BASEBALL’S WORST OWNERS: REINSDORF, LIKE MORENO, SHOULD SELL HIS TEAM
Failing to serve the public trust, the White Sox chairman has blundered again with his Tony La Russa debacle — and the least he can do is follow the lead of Angels owner Arte Moreno and move on
Other than nearly killing Tony La Russa and saddling the legacy of a Hall of Famer with a miserable takeaway image — a failing, disconnected, 77-year-old manager falling asleep in a bleak-as-the-South Side dugout — Jerry Reinsdorf hasn’t done too much wrong this season. Nah, he only further established himself as the one sports owner who can wreck a good thing like no other. Was it a cruel joke, bringing in a geezer with a weak ticker to run a baseball club that looked ready to win after a years-long rebuild?
What this was, of course, was a classic case of Reinsdorfian buffoonery. The man who thinks he knows more than everyone else once again boxed himself into a debacle. In his self-serving attempt to atone for one of his biggest regrets as chairman of the Chicago White Sox — allowing La Russa to be fired as manager in 1986 — Reinsdorf enlisted his close friend, fresh off his second DUI, to manage THREE AND ONE-HALF DECADES later. Every member of the Opening Day roster was born after 1986. That group includes aging pitcher Lance Lynn, who this week summarized a disastrous season that saw the youthful, high-energy and very rootable Cleveland Guardians ($66.4 million player payroll) run away with a division supposedly owned by the hateable big-market team ($196.6 million player payroll).
“Nothing surprises me,” Lynn said after another uninspired, error-filled loss, “especially when you play like crap all year.”
So much for the lengthy rebuild, now that the Guardians are baptized in the American League Central for years to come. Add it to the long list of ways Reinsdorf, during his collective 80 seasons as owner of the White Sox and NBA’s Bulls, has sabotaged almost everything he has touched in the industry. He was among the first owners to apply shakedown tactics, threatening to move the Sox to Florida before the state of Illinois approved tax money for a new stadium, and he wasted the public gift by ignoring the architects — HOK showed him the Camden Yards blueprints — and building an instantly obsolete ballmall. His obsessive zeal to be a labor hawk led to the 1994-95 strike and cancellation of the World Series, which ended the sport’s reign as the national pastime as King Football and Michael Jordan’s NBA buzzed past in popularity and prosperity.
Baseball hasn’t been the same since. Thanks, Jerry. Speaking of Jordan, Reinsdorf was fortunate enough to inherit him. But he allowed the greatest of basketball dynasties to be tainted by constant dissension, including his refusal to renegotiate Jordan’s eight-year, $24 million deal and not pay up until it expired. What could have been a nine-title run became a bittersweet six-pack in the ‘90s, ending prematurely when he preferred to launch his “own dynasty” instead of milking Jordan, Phil Jackson and Scottie Pippen for more. After Jordan fled, Reinsdorf was exposed as an ownership charlatan, reducing the Bulls to unwatchable trash and somehow stumbling into his only World Series title in 42 tries — batting average: .023, 23 being Jordan’s uniform number — in the autumn of 2005. All those bad seasons were supposed to be exorcised this year, with Jerry and Tony soaked in clubhouse champagne in early November, hoisting a World Series trophy allowing Reinsdorf to drift away in his late 80s and let his sons eventually sell the Sox, as he instructed them years ago. General manager Rick Hahn went so far to suggest more than one championship, disregarding a history of only one title since the Sox threw the 1919 Series.
Much more fittingly, Jerry’s Dream faded into a cacophony of boos at Guaranteed Rate Field, including relentless “FIRE TONY!” chants and even a “SELL THE TEAM” banner. La Russa demanded little of his players in his daily fog — and knowing now of his cardiologist’s concerns and previous heart issues, it was a surprise he made it to the park long enough to take naps. The ’22 Sox have slogged among the sport’s shoddiest defensive clubs, sloppiest baserunning laggards and ugliest viewing experiences. With La Russa tired at best and torpid at worst, the players took on the look and pace of their skipper. Was it arrogance? Actually, indifference. When TLR stepped away in late August, summoned to the Mayo Clinic in what reeked of a Reinsdorf sympathy ploy, the team awakened and won 13 of 19 for acting manager Miguel Cairo. Was it now apparent that the owner’s La Russa whim diluted the clubhouse soul? If Cairo had run the team all season, wouldn’t the Sox have controlled the division? “You see a little more energy out there,” closer Liam Hendriks admitted.
“Play the way you’re supposed to play the game,’’ said Cairo, “hard and aggressive, and do the little things to win games.”
By Thursday night, the Guardians had buried the rebuild project for good, meaning the White Sox were heading home as losers for the 104th time in the last 105 years. The youngest team in the majors made a sweep statement in front of a morose crowd accustomed to Reinsdorfian letdowns: Time for another reset, Chicago. The Sox have missed their window again, allowing the market-dominant Cubs a chance to develop their own prospects only six years after their impossible championship. Trailing by a ton of games with a week and half remaining, Cairo only could say, “I’m just going to see who is going to show up tomorrow and play. Whoever don’t want to play, I already told them if you don’t want to be here, they can get out.”
Does that include Reinsdorf? As for La Russa, he didn’t bother coming to the park, maybe to avoid more “FIRE TONY!” cries, though it’s inconceivable — even in a Jerrymandering culture — that he’d return to managing for anything more than one last ceremonial farewell in early October. On second thought, why risk more palpitations? Call it a career now, TLR.
If there is a sports god, Reinsdorf would join him and announce he’s selling the ballclub, assuming anyone of note wants the Sox. With NFL teams worth their weight in gold — and rarely available — serious entrepreneurs want NBA franchises. Jeff Bezos and Bob Iger are said to be intrigued by the Phoenix Suns, but they’d have no interest in the Sox, if they know the Sox still exist.
You might think baseball’s most abominable owners reside in places such as Oakland, where John Fisher has decayed the fun of attending a home game as he clearly wants Nevada to build him a Las Vegas ballpark. Or Cincinnati, where the Castellinis bailed on the season before it started, then insulted the fans. Or my hometown of Pittsburgh, where Bob Nutting has mastered the art of the perpetual tank. And Miami, where Derek Jeter couldn’t tolerate Bruce Sherman’s dubious vision. But an even more egregious sin is committed when owners in the largest markets consistently flop or, worse, tank. They are blessed with the biggest population bases, even in two-team areas, and they should have advantages in local media and sponsorship streams. The Mets, stragglers under the inept Wilpons, have been rejuvenated by multi-billionaire Steve Cohen and now feature superstar attractions necessary when sharing a town with Aaron Judge and the Yankees.
That leaves two major-market owners who have perpetrated longtime consumer fraud in failing to dent, much less maximize, the potential of their regions. One is Arte Moreno, forever to be recalled as the man who wasted Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani in southern California. He is having mercy on a fan base that loathes him, announcing last month that he’ll sell the Los Angeles Angels. He bought the franchise in 2003, just after a Disney-owned team won the Series, and the Angels have defied logic with no playoff wins since 2009 — spanning Trout’s career and then some — and no winning records in the five seasons Trout and Ohtani have played together. It’s one hell of a epitaph for a tombstone: Here lies the owner who couldn’t succeed with two of baseball’s mightiest all-time talents.
The other is Reinsdorf, who is known as an adept businessman — only because he briefly lucked into the Jordan phenomenon — but hasn’t done much to increase the value of his Major League Baseball franchise. Forbes says the Sox are worth $1.76 billion, 15th among 30 teams, and forecasted an operating loss of $10 million this season. The Cubs are worth more than twice as much at $3.8 billion — fourth behind the Yankees, L.A. Dodgers and Boston Red Sox — and have an operating income of $68 million with their fledgling TV network and an under-construction Wrigleyville sportsbook. The cultural gap between the Cubs and White Sox never has been tilted more toward the North Side, even if Cubs fans are bitter themselves these days about the shifty intentions of the Ricketts family.
Sports teams have more elaborate responsibilities than others in the North American business ecosystem. They must serve the public trust, and though Moreno and Reinsdorf have had different approaches to spending, both failed dramatically with out-of-touch clumsiness. In Chicago, the Sox would have greatly benefited from starpower in buzz quotient and on-field success. But Reinsdorf never has come close to importing a nine-figure free agent, running a major-market team like an Italian beef stand. That’s fine if his frequent rebuilds paid off with October success. But the processes never worked, beyond the 2005 fluke.
Moreno never hesitated to spend lavishly. His problem was focusing his riches on one commodity — sluggers — which would have won him a Home Run Derby but left the Angels short of pitching and fundamentals. He gave $240 million to Albert Pujols, looking healthier and leaner as he chases 700 home runs than he did in most of his Anaheim years. He gave $125 million to Josh Hamilton, who never solved his personal issues, and $245 million to Anthony Rendon, who has yet to stay healthy enough to form chemistry with Trout and Ohtani. Moreno ran through six general managers since 2007 and four managers the last five years. The most recent managerial casualty, Joe Maddon, put it best to the Tampa Bay Times. "The infrastructure needs to be improved. There’s a lot of things that need to be improved," he said of the Angels. “These guys (Trout and Ohtani) can’t do it alone, obviously. It’s the non-sexy stuff that has to get better. It’s not just bright, shiny objects — they have that.”
Reinsdorf never has wanted bright, shiny objects. As the losing seasons piled up this century, in baseball and basketball, he almost seemed to stop caring. That is an insult to the fans, an injustice in a metropolis of that size. He exploits the undying passion of the Chicago people, in a city with a disproportionately unhealthy reliance on local teams for self-esteem, and never has tried to outbid competitors for marquee names and annual title shots. He operates the Sox as if they’re in Kansas City — yet, even the Royals have won a Series in recent memory. Now it’s Cleveland that has one-upped the South Side. Oh, how the Sox players rave about the Guardians, as if blaming La Russa in absentia.
“They run, and they hustle, they play hard and they put the ball in play,” veteran pitcher Johnny Cueto said.
“We just fell short to a really good team,” Cairo said. “They know how to pitch, they play defense, and they know how to put the barrel on the ball.”
All the things the ’22 Sox didn’t do.
One more common denominator between Reinsdorf and Moreno: Both grew to despise and avoid the media, letting those grudges infect how they ran their organizations. “It’s one thing to be criticized,’’ Moreno told USA Today, “but when people start attacking someone personally, really personally, that's a line you cross. You can’t go back. And some of these people are just flat-ass cynical.’’
Well, when you buy a major-league franchise and charge high prices and make people buy cable to see games at home, the media should be flat-ass cynical. In America’s No. 2 market, Moreno has been throttled by the Los Angeles Times and sports radio. In the No. 3 market, Reinsdorf has bought off and intimidated — via direct pressure at the top of newspapers and broadcast outlets — all elements of media that remain in a city woefully underserved by sports criticism and journalism in general. What happened to holding an owner accountable, holding truth to power? Reinsdorf pits one sports station against the other and makes sure neither employs hosts who touch him, much less excoriate him for the La Russa fiasco. TV? He owns 50 percent of NBC Sports Chicago, which airs Sox games and enables him to lash out when he feels burned, such as when Jordan made him look bad in “The Last Dance” docuseries. My former newspaper — I left the Sun-Times of my own volition years ago, leaving a guaranteed $1 million on the table in my smartest life decision — caved to Reinsdorf’s phone calls when I was there and since has forged an understanding where writers barely can mention his name. The other Chicago paper, the Tribune, employs a veteran baseball beat writer as its only sports columnist. When I informed Paul Sullivan in an email that he has been suspiciously soft in his handling of Reinsdorf, particularly this week, he responded with a back-and-forth that still would be happening if I didn’t pause to piss.
That’s Chicago, once a thriving media town with national names (such as myself), now filled with mom-and-pop, in-over-their-heads, never-rip-Jerry imposters who let Reinsdorf get away with his blundering reign. The only one with the backbone to attack Reinsdorf is Jim O’Donnell, of the suburban Daily Herald — and his willingness to do so is why another Reinsdorf shill, Sun-Times sports editor Chris De Luca, ran him off years ago. And why the Sun-Times, along with the equally intimidated Tribune, never launched sweeping investigations into two scandal-level lawsuits against the Sox.
Their former head trainer, Brian Ball, accused the team of firing him in 2020 because he is gay. In June, amid scant media coverage in Chicago, a confidential settlement was reached with an autistic batboy who accused Omar Vizquel — since removed as manager of the team’s Class AA team in Birmingham, and someone the Sox viewed as a potential big-league staffer — of sexually harassing him with horrific methods. Once upon a time, both Chicago newspapers would have probed the stories, wondering what was going on inside Reinsdorf’s house of sleaze. Not anymore. Even The Athletic, where local “columnist” Jon Greenberg is barely breathing as a fanboy, ignored the Ball story and didn’t chase the Vizquel conclusion — perhaps because lead baseball writer Ken Rosenthal, like many national scribes, is beholden to Reinsdorf.
So why wouldn’t Jerry, 86, hire his partner in Metamucil, Tony, when he knew the backlash would be minimal if the whole thing failed. Sure, the fans are upset. But the media, half-asleep like La Russa, already have moved on to annual grousing about the Bears’ quarterbacking malaise. Soon enough, a broiling summer will have slid into snowstorms and wind chills. There will be talk of “changes,” with La Russa wheeled into the owner’s suite as Cairo takes over the dugout. But there is only one change that can impact the fortunes of this abysmal operation.
Sell the team, Jerry Reinsdorf. Today.
Or risk a class-action suit for illusory business practices, going back four decades.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.