Imagine a beautiful summer afternoon taking a boat trip down the Chicago River to the South Loop to watch major-league baseball at a cool stadium with a magnificent view of the skyline. Now forget everything you’ve heard about the White Sox’s desire to get public funding for a new ballpark in The 78 and consider a much more modest proposal with a smaller, makeshift ballpark and a different team playing there next summer. Thanks to the recent destruction of Tropicana Field’s roof by Hurricane Milton, which necessitated a search for a temporary home for the Tampa Bay Rays, the developers of The 78 could have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to showcase their grand plan. Welcome to Sodfather Park, home of the Tampa Bay-Chicago Rays. It could be the ballpark you never knew you needed. All it would need is a team, a structure seating about 12,000 fans and some forward thinking by the Rays, MLB, the city of Chicago and The 78 developers. The Rays are considering their options. It appears unlikely they’ll be able to make repairs in time for the 2025 season, which is scheduled to begin March 27 against the Colorado Rockies. The Tampa Bay Times reported the Rays “have to get a sense on whether they are looking for a temporary home for a few months, for a full season or for all three years.” They’re slated to move into a new $1.3 billion stadium in 2028. The Trop already was an albatross — with or without a roof — so why purchase an expensive new roof if they’re going to be moving anyway? Some of their options include playing the 2025 season in a nearby spring training ballpark, such as St. Petersburg’s Al Lang Field, which has a capacity of 7,227, or Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field, which holds 11,206. Despite the small size of the ballparks, playing close to home might at least would allow Rays fans to attend games and give the team some semblance of normalcy. A suggestion to play their home games at the Rays’ Triple-A ballpark in Durham, N.C. was rejected by the Durham Bulls, who issued a statement saying “there have been no discussions about hosting them in Durham, and we do not anticipate hosting them for a full season due to schedules overlapping and other logistical challenges.” So perhaps it’s time to think outside the box … and come to Chicago. The Rays are never a big draw, ranking 28th in attendance this year with an average of 16,515 fans per home game, just behind the White Sox’s 17,931 average. Moving them for a season — or even a half-season — wouldn’t affect a fan base that never really has existed. So why not give them a temporary home in Chicago, making our town a three-team city like New York was in the era of the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants? All the makeshift facility would need are some seats, two clubhouses, a press box and infrastructure surrounding the park. A pop-up ballfield at the 62-acre site already is in place courtesy of The 78’s developers, Related Midwest. In August, developers had Sox head groundskeeper Roger “The Sodfather” Bossard build the temporary diamond to “showcase how a baseball field could enhance and fit in with the greater plans for the neighborhood.” Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, who reportedly is open to selling the team, made no headway last winter in lobbying state legislators in Springfield for more than $1 billion in public funding. When the Sodfather’s playing field was built, Related Midwest said in a statement “it can be hard to imagine the future 78, so this mock-up is both helpful from a planning standpoint and fun to see with the beautiful city skyline as a backdrop.” The developers held a Chicago River cruise last month to the pop-up park, located along the river on Roosevelt Road, to show renderings of the proposed park to selected lawmakers, some of whom told the Chicago Tribune they were impressed by the scenic view but skeptical of the use of public funding. A goundskeeper tends to a baseball field that has arisen on The 78, a 62-acre South Loop site where a new White Sox stadium has been proposed, on Sep. 6, 2024. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune) White Sox TV analyst Ozzie Guillén, who was part of a small group of former Sox players the developers brought together at The 78 to meet with lawmakers and promote the concept, was impressed by what he saw and heard. “Don’t ask me about the politics or the tax money or how they would make it happen,” Guillén told me after the event. “But don‘t hate on the project. It’s outstanding. If they do what I saw they want to do, it’s going to be a special spot for this city (to attract) visitors and a spot for the city to make money, to have something different.” Guillén has traveled around the world and been to cities where new stadiums spurred tourism. “Maybe you go to Madrid and maybe you don’t know anything about soccer, but you want to go to the stadium to see where Real Madrid plays and the community around it,” he said. “This would be a great advertisement for Chicago.” Guillén pointed out he does not work for the Sox and his views were his own. He conceded it would be a hard sell for the Sox, who were on their way to a record 121-loss season and in the midst of a long rebuild. “But if they do (build) it, it wouldn’t be done for five years,” he said. “In five years, the Sox have to be better. But don’t look at the Sox. Look at what it would do for the city. It’s going to be a beautiful place, a tourist attraction, with restaurants and places to live. If they build it, it would be amazing for our city.” Some believe the leak of Reinsdorf’s alleged change of mind about selling the team is an attempt by the owner to convince lawmakers to change their stance on public funding for the multibillion-dollar project. If he doesn’t get his stadium, the reasoning goes, Reinsdorf could sell to a group that would move the Sox, possibly to Nashville, Tenn. It worked for him once before when he threatened to move to St. Petersburg, Fla., and into the now-obsolete Tropicana Field. 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Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium, the 12,000-seat venue the Wildcats football team is using while a new stadium is under construction in Evanston, is a perfect example of how quickly a smaller venue can be put to use. Northwestern announced the conversion of its lacrosse and soccer stadium in early April, and it was ready to host the first of five home football games on Aug. 31. It features 5,000 bleacher seats on the north end and another 1,200 on the east side adjacent to Lake Michigan. The west side includes 2,500 bench seats. Is it perfect? No, but it works fine and has become a critically acclaimed venue and huge success for the Wildcats. A temporary ballpark for the Rays could be just as much fun, and don’t forget they’ve been to more World Series since 2008 (two) than the combined total of the Cubs (one) and White Sox (none). Sodfather Park would be a perfect name, but we’re open to suggestions. Maybe the city could have a contest asking fans to name the stadium. By any name, it would be a welcome addition to our city, and the Rays could spark a rivalry with the two lackluster teams that currently call Chicago home. Maybe it even would force the Sox and Cubs to pay more attention to their paying customers. Probably not, but it’s worth a shot.