“Somebody turn up that Raiders game,” shouts a burly man in a flannel shirt, and a blind man complies, turning up the volume of the play-by-play.
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It’s September 30 and we’re waiting in line for the men’s room at Comiskey Park, the last day for baseball at this historic stadium. It’s the seventh inning and the Sox have just gone up on Seattle by a run, and this throng of 75 is trying to shove its way into a room made for no more than 30. It’s dank and sweaty and foul in here; the Eau de Comiskey hangs in the air like a cloud of poison gas, a scent resembling that of an old T-shirt that’s been wet for months.
“YO!” somebody shouts. “You can’t take pictures in here. This is a sacred place.”
“Sure,” the man says, and the two pose grinning in front of it.
They zip up their flies, and the guy in the leather jacket waves a fond farewell to the place.
“Shit!” somebody else says. “That guy never could catch a pass when he played for the Bears; now he comes back and burns ’em.”