For some fans, baseball is beautiful because the outcome of a game doesn’t have to matter. This is especially true on the South Side, where the White Sox have lost a mind-boggling 120 games, and will likely set the record for the most losses (121) in an MLB season by the time this paper hits newsstands. That doesn’t stop a few hours at Guaranteed Rate Field from being a summertime Chicago activity for almost any mood. Perhaps more importantly, it might be the most purely Chicago of any sports venue in a city that has plenty of them to offer.
Before we get into the specificities that make baseball on the South Side a special experience, it has to be said that an afternoon at the ballpark is, in my view, summer in its ultimate form. In a world increasingly devoid of third spaces, it’s a place where a lone fan can feel social while maintaining their solitude, whether the crowd is at its current sparse baseline or 40,000 strong in the best of times.
Simultaneously, the slow and unrushed nature of the sport makes it a lovely environment for those who are inclined to be social, facilitating hours of conversation interrupted only by the periodic moments of excitement that ultimately lead to a win or a loss.
Live baseball is a unique environment within the landscape of professional sports. Again, the action on the field can be completely secondary if one wants it to be. In Chicago, I’ve found there are few better places to simply hang out than in the seats at Guaranteed Rate Field. At a Bulls or Blackhawks game at the United Center, the nonstop action and dazzling lights of a dark and cavernous arena don’t make a fruitful setting for conversation. Football features plenty of pauses for breath, but one might have some difficulty sustaining any kind of physical relaxation while bracing against the winter winds at Soldier Field. Even though baseball is played on the North Side too, Wrigley Field can resemble a college party house as much as a ballpark.
There’s a serenity to an afternoon or evening at the Sox game that can’t be taken for granted, and a kind of peace to soaking in the sun with an overpriced draft Old Style that I have difficulty finding anywhere else in the city.
The ballpark still colloquially referred to by erstwhile names like “Comiskey” and “Sox Park” has a less-than-stellar reputation among those who frequent the MLB stadium circuit; when it opened in 1991, the park’s bland design and steep seating was panned by local critics. A series of renovations in the mid-2000s completely reshaped its aesthetic, though, and while it’ll never be the out-of-town tourist attraction you can find in Lakeview, it’s become one of the most quintessentially local entertainment venues in the city and one of my favorite places to bring visitors.
Though it still has hot dogs, cracker jacks, and classic baseball fare, there are but a select few venues across our area codes that match the diversity of food you can find at 35th and Shields. It encapsulates the cultural landscape of the South Side as well as any quasi-public space in the city, and even with quite literally the worst team in MLB history on the field, the experience gets no less fresh as the summer marches on.
There’s always something new to discover. Despite having wandered those concourses hundreds of times, it was only this past June that I came across an excellent empanada stand tucked underneath the center field fan deck. I also recently enjoyed their spiritual Eastern European counterpart with a tray of pierogis behind home plate.
If you’re craving Mexican food, or simply want to avoid meat, I’ve often availed myself of the elote bowl, a version of the street food that I have yet to see replicated across the nearly fifteen MLB parks I’ve visited. Other choices pay homage to the history of the team itself, like the vendors along the baselines selling Cuban sandwiches named for Hall of Famer and Sox legend Orestes ‘Minnie’ Miñoso, the first in what over the last several decades has become an extensive tradition of Cuba-born stars to play on the South Side.
In summers past, I’ve watched friends delight at finding the perfect vacation photo op with a footlong Chicago-style hot dog. If I ever developed a spell of mid-game amnesia and forgot where I was, it wouldn’t take long for the availability of a slice of Beggars Pizza or a neon-colored Rainbow Cone to jog my memory.
The local flavor doesn’t end with food. There’s a simple lightness to the in-game entertainment that makes the oft-ugly action feel irrelevant. It often draws a smile or a laugh even amid some of my darkest moods. With every fan being given a card with an assigned winner upon entering the stadium, the crowd’s investment in the scoreboard’s animated Italian Beef race—a virtual sprint between anthropomorphized varieties of beef available at your local Buona—is palpable. Just a few weeks ago, I laughed as I watched a group of Elvis impersonators skydive onto the field to throw the first pitch of Elvis Night, a Sox tradition stretching back nearly two decades now. No matter what happens on the field, the Friday night fireworks show rarely disappoints.
There’s a kind of public entertainment to be found here at the ballpark in Bridgeport that seems to exist in fewer and fewer places. On September 13, Hispanic Heritage night, three days before Mexico’s Independence Day, I jammed out in my seat as live performances of musical genres across the Latin diaspora took place outside the stadium and in the eye-catching Kids Zone, a huge, multi-level mezzanine beyond the left field concourse with activities and entertainment options for younger fans. An attendee of Polish Heritage night, meanwhile, often hears the stadium filled with polka music. The list of cultures celebrated at GRF is extensive; the 2024 season’s schedule also included Greek, Mexican, African American, and Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage nights, as well as the tongue-in-cheek Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day, a longtime favorite of the team’s sizable South Side Irish fanbase.
Perpetually the little brother franchise, the White Sox are frequently crushed under the weight of the attention afforded the Bears, Cubs, and Bulls. It’s far from Chicago’s flashiest attraction, and the White Sox themselves seem highly intent upon leaving the stadium after the 2028 season. All more the reason, perhaps, to enjoy the peaceful lightheartedness of a day at the ballpark, with such a well-executed local twist.
Home games at Guaranteed Rate Field, 333 W. 35th St. Check schedule and buy tickets at: mlb.com/whitesox