102.0.
Where to go next
For another view of how teams and ballparks fit together, see Crosley Field and the birth of night baseball and Candlestick Park. The pennant races that followed the club for decades are easier to follow if you know how magic numbers work. For the current club and its record, use the Chicago White Sox team page, and for the data on today's park the ballparks section has a page for each stadium.