A Page One article by Erik Ahlberg gives some reasons why the winning White Sox still face a half-empty stadium in a sporting town. Personally, I think that fixing the urbanism could easily increase attendance, while generating additional revenues. I know that I’d be far more tempted to go to a game; surely someone who cared more about sports (even if she cared less about urbanism) would be similarly tempted.

The Chicago White Sox have the best record in baseball, and their best chance in years of ending an 88-year drought of World Series championships. But here in one of America’s great sports towns, hardly anyone seems to care.

When the Sox recently faced another first-place team, the Los Angeles Angels, only about 20,000 showed up, despite delightful weather and a 2-for-1 ticket special… Despite a mediocre performance most of the year, the second-place Cubs have played to 98% capacity, and nearly had a sellout April 23 when they lost to the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates in near-freezing temperatures with 25-mile-an-hour winds blasting off Lake Michigan.

At the heart of the Sox’s troubled wooing of Chicago lies a conundrum worthy of Yogi Berra: They haven’t been good enough to win, and they haven’t been bad enough to tap into baseball’s romance with hapless losers. The White Sox won their last World Series in 1917. Even before the Boston Red Sox exorcised their 86-year curse last year, the White Sox had the American League’s longest drought…

Many people fault Comiskey Park, which one local columnist has described as having the feel of West Berlin during the Cold War. The park, which replaced the old Comiskey in 1991 and was renamed U.S. Cellular Field in 2003, is bordered by a rust-stained concrete wall, train tracks and an interstate highway. Some of Chicago’s toughest housing projects loom beyond the outfield fence. There are only a few bars within walking distance… The Cell, as the team’s ballpark is often called here, was one of the last efficient but unappealing fields built before stadiums in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee and San Francisco showed how to design a park that’s equal parts ballfield and tourist attraction… But many Chicagoans prefer the cozy confines of historic Wrigley Field, with its ivy-covered outfield walls, hand-operated scoreboard and neighborhood teeming with saloons.

“Even if we win the World Series this year, Wrigley will still sell out next year,” Sox first baseman Paul Konerko says. “But I can’t guarantee we’d be sold out here…” White Sox General Manager Ken Williams says the team appreciates the mayor’s support. “We just need him to bring ten or fifteen thousand of his friends.”