Charles Comiskey

Comiskey was born on August 15, 1859, in Chicago, the son of Illinois politician John Comiskey. He attended public and parochial schools in Chicago, including St. Ignatius Preparatory School, and then attended St. Mary's College in St. Mary's, Kansas. He played baseball at St. Mary's and played for several professional teams in Chicago while apprenticed to a plumber and working at construction jobs, including driving a brick delivery wagon for the construction crews building the fifth Chicago City Hall, which stood from 1873 to 1885. ==Baseball career==

Playing and managing career Comiskey started his playing career as a pitcher, and moved to first base after developing arm trouble. He is credited with being the first to play hitters off first base, allowing him to cover balls hit to more of the infield. He entered the American Association in 1882 with the St. Louis Brown Stockings. He managed the team during parts of its first three seasons and became the full-time manager in 1885, He also played and managed for the Chicago Pirates in the Players' League (1890), the Browns again (1891), and the Cincinnati Reds in the National League (1892–1894). As an owner Comiskey left Cincinnati and the majors in fall 1894 to purchase the Western League Sioux City Cornhuskers in Sioux City, Iowa and move it to Saint Paul, Minnesota, renaming the team the St. Paul Saints. When the scandal broke late in the 1920 season, Comiskey suspended the suspected players via telegram, admitting that he knew this action cost the White Sox a second straight pennant. However, he initially defended the accused players and, in an unusual display of largesse, provided them with expensive legal representation. He ultimately supported baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis' decision to ban the implicated White Sox players from further participation in professional baseball, knowing full well that Landis' action would permanently sideline the core of his team. Following the court's decision, American League president Ban Johnson, Comiskey's longtime associate and co-architect of the reserve clause, declared: "Federal League teams will not get one single player from Charles A. Comiskey, owner of the Chicago White Sox, and if Hal Chase jumps his contract he will never play with any other club." Despite the Federal League folding in 1915, Chase faced persistent allegations of game-fixing throughout his subsequent career, culminating in his ban from baseball in 1920. In a 1918 interview, Johnson acknowledged that Chase had been "overtly blacklisted" for his challenge to the reserve clause and defection to the Federal League. ==Legacy==

Comiskey is sometimes credited with the innovation of playing the first base position behind first base or inside the foul line, a practice which has since become common. Comiskey died in Eagle River, Wisconsin in 1931 and was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Evanston. Comiskey's son J. Louis inherited the team but died a few years later. The trustees of his estate were going to sell the team, but J. Louis' widow Grace was able to gain control of the team and avoid a sale. Her two children, Dorothy Comiskey Rigney and Charles "Chuck" Albert Comiskey II (who served in the White Sox front office in the 1940s and 1950s before he became owner), became co-owners of the team following Grace's death in the 1950s. Dorothy sold controlling interest in the team to Bill Veeck in 1958, but Chuck remained a minority owner until 1962. When the White Sox moved to a new ballpark in 1991, the Comiskey Park name was retained from their previous home (since 1910). It is now known as Rate Field. A statue of Comiskey stands near center field in the new ballpark. ==Career statistics==