The Chicago White Sox have for decades been a flight risk, requiring eleventh-inning interventions to keep them on Thirty-Fifth Street in Bridgeport, the team’s home since 1900. The latest caper comes from Justin Ishbia, a private equity guy worth $4 billion who owns a minority stake in the Sox. (He will have the option to buy the whole franchise in 2029.) Essentially, Ishbia is proposing a land swap between Rate Field and a rail yard in the South Loop he’s eyeing. On the site of the latter, he hopes to build—say the line!—a mixed-use sports and entertainment district. The mostly rail-less Railyards will be an authentically cool place to hang out, though, because its other primary tenant will be a medical campus from the second-most prestigious university hospital in the city. (Ishbia is on the board of Northwestern Memorial Healthcare.)
You know it’s a brilliant plan because everyone hates it. The people of Bridgeport, arguably the most politically connected neighborhood in a city where a Daley still holds political office, know that trading one of the most stori…
