Baseball Fans Split On Going Back To The Ballpark In 2021

CHICAGO — Baseball fans in Chicago are always split this time of year, as opening day rolls around the corner for the White Sox and Cubs.

The rivalry between the two teams isn’t all that’s dividing fans in 2021, though. It’s whether fans should be heading back to the parks this year at all as the coronavirus pandemic surpasses its one-year mark and more than 50,000 new cases have been reported in Illinois over the past month.

Baseball is a big part of life for Laura Williams. But not more important than life itself.

The White Sox superfan and south suburban Oak Forest resident has attended every home game at Guaranteed Rate Field, formerly known as Comiskey Park, on the South Side since the middle of the 2008 season.

It’s a streak that hit 914 games at the end of 2019, and a feat that got her dubbed as the “ironfan” of baseball by Ozzie Guillen, the club’s former World Series-winning manager.

“It had been said nothing — not weather, weddings, even my own, or work — could keep me from my White Sox,” Williams said in a video announcing her decision to stay away from the ballpark for now due to the virus, ending her consecutive games streak just 86 shy of 1,000.

“It has taken a global pandemic to wrestle me away from my summer family,” she said.

Superfans for the city’s other MLB baseball team have for decades been spotted in the Wrigley Field bleachers, where loyal Cubs fan Dave Wischnowsky has had season tickets since 2015.

“I’ve missed baseball games so much,” said Wischnowsky, a Lake View neighborhood resident who lives within walking distance of Wrigley Field. “I’m ready to put my Cubs jersey on and get to the bleachers as soon as possible.”

Even with a possible 1,000th consecutive game coming this year if the White Sox make the playoffs, Williams says it’s still too risky to go to the ballpark. She’s among the most at risk for the virus, having battled cystic fibrosis — a genetic disease that affects the lungs — since birth.

“My health and family are way more important than baseball,” Williams told Patch.

Williams’ mother, Alice Williams, will see her streak of more than 500 consecutive home games attended end as well when the White Sox play the Kansas City Royals in their April 8 home opener. Alice Williams’ recent cancer diagnosis means it’s too risky for her as well.

“It’s disappointing, but we have to do what’s safest for my family,” Laura Williams said.

Fans will be allowed back in Chicago ballparks, and throughout most of Major League Baseball, this season, a year after a shortened 2020 baseball season went on without them.

Reopening at Guaranteed Rate Field and Wrigley Field will be limited to 20 percent capacity, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said earlier this month. That’s a maximum of 8,274 fans for Cubs home games and 8,122 for the White Sox.

Read More On Patch: White Sox, Cubs Will Open Season Playing In Front Of Fans

Social distancing guidelines will be in place, but Williams says it will be a challenge to enforce them due to comments she has seen from people downplaying the virus.

"Almost immediately, and across all social media platforms, there were adamant posts from fans saying they can’t be told what to do," she said. “One person simply stated 'let's just break some rules.'"

Williams has received both doses of a coronavirus vaccine, but her cystic fibrosis keeps her in a high-risk category. She’s also concerned that virus variants that have emerged could make the doses she has received less effective.

Tonia Lorenz, a Cubs season ticket holder since 1988, is just as concerned about the virus, although she does plan to return to her Wrigley Field seat once she is fully vaccinated a month or so after the season starts.

“I’ve been so careful with everything a full year, and it seems we are 90 percent of the way there,” Lorenz, an Uptown neighborhood resident, told Patch. “I am still not ready to go around that many people.”

Lorenz is in the minority among Cubs fans in a season-ticket holder group on Facebook in not wanting to come back yet. Seventy-seven percent of respondents in an informal group poll said they are ready to return, and most of those ready to return would do so even if the park were opened to full capacity.

A majority of South Side faithful, such as Tom Bilas of Evergreen Park, are also “beyond excited” to root for their team in person this year.

“The smell of grilled onions and churros, and looking out onto the gorgeous greenery” are what Bilas looks forward to most, he told Patch.

“And then start buying ice cream and nachos for the kids.”

Those Guaranteed Rate Field ballpark aromas won’t be the same as in years past. The White Sox are among a handful of MLB teams that have scaled back their concession stands options for 2021, according to a Ballpark Digest report that outlines all 30 teams’ plans for fan capacity.

The White Sox and Cubs are joined by a number of teams — such as the Yankees and Mets in New York, among others — in opening ballparks to 20 percent to start the season. Other teams vary significantly in their reopening plans.

The Texas Rangers have been approved for a 100 percent return, with masks required. The Washington Nationals, who at first were the only team planning to have home games without any fans, were recently allowed to open at 12 percent capacity by officials in the nation’s capital.

All other teams fall somewhere in between, allowing between 12 percent and 43 percent capacity. Final capacity plans had not been confirmed by the Houston Astros or Tampa Bay Rays as of Monday.

It’s the established behavior of baseball fans in general that is making Williams and Lorenz more cautious.

“Even if it was just 10 percent, how are they going to control the crowd?” Williams said. “Will you have to stay in your seat? I have seen a lot of selfishness. People are not going to follow the rules, and those people I worry about. How can the Sox, or any other team, enforce those rules safely?”

Both Chicago teams will have reconfigured indoor spaces, entrances with limited contact and more restrooms per fan, Lightfoot said. But the ability for teams to enforce the rules will be a steep challenge, fans have said.

“When it rains, everyone runs downstairs, and it gets pretty crowded there,” Lorenz said. “There’s a lot of alcohol at ballgames, and people yell. It’s too dangerous to deal with without a vaccine.”

After a 2020 season that all fans agree was “surreal” — complete with cardboard cutouts, empty ballparks and fake crowd noise — 2021 will offer a partial return to normal for the baseball fan experience.

Wischnowsky, an avid traveler who has visited 23 Major League ballparks, says it’s an experience that can’t be found anywhere better than behind the ivy at baseball’s oldest park.

“Baseball is not quite baseball without the fans,” he said. “Let’s play ball.”