White Sox Still Around as Chicago's Fifth Team

Typically when I make titles for a blog post for my travels, it would be something creative and/or pretty straight to the point.  However, when it comes to the Chicago White Sox, I couldn't find much of a catchy or creative thing so to the point, they are the fifth team behind the Cubs, Bears and Blackhawks.  I would also put them behind the Bulls because at least there is a dedication of a legion of fans there.  You don't have that with the White Sox except for the big diehards.  However, that didn't stop me from going to a game against Tampa Bay.  Now the pre-game note to this, they had arguably the worst attendance ever in their history a day before with about 900 fans at the game.  This game I went to the day later wasn't much better.  There couldn't have been more than a couple thousand at this game and it really made me think of if this team was better if the fans would come back to the park. Anyway, this was the last ballpark I visited prior to ending my road trip. 

  As for the city of Chicago, I got to eat at Giordano's after I left the game.  I used the train system again, so it was relatively cheap.  After the game I was sightseeing the city after, so I went to a couple of different parks, got my picture with that bean, saw a lot of the Chicago River and different areas.  So there's a lot in the city, but in this blog, I will pretty much showcase the White Sox.  So as I got to the stadium, I went through the security, but went up a couple of different ramps to get to the main concourse.  This is a bit different than other ballparks so if you get a bit confused, don't worry I was as well initially.  Upon entering the concourse, you don't initially think you are in a ball park, but more or less an awkward soccer field but then it gets easier.  There are different concessions through the stadium, and I took pizza/soda on this day.  It was pretty good pizza and it is relatively cheap (six dollars compared to other parks.)  There were other food and drinks, most notably they sold churros here.  I haven't ever seen a park sell churros so that was pretty neat. 
  As for the park itself, it is an older park by contrast to others in the MLB.  It is also one that doesn't look as though it has renovated or massively redone like other parks that are aged like Wrigley and Fenway.  There is a lot of room to walk, but that could also be because there weren't many people there on this day.  I got to see a lot of the stadium.  They have a neat center field batters eye, also beyond the left field seats, they have a cool statue as well as inscriptions of Frank Thomas and Paul Konerko.  They essentially also have a walk of Fame outside the stadium for more picture taking.  So there are awesome spots to the stadium.  Just would be a bit better if more than a couple thousand people showed up.
  As for the game itself, Tampa Bay won, but it was a grinding game.  For reference, there were televisions for fans to watch during the game, and you could hear the televisions at times over the game talking about pace of play.  The game went about 4 hours but I left after about five innings when Tampa was up 5-0 and the game was grinding to a quagmire of being very slow.  Other than Tampa hitting the ball around in an inning, there wasn't much to write home about with the game.  The talent was very much lacking on both sides.  Since the game, Tampa has gotten better but the White Sox are plain bad.  So I can see why there were only a couple thousand people at this game. 
  As I left after the fifth inning of this game, I again hoped that the White Sox were good to see what they would be like with a bunch of fans rooting for them.  However, they are next to unwatchable most times and this game was no different.  The ballpark is at best antiquated although the staff do their level best with what they can do with.  As I walked away to sight see Chicago, I probably would rank this at the bottom of the ballparks I have seen at the Major League level (St. Louis, Milwaukee, Minnesota, and Cincinnati are those that I have been to thus far.)  I hope the White Sox can look into this and see that they can try to compete again and put a good product on the field to bring the fans back.  Otherwise they are just a blip on the radar of baseball and their city.