Bridgeport

And it's very interesting to me when I hear from White Sox fans.

Of course, those in Bridgeport are upset.

If I lived in Bridgeport, I'd be pissed, right? Um, I think a lot of White Sox fans outside of Bridgeport shrug and go, "As long as I've got a great stadium and a team that wins championships, I don't care." I think there, I think there really is that split in the fan base, just listening to those that write in to our show and that I come in contact with.

I believe that Justin Ishbia has at least put himself in this incredible position where he has essentially made it so clear that, "If I don't get everything I would want in a deal in Bridgeport, I've got this other thing already lined up I mean, think about this.

This is a, this is a billionaire who was able to get a waiver so Amtrak didn't even have to go and get themselves an environmental study for moving their, their, their, their facility over, right? He's setting this entire thing up so it's basically the only way they could stop him from moving is if they somehow screw up that deal.

And trust me, if he really wants to move, he'll still find a way to move onto that property and get Amtrak to go someplace else, right? But what he's done now is he's set it up where we had Senator Bill Cunningham on, uh, a couple years ago, and I replayed his thing, uh, his interview recently on Sox in the Basement, and he went through the idea that those parking lots...

If, if...

That was before Ishbia came along, and their feeling was, "Well, Jerry's gotta come to us, and then he's gotta take the deal that we're willing to give him here, because we have all the control, we have all the leverage." Well, Justin Ishbia's buying a team in which he has no leverage for the ballpark that he currently has, and what he's created right now is, "If I...

Scooty gang up.

So today we are talking about chances the White Sox leave Bridgeport after 116 years.

Mexican Independence Day celebrations across the city.

And we've got some amazing concerts coming up and down the road that we're really excited for.

Justin, I'm actually start with you here.

Catch us up.

What's going on with the White Sox? What do they want to stay in Bridgeport or do they want to move?

Well, they want a new stadium, and they've said that for a couple of years.

But the real news is all the stuff that's happening.

And as I was saying before we officially started recording the podcast, there are protests occurring on a semi-daily basis in Bridgeport.

You

brought this up in the last show.

No, I'm kidding.

But yeah, The

alderman of Bridgeport has gotten involved now.

They don't want the

So we've seen the local alderman, Nicole Lee, Yeah, what's she saying? She's basically saying that this is a no-go, that this is a complete betrayal of the neighborhood and the residents there.

She called it a knife through the heart of some of these Bridgeport residents.

Not really any understated rhetoric here.

And, you know, basically it's...

Right, but just urging Ishbia to listen to the residents there and try and find some sort of middle ground here.

Again, it's hard to say where it's going to go from here, but a lot of fans are excited about this potential move.

A lot are up in arms about it because the Sox have been playing in Bridgeport for more than a century.

These stadium development stories, they always divide the crowd, right? Well, and

And billionaire White Sox owner-in-waiting Justin Ishbia has unveiled an ambitious vision for Chicago's riverfront, proposing a massive multi-acre development that could serve as the new home for Southside baseball.

I'll talk with Crane's Justin Lawrence about the Bridgeport resistance that complicates this plan.

Yeah, I mean, that's what Alderman Lee said.

You know, it's basically a double whammy in exchange for the team that's played here for a century, you know, however long it's been.

All across the water from the new Chicago Fire FC soccer stadium under construction now at the 78th.

Now, there's a lot that has to happen between this reveal and anything like this coming to pass with two big pieces.

One, Ishby and Amtrak have to build a replacement rail car maintenance facility and overcome pushback to their plan to do that in Bridgeport near Raitt Field.

And two, Ishbia doesn't own the team.