As the “pendulum of fiscal importance has shifted from the stadium itself to the area around the stadium” and the White Sox exploring options for a potential move, the underdeveloped area outside Guaranteed Rate Field is a “very different prospect” from other development projects, and encouraging its use would "not only be attractive to a baseball team in that stadium but also create a big asset for Chicago’s South Side,” according to CHICAGO TRIBUNE’s Editorial Board. Here is “a chance” for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to “spur major development in a challenged area and not to preside over the exit of two Chicago sports teams.” That is the “key here -- creating something akin" to what the Tigers have "done in downtown Detroit.” And there is “more available space than was the case in Wrigleyville.” In the Editorial Board's view, the stadium “does not need replacing,” but it could “be overhauled and integrated into an exciting fan and leisure zone in a neighborhood that could use that kind of investment.” That should be “done with private moneys,” but the city “can and should be the cheerleader, facilitator and incentivizer” (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 8/26). In Boston, Peter Abraham wrote the White Sox are an “attractive job” if owner Jerry Reinsdorf “commits to adding more analytics staffers and technology to the operation.” But the “87-year-old owner might need convincing to go that route” (BOSTON GLOBE, 8/26).
WAITING FOR THE SHOE TO DROP: In Chicago, Bernie Lincicome wrote this White Sox season “has been one dull wait for the next shoe to drop.” In Reinsdorf's four decades of stewardship, the White Sox “have floated on the periphery of baseball, as well as in their own city, winning one World Series and threatening few.” The wish to “Sell the team, Jerry,” assumes that new ownership “will fix everything, and it is hard to refute the logic or the yearning.” The question is, “to whom?” (Chicago DAILY HERALD, 8/27). In Chicago, Scot Gregor wrote being around the Sox the past 29 years, there “have been some pretty low moments.” Pretty bad stuff, but “nothing like this season.” Not “even close” (Chicago DAILY HERALD, 8/27).
SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS: In Chicago, Rick Morrissey wrote it is “not one thing, it’s the other, almost all of it self-inflicted, the rest of it filed under the heading, ‘Only the Sox.’” Bad things “don’t happen to the Sox.” The Sox “do bad things -- consistently.” To expect anything else “is madness.” It is why “almost no one thinks that whatever happens next will be good” (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 8/27). In Chicago, Scoop Jackson wrote to “watch this misery of a Sox season wrapped and bowed up into a single week was Shakespearean and Kid Cudian” and “could only be explained by the thoughts and beliefs that there’s more (worse) to come, that the next month or so of games can’t end quick enough” (CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, 8/25).
