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Charles Albert Comiskey (August 15, 1859 – October 26, 1931), nicknamed " Commy" or " the Old Roman", was an American Major League Baseball player, manager, and team owner. He was a key person in the formation of the American League and was also founding owner of the Chicago White Sox. Comiskey Park, the White Sox's storied baseball stadium, was built under his guidance and named for him.
Comiskey's reputation was permanently tarnished by his team's involvement in the Black Sox Scandal, although he was inducted as an executive into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.
As owner of the White Sox from 1900 until his death in 1931, Comiskey oversaw the construction of Comiskey Park in 1910 and won five American League pennants (1900, 1901, 1906, 1917, 1919) and two World Series (1906, 1917). He lost popularity with his players, who eventually came to despise him. The players' animosity towards Comiskey has been cited as a major cause of the Black Sox scandal, when eight players on the AL champions conspired to "throw" the 1919 World Series to the NL champion Cincinnati Reds. Comiskey was notoriously stingy (his defenders called him "frugal"), even forcing his players to pay to launder their own uniforms. Traci Peterson notes that, in an era when professional athletes lacked free agency, the White Sox's formidable players had little choice but to accept Comiskey's substandard wages. She writes: "Charles Risberg and Lefty Williams made less than $3,000 a year ($ today). Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver made only $6,000 a year ($ today). Eddie Cicotte had been promised a $10,000 ($ today) bonus if he could win 30 games in a season. When Cicotte closed in on the 30-game goal, Comiskey had him benched to keep him from reaching the mark." Comiskey's stated reason for having manager Kid Gleason bench Cicotte was that with the Sox headed for the World Series, he had to protect his star pitcher's arm (Cicotte ended up with a 29–7 record in 1919 ). In one incident, he promised his players a bonus for winning the 1919 pennant — the "bonus" turned out to be a case of flat champagne.
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. Indeed, the White Sox promptly tumbled into seventh place and would not be a factor in a pennant race again until , five years after Comiskey's death. They did not win another pennant until and another World Series until .
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 Comiskey was able to gain control of the team and avoid a sale. Her two children, Dorothy Comiskey Rigney and Chuck Comiskey (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.
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