CHICAGO FANS ARE OWED MUCH MORE — MANFRED GULPS AND GAMES ARE A TV JOKE
The MLB boss asked folks to have “confidence” about the White Sox, which is what he said about Oakland and the Athletics, as Comcast keeps ruling a one-sided war against the muted Bulls and Blackhawks
My thoughts of Chicago Sports include people standing in stunned rapture, as the extended guitar of a nerdy Alan Parsons Project blared across the United Center. Or a sellout crowd at Wrigley Field chanting “Go Cubs Go!” in mid-April. Or Blackhawks fans roaring during the national anthem, drowning out Jim Cornelison. Or Bears fans sitting through a halftime downpour as Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers were honored.
Or White Sox fans chanting, “Mariotti sucks!”
Today? Rob Manfred finally showed up to discuss the Sox, who are threatening to sell the team to a Nashville ownership group. The MLB commissioner is full of horsehide and crap, as usual. He appeared on Fox Sports and said nothing, beyond posing as background noise for Jerry Reinsdorf.
“Look, uh, Chicago is an anchor city for us. Um, you know, I think that the White Sox are in a difficult situation,” Manfred said. “I think the location of the stadium is tough. But I have confidence that things are going to work out in Chicago. And we’re going to continue to have two teams in Chicago.”
Confidence? Didn’t Manfred use the same blank word several times a year to describe Oakland’s relationship with the Athletics? Confidence is not remotely close to certainty. He acknowledges what I’ve said for decades, that the stadium built by Reinsdorf in 1991 is in a “difficult” mess at 35th and Shields on the South Side. And why would taxpayers who’ve been handed an abysmal franchise, headed nowhere, pay for a new ballpark? The Chicago people I know want Reinsdorf out of town on a one-way train. The Chicago people responding to a Sun-Times poll want him re-routed to Uranus, even if the Sox become the Nashville Stars. Next year is the 125th season of the Sox, who have won one title since throwing the World Series in 1919 and lost 121 games this season.
The commissioner wants confidence about an 88-year-old owner who is loathed as much as any crooked politician. Concentrate on the Dodgers and Yankees, Rob. The Sox should be considered a civic defeat until they are sold to Dave Stewart.
Today? Comcast continues to control the future fate of three teams, with the Bulls making their debut and the Hawks seven games into a regular season with no word of a broadcast breakthrough. The same folks who once supported these franchises like beloved pets have almost no chance of sitting at home and watching basketball, hockey and what’s left of the Sox next spring. The Chicago Sports Network — a UHF operation based in Indiana and featuring little more than modern test patterns — keeps asking fans to set up an old-fashioned antenna to perhaps pick up a free feed.
If it works.
The network has made offers to Comcast with significant discounts. No one has responded because, oh, the executives might not like Reinsdorf and his people. America’s third-largest market feels like Paducah. Quickly, the Bulls and Hawks are losing distant memories of Michael Jordan and Derrick Rose and, more recently, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. Both teams have lost relevance in their leagues and among diehard locals. The Sox? Nothing has happened in the week since Reinsdorf allowed a leak to The Athletic — he was speaking to Stewart about selling the team, which could involve a move to Tennessee.
Any comment, commissioner?
We just watched the Athletics leave Oakland for Las Vegas, with a three-year trip to a minor-league stadium in Sacramento. Why wouldn’t Reinsdorf repeat the unsightly process? He can’t obtain a ballpark deal in Chicago when the Bears are committing more than $2 billion to a downtown site, possibly opening “The 78” neighborhood to the McCaskeys and president/CEO Kevin Warren. Jerry wants a freebie. As the Illinois governor and the Chicago mayor have said for months, he must spend his own billions. He refuses.
So, Manfred should have expounded about the community problem that is Jerry Reinsdorf. Baseball is better without him. Chicago is better without him. The White Sox/Stars are better without him. The American sports media are better without him.
This is why I’m rooting for Comcast. The conglomerate is telling him no, just as government leaders are telling him no, just as fans are telling him no. To facilitate the Bulls opener Wednesday evening, local bars paid the NBA.
“League Pass,” said a worker at Timothy O’Toole’s pub.
An old-school antenna wasn’t used. Comcast wins again.
Confidence, commissioner? Have you spent any time in Chicago? Do you realize three sports teams, two owned by Reinsdorf, are positioned for death row?
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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.