front page of the wall street journal

[sec159row2]

haven't had a chance to read to article yet but the sox attendence woes have made the front page of the WSJ :banghead

[Adam G]

haven't had a chance to read to article yet but the sox attendence woes have made the front page of the WSJ :banghead

 

I was gonna post this up, but I see that you beat me to it, so here's the article.

 

 

 

White Sox Are Hot, So Why Are Fans In Chicago So Blasé?

Filling U.S. Cellular Field IsHard in a Winning Year; Second Fiddle to Wrigley

 

By ERIK AHLBERG

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

 

CHICAGO -- The Chicago White Sox have the best record in baseball, and their best chance in years of ending an 88-year drought of World Series championships. But here in one of America's great sports towns, hardly anyone seems to care.

 

The team has tried almost everything to lure fans, including half-price tickets on Mondays, $1 hot dogs, and roving bands of cheerleaders who give free tickets to anyone who happens to be wearing a White Sox hat or jersey. Still, the Sox are averaging only 23,000 fans a game -- a tad more than half the capacity of their South Side home, U.S. Cellular Field. When the Sox recently faced another first-place team, the Los Angeles Angels, only about 20,000 showed up, despite delightful weather and a 2-for-1 ticket special.

 

"I've always said that the PR department should just hand out tickets to the upper deck -- they'd at least get the money for parking," Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle says. Despite his 7-1 won-loss record, the 6-foot-2-inch lefthander says he rarely gets recognized around town.

 

Brothers Kevin and Don Smith were among only four groups of tailgaters in a half-empty parking lot outside the ballpark before a recent game. "I can call friends on the day of a game, cook some burgers, have a couple of beers and then sit in an excellent seat," said Kevin Smith, 42 years old, wearing a crumpled Sox cap while tending a grill sizzling with blackened chicken wings.

 

"I love baseball, and I love the Sox. It kills me that they don't get the attention they deserve," said Bill Roach, 50, of St. Charles, Ill. As he spoke, he was exiting a Sox win over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on the city's north side -- and Wrigley, with a seating capacity of 39,538, was packed as usual.

 

At the heart of the Sox's troubled wooing of Chicago lies a conundrum worthy of Yogi Berra: They haven't been good enough to win, and they haven't been bad enough to tap into baseball's romance with hapless losers.

 

The White Sox won their last World Series in 1917. Even before the Boston Red Sox exorcised their 86-year curse last year, the White Sox had the American League's longest drought. In the National League, the Cubs haven't won a series since 1908.

 

Sox outfielder "Shoeless" Joe Jackson and seven of his teammates were banned from baseball for allegedly taking payoffs to deliberately lose the 1919 World Series. The team didn't win another American League pennant until 1959. When they did, the late Mayor Richard J. Daley ordered the fire commissioner to sound the city's civil-defense siren system, sending thousands into the streets. "Sox fans thought, 'Geez, we've finally won the pennant and now the Russians are invading,' " says Don Smith, 56, one of the brothers at the recent Sox game. (The Sox lost the '59 Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4 games to 2.)

 

 

While most seasons the Sox bumped along in the middle of the pack, the Cubs endeared themselves to fans by staging some of the most dramatic collapses in baseball history. Folks here still talk about 1969, when the Cubs lost 18 of their last 26 games to lose the Eastern Division title to the New York Mets. Then, in 2003, the team was just five outs from the World Series when the Cubs came unglued after a fan's ill-timed grab at a foul ball.

 

Cubs fans had such colorful stars as Ernie Banks and Sammy Sosa to entertain them, just as long-suffering Red Sox fans could revel in the larger-than-life exploits of Ted Williams and Roger Clemens. Sox stars Luis Aparicio, Luke Appling and Nellie Fox didn't inspire that same sort of devotion.

 

Tony Zackavec, 31, a Sox fan from Joliet, Ill., says Sox supporters typically are hard-to-please, working-class Chicagoans. "Ninety-nine percent of White Sox fans are blue-collar," he says, and they refuse to shell out money for a mediocre product.

 

But, as of yesterday afternoon, the Sox led the American League's Central Division by five games. They've built their 42-21 record on strong pitching, speedy base-running and late-inning comebacks. Mirroring the South Side's rough-and-tumble image, the team consists mostly of scrappy, low-priced, no-name players.

 

Some blame attendance problems on owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who threatened to move the team to Florida in the 1980s and was a leading hard-liner in the 1994 baseball strike, which began when the Sox happened to be in first place in their division.

 

Some fans say Tribune Co., which owns the Cubs and two of Chicago's biggest media outlets -- the Chicago Tribune and WGN-TV -- slights the Sox in its coverage. Mike North, a local sports-radio host, says the Sox get the most ink when there's a crime near their ballpark. Tribune sports editor Dan McGrath says, "We try to be as fair and balanced as we can."

 

Many people fault Comiskey Park, which one local columnist has described as having the feel of West Berlin during the Cold War. The park, which replaced the old Comiskey in 1991 and was renamed U.S. Cellular Field in 2003, is bordered by a rust-stained concrete wall, train tracks and an interstate highway. Some of Chicago's toughest housing projects loom beyond the outfield fence. There are only a few bars within walking distance.

 

Monte Nelson, a 42-year-old construction worker who lives just three blocks from the field, prefers bellying up to the bar at his favorite neighborhood tavern, First Base, where he says the beer is colder and there's free parking for his motorcycle. "You can see it better sitting right here," Mr. Nelson says while peering at a TV screen through a haze of cigarette smoke.

 

The Cell, as the team's ballpark is often called here, was one of the last efficient but unappealing fields built before stadiums in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and San Francisco showed how to design a park that's equal parts ballfield and tourist attraction. In response to fan complaints, the White Sox have spent $80 million over the past five years to make their stadium cozier, adding shapely awnings, tearing off the uppermost rows and, for opening day next year, switching seats from blue to forest green.

 

There are advantages to attending a Sox game. Bathroom lines are short and foul balls are easier to nab. But many Chicagoans prefer the cozy confines of historic Wrigley Field, with its ivy-covered outfield walls, hand-operated scoreboard and neighborhood teeming with saloons. Despite a mediocre performance most of the year, the second-place Cubs have played to 98% capacity, and nearly had a sellout April 23 when they lost to the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates in near-freezing temperatures with 25-mile-an-hour winds blasting off Lake Michigan.

 

"Even if we win the World Series this year, Wrigley will still sell out next year," Sox first baseman Paul Konerko says. "But I can't guarantee we'd be sold out here."

 

Sox marketing executive Brooks Boyer says the team doesn't worry about "the 800-pound gorilla to the north," only the "frustrating" misperceptions that continue to dog the Sox. Fans are slowly coming back and attendance this year is the best in a decade. "It's not scary to be on the South Side," he insists. Ozzie Guillen, the three-time All Star shortstop for the Sox who became manager last season, says, "If we continue to win, they'll start to show up."

 

They've won back one fan. Current mayor Richard M. Daley, son of the siren sounder, boycotted the team for two years after the 1994 strike. Now he has season tickets behind the White Sox dugout and occasionally uses his news conferences to comment on Mr. Guillen's managerial moves. White Sox General Manager Ken Williams says the team appreciates the mayor's support. "We just need him to bring ten or fifteen thousand of his friends."

Edited June 15, 2005 by Adam G

[kev211]

"I've always said that the PR department should just hand out tickets to the upper deck -- they'd at least get the money for parking," Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle says.

[Steff]

:sleep

[LosMediasBlancas]

 

....not to mention the concession stands.

It'll never happen, you can't cheapen your poduct that way. I'm sure he was joking.

[kev211]

....not to mention the concession stands.

It'll never happen, you can't cheapen your poduct that way. I'm sure he was joking.

Thats why I laughed

[southsider2k5]

Again no mention of the double digit increases in attentance.

[kapkomet]

C'mon you Chicago bastards... GO TO EVERY GAME!

[kapkomet]

I should add... it's too bad on one hand that attendance isn't better, but on the other hand the teams that draw well haven't been in town yet, and attendance is up anyway. It will go WAY up when the "popular teams" come to town, Boston, Cubs, NYY, etc.

[tonyho7476]

C'mon you Chicago bastards... GO TO EVERY GAME!

 

I've been to the last two...I think I should retire. Apparently they don't like when I come out.

[Steff]

I've been to the last two...I think I should retire.  Apparently they don't like when I come out.

 

 

 

Tell me about it.. I'm stressing about going tonight.

[tonyho7476]

Tell me about it.. I'm stressing about going tonight. 

 

I'm not going tonight...I am going friday and saturday...and I am scared

[Steff]

I'm not going tonight...I am going friday and saturday...and I am scared

 

 

 

I'm out of town for the weekend so I don't want to miss these.

[skidoochic]

I'm not going tonight...I am going friday and saturday...and I am scared

Weren't you one of the ones making fun of me about my jersey jinx? I wore the jersey the last two nights too!

[tonyho7476]

Weren't you one of the ones making fun of me about my jersey jinx?  I wore the jersey the last two nights too!

 

No, but if your jersey is jinxed you need to burn it...

[skidoochic]

No, but if your jersey is jinxed you need to burn it...

I can't burn it. It's my "pretend it's really A.J.'s " jersey. I guess I will only be able to wear it when the Sox don't play.

[tonyho7476]

I can't burn it.  It's my "pretend it's really A.J.'s  " jersey.  I guess I will only be able to wear it when the Sox don't play. 

 

Take the jersey, get AJ to sign it, and hang it on the wall.

[kev211]

Take the jersey, get AJ to sign it, and hang it on the wall.

Great idea

[mreye]

Seriously, why couldn't the Sox sell upper deck seats for $5 a piece?

[Steff]

Seriously, why couldn't the Sox sell upper deck seats for $5 a piece?

 

 

 

Cheapening the product doesn't attract "good fans", IMO.

[mreye]

Cheapening the product doesn't attract "good fans", IMO.

I think I'm a "good fan" and I would be able to go to 10+ games instead of

[Steff]

I think I'm a "good fan" and I would be able to go to 10+ games instead of

 

 

IMO, they should offer more of a discount to those willing to buy games up front. The commitment, IMO, should be rewarded more.

[mreye]

IMO, they should offer more of a discount to those willing to buy games up front. The commitment, IMO, should be rewarded more.

Sure. Myself, though, I'm more of a "spur of the moment" guy. I'd like to get the "Sox 7" or "Ozzie 13", but I just can't decide 6 months ahead of time which games I want to go to. It's one of my flaws that my wife repeatedly points out.

[tonyho7476]

I think I'm a "good fan" and I would be able to go to 10+ games instead of

 

The Sox have already kind of hurt themselves with half-price mondays. People show up on that day and not on other nights. I feel for you not being able to go to games...the more the merrier, no doubt.

Edited June 15, 2005 by tonyho7476

[kev211]

Sure. Myself, though, I'm more of a "spur of the moment" guy. I'd like to get the "Sox 7" or "Ozzie 13", but I just can't decide 6 months ahead of time which games I want to go to. It's one of my flaws that my wife repeatedly points out.

Same here I dont decide to go to a game untill the day of the game.