Baseball

Bill Veeck was behind the ivy at Wrigley Field plus Harry Caray singing during the seventh inning stretch, names on uniforms, and the exploding scoreboard with the White Sox. He brought the Sox and Cleveland to the World Series, and always boosted the attendance of lagging teams. 

Chicago looms large in the creation of baseball's Negro Leagues, for reasons both positive and negative. One influential player-manager spearheaded the creation of the Negro National League 100 years ago; another helped solidify the sport's color line decades earlier.

In the 100 years since the Chicago White Sox players fixed games to lose the World Series, lots of myths about the scandal have sprung up. Two experts clear them up, and discuss the scandal's enduring significance. “It’s the power of poetry and fiction to overwhelm history.”

Wrigley Field is beloved; Guaranteed Rate Field was essentially outdated within a year of construction. The Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger, who wrote a book on American ballparks, discusses the two parks and how they reflect larger trends in American urbanism.