BOBBY JENKS HAD NO MONEY AND DIED — WHERE WERE THE CHICAGO WHITE SOX?
The 2005 closer is the fondest memory for a team that has won one World Series in 108 years, and yet, Jerry Reinsdorf had to do more than call the Ronald McDonald House charities to sell Jenks shirts
Less than three months ago, the Chicago White Sox realized Bobby Jenks might die in Portugal. He was blitzed by stomach cancer, hearing the diagnosis only weeks after his home in Los Angeles was destroyed by wildfires. He and his family no longer could rent the house, in the charred neighborhood of Pacific Palisades, where his life and baseball valuables were burned.
Jenks was barely alive, with no money to pay massive medical expenses. He dropped his health insurance years ago, he told The Athletic, because the bills were too costly. A GoFundMe account was started by his friend, Darren Dreifort, another former big-leaguer. He pursued help from the Baseball Assistance Team. He loved his wife, Eleni, and their two children, Zeno and Kate. He loved his four children from a previous marriage: Cuma, Nolan, Rylan and Jackson. He was dying from adenocarcinoma.
Friday, the day came. The only man to close a World Series for the White Sox, since 1917, was gone. He was the 275-pound bullpen beast, as heralded by the purposefully wide arms of manager Ozzie Guillen. His girth provided worth for Jerry Reinsdorf, who has owned the franchise for 45 years and finally saw one moment of glory in 2005. He hasn’t been anywhere close to the Series since, with teams that have lost 180 games in the last season and a half. His ownership, for a variety of reasons listed in this column, has descended farther south than the bottom of the American League standings.
We mourn the loss of a 44-year-old man who arrived on the South Side via a waiver claim, fired 101-mph heat and ultimately was lost after years of drug and alcohol abuse. Jenks showed up, created a partier’s stardom in the ninth inning, and went away. Yet, what I must ask today is why prominent members of the White Sox didn’t rush to Europe with ample sums of help — lots and lots of money. If they did, why not make the news public in a town that stopped trusting Reinsdorf in the last century? Jenks needed money to avoid death. The Sox are worth about $2 billion. Reinsdorf is worth $2.3 billion.
Did he help Jenks? I contacted White Sox Charities via e-mail and asked: Did Jerry Reinsdorf visit Jenks in Portugal? Did he offer money? I haven’t heard back and won’t hear back. There is no use in calling team communications staffers, who bleed what Reinsdorf says, true or not. The Athletic — unlike the Tribune, unlike the Sun-Times, unlike traditionalists in a sad media town — was the only Chicago site to cover the Jenks story in detail. The franchise fathers, after initially posting a message on Instagram — “thinking of Bobby as he is being treated” — indicated they were “standing with you, Bobby.” But in April, reporter Sam Blum wrote: “(S)pecifics on his condition, even for the White Sox organization, haven’t been easy to come by.”
Not easy to come by? Then Blum wrote that the Sox asked concerned humans to buy Jenks shirts via an event, with the Ronald McDonald House in the Chicago area. The team said Jenks would choose a charity for “proceeds.” That happened in April.
He died July 4.
He needed Reinsdorf. And a large check for his closing duties 20 years ago.
In the owner’s world, he has remained patient and done favors for front-office people. Ken Williams and Rick Hahn ran the baseball operation for much too long. Tim Hallam is a Bulls publicist saved from trouble by Reinsdorf. Still, notice how none are players. He tried to ruin the Major League Baseball Players Association. He continues to ache for a salary cap. In the NBA, he dismantled a dynasty when Michael Jordan wanted another title. Jenks left the team in 2010, with 173 saves and 334 strikeouts.
Next weekend, the Sox will remember Jenks as they celebrate their anniversary. Reinsdorf wants fans to show up in a season when just 681,110 — the second-lowest total in the big leagues without counting the Athletics and the Rays, who play in minor-league parks — have stumbled into Rate Field so far. He wants people to smile.
Smile?
“We have lost an iconic member of the White Sox family today,” Reinsdorf said in a statement. “None of us will ever forget that ninth inning of Game 4 in Houston, all that Bobby did for the 2005 World Series champions and for the entire Sox organization during his time in Chicago. He and his family knew cancer would be his toughest battle, and he will be missed as a husband, father, friend and teammate. He will forever hold a special place in all our hearts.”
Jenks, in Guillen’s mind, was “one of my all-time favorite players. I loved that man. This is a very sad day for everyone involved with the White Sox. Everyone remembers the moment when I called for the big fella in the World Series, so the bobblehead of that moment will be a great way to keep that moment alive for White Sox fans. Everyone has a favorite story about Bobby, so the reunion will be a great opportunity to get together with all his teammates and coaches and relive some of our greatest memories of him.”
I’m not sure another franchise, in any major American sport, has slipped so far in two decades. Bobby Jenks, lifting catcher A.J. Pierzynski in Texas, was the only real moment for Soxdom. One of these years, maybe in 2034, the team will be owned by someone who might try to keep a dead man alive.
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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.