CHICAGO — The Chicago White Sox were trailing the Detroit Tigers by eight runs Monday in their 13-1 loss at Rate Field when a young couple made their way to the top of the upper deck down the left-field line.

The upper deck was closed to fans for security reasons, as it often has been during low-attended weekday games this year. The Sox allow fans with upper-deck tickets to sit in the lower bowl, and 11,852 showed up on the first really warm night of the season.

What the couple had in mind was anyone’s guess. Maybe he was planning to propose or perhaps they just wanted some privacy? Whatever their plan, it was quickly scrapped. An usher signaled to the couple to come down and soon escorted them back to the lower bowl.

This is not what the Sox envisioned when new Comiskey Park opened in 1991 after they declared old Comiskey obsolete and got the state to pony up for a new facility. It was supposed to usher in a new era of Sox baseball, but instead it proved once and for all that Sox fans will go to games regularly only if the team is winning — and sometimes not even then.

Rate Field has been around for 35 seasons now, under various names and a few renovations. But the Sox have made it clear they’d like to leave for a brand-new ballpark, preferably at The 78 in the South Loop. They released renderings last year to much acclaim and most everyone agreed it would be a fine idea, just as long as the Sox paid for it themselves.

On Tuesday came the news that Joe Mansueto, owner of the Fire, plans to build a $650 million soccer stadium on the site, paying for it without public money.

“It is my belief that these stadiums should be privately financed,” Mansueto told the Chicago Tribune. “Most of the value accrues to the sports team. So it’s only fair that the sports team shoulders the cost of its construction.”

I’m not sure who this guy thinks he is, trying to make hard-working taxpayers sit back and watch him pay for his own stadium instead of threatening to move if the city and state won’t build him one. He obviously is not from the Reinsdorfian School of Economics, nor has he studied the Kevin Warren playbook for leveraging a new stadium.

Calling dibs on The 78 without even putting an old chair in the lot for show was a surprise move that seemingly blocked the Sox from their long-held desires on the land. But the Sox responded Tuesday by saying they still hope to build on the land and “remain confident the riverfront location could serve as a home to both teams.”

The statement didn’t say anything about how it would be paid for. Maybe Mansueto can help pick up the tab or alleged Sox owner-of-the-future Justin Ishbia can step up and chip in a billion or so.

But apparently the Sox are sticking to their guns, no pun intended, and hopefully they can find a way to privately fund a ballpark that would make Reinsdorf, the city, the state and fans happy.

A facsimile of old Comiskey Park would be the best move, bringing together the old and the new for the next generation of Sox fans, who are similar to their parents but without the baggage of the Terry Bevington years.

Former Sox player and manager Robin Ventura played only one full season in old Comiskey and once told me it was like an old house that needed a lot of love, if only you had more time to fix it up.

“It had to go, but there was a certain charm,” Ventura said. “There are certain quirks to old stadiums that are fun. Now it’s great telling stories of where the batting cage was and how you had to walk up a spiral staircase in spikes to get there, walking upstairs on the second floor down the left-field line.

“You’d sit on the bench and smell (clubhouse manager) Chicken Willie’s chicken (in the kitchen). And by the seventh inning, you’re like, ‘You know, I am kind of hungry right now.’ You’d be able to sneak down there and get something to eat to get you through until the end of the game.

“It wasn’t a sun-drenched place. There was always shade in some places in the stadium, and in some parts the grass was always soggy. But there was something about Comiskey, the way it was built, the way the second deck hung over the field. Everybody felt close. And when it was packed, it was great. We actually had a good year in that last year in ’90. We had a couple sellouts and we were playing Oakland in the summer, and it was like it was opening day in the middle of the year, people were so excited.”

I can’t imagine Sox players getting overly nostalgic about Rate Field when it’s time to go, but who knows? It was the home of the 2005 Sox, the only champions in most fans’ lifetimes, and the atmosphere can be electric, as we saw during the 2021 playoffs against the Houston Astros. It’s functional but never has been beloved.

When the Sox are rebuilding and wins are scarce, 35th Street and Shields Avenue can be a ghost town unless the team is giving something away or honoring one of its former stars, as it will for Mark Buehrle’s statue dedication on July 11.

A new ballpark at The 78 would be an instant hit. But if the Sox don’t act like a major-market team, I can envision another young couple heading to the upper reaches for some privacy in a mostly empty ballpark down the road.

Reinsdorf once compared the two Chicago fan bases, admitting Cubs fans are “very enthusiastic” but not nearly as “demanding” as Sox fans.

“They’re more knowledgeable about the game,” he said of Sox fans. “They don’t like to watch bad baseball.”

Unfortunately for Sox fans, that’s what they’re continuously asked to do.

And that new ballpark smell, no matter how fresh it is upon opening, eventually will wear off.

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