The Florida White Sox? Almost…
chicagotribune.com
I was reading the other day and discovered something that I wasn’t aware of. In the late 1980s, the Chicago White Sox were very close to moving out of the Windy City and into Tampa Bay. Sure, there’s always franchises that are “close” to moving to another city with serious discussions of doing so, but the White Sox were just a few minutes away from doing so.
In the 1980s, Tampa Bay was desperate to bring the first major league baseball team to Florida. Until then, Spring Training was the only major league baseball action the Sunshine State were able to witness. The Tampa Bay area led the charge in this desire by building a brand new domed stadium in hopes of luring a franchise, either from relocation or expansion. What we now know as Tropicana Field was that luring piece and it got a lot of interest from several ball clubs.
But it was the Chicago White Sox that the focus was on in 1988. Old Comiskey Park in the South Side of Chicago was starting to fall apart, leaving Chicagoans clamoring for a brand new ballpark. When a deal wasn’t getting done with the Illinois government to build a new ballpark, it became almost a foregone conclusion the Sox would be moving to Tampa Bay. In fact, the ballclub even planned on playing the 1989 season in AL Lang Stadium in St. Petersburg, Florida and enlarging the small 7,500 seat stadium to hold 20,000 spectators. Then upon completion of the new domed stadium, the White Sox would move into their new home.
Tropicana Field
ballparksofbaseball.com
The franchise justified the move with several reasons other than the need for a new ballpark. In Tampa Bay they would be able to make at least a $1 million more in broadcast rights per year. At the time, only 34% of Chicagoans had cable tv and were able to watch the White Sox at home. The team also had been overtaken by the Cubs as the most popular Chicago baseball team, so there was a sense of wanting to start new and be the kings of a brand new city.
But minutes before the midnight deadline to work out an agreement for a new Chicago ballpark, a deal was struck to build a new stadium across the street from old Comiskey Park and keep the White Sox in Chicago. That stadium is what we now know as Guaranteed Rate field and the Sox have been playing home games there since 1991. Tampa Bay would finally get their expansion team in the Devil Rays and everyone was happy. It’s crazy to think how close certain things in history were to being different and this is certainly one of those cases in the Major League Baseball landscape.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/sports/baseball/09sandomir.html
Garett