Old Comiskey Park Homeplate

The Old Comiskey Park Home Plate marks the historic site of the former ballpark in Chicago's Armour Square neighborhood. From 1910 to 1990, this stadium was the second home of the Chicago White Sox, after South Side Park. It was built on a former landfill that then-franchise owner Charles Comiskey had purchased in order to create a modern ballpark. One of the first reinforced-concrete and steel structures in Major League Baseball, it seated 28,000 fans and was considered an architectural masterpiece in its day. Thanks to this innovation and its large capacity, the park quickly earned the nickname The Baseball Palace of the World.

The stadium's history is inseparably linked to major moments in baseball. It hosted the World Series four times, including the controversial 1919 series that went down in history as the Black Sox Scandal. It was also the site of the first MLB All-Star Game in 1933 and the anniversary game in 1983. Besides baseball, the park served as a stage for other sports as well. The NFL's Chicago Cardinals played their home games here, and in 1937 Joe Louis fought an important heavyweight boxing match here. In the 1960s and 1980s, even soccer teams such as the Chicago Mustangs and the Chicago Sting used the stadium for their matches.

After the stadium came under threat in the 1980s when the franchise considered moving to St. Petersburg, the owner secured funding to build a new ballpark. The new stadium, which today carries the sponsor name Guaranteed Rate Field, opened directly south of the old site in 1991. Old Comiskey Park was demolished after its final game in 1990. Today the site is used primarily as a parking lot, with the home plate standing as a lasting memorial to the long and eventful history of this legendary sports venue.