FANS SHOULDN’T HAVE BOOED JERRY KRAUSE, BUT PLEASE UNDERSTAND WHY

Sports executives forget how much public money and energy are committed to their franchises, and if some people voice angry disapproval, it’s time to stop pouting and answer this way: Win more games

     The good people of Chicago have spent so much money on sports, devoted so much passion to five pro teams, that an unglued moment is understandable. Who do these owners think they are, banking the revenue and not being accountable for their lack of success? They believe fans should be subservient suckers forever.

     True, the dopes should not have booed Jerry Krause almost seven years after his death. Soft applause would have worked Friday night. But at some point, the executives who run the industry — owners, media bosses — must understand why folks grow so indignant about local teams and their failures. On an evening when Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman blew off the inaugural Ring of Honor ceremony, the Bulls should have been more concerned about how the crowd would grumble about Krause.

     Once his name was announced, contempt filled the United Center. Anyone with a heart felt poorly for his widow, Thelma, who was shown shaking her head and raising her hands upward. No one wants to see such a distorted response, not even the boobirds. But what Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf don’t understand to this day — and the McCaskeys and Tom Ricketts and Danny Wirtz — is WHY they’re booing so rudely in a town of sports grief.

     They are disgusted with the men who operate the franchises, the ones their fathers and grandfathers watched with them. And they still cannot tolerate what Reinsdorf and Krause did in 1998, disassembling the greatest dynasty known to modern sports. They see what Reinsdorf pulled, pocketing money he could have paid the principles. They see what Krause did, winning his witless war with Phil Jackson and losing Jordan through the same doorway.

     And they cannot believe 26 years later that the Bulls have become an annual farce, wasting the most immaculate all-time asset a team ever could have. When Krause was introduced, they voiced anger about his years of in-house trouble with Jordan, Pippen and Jackson. In a season when little else is happening, as usual, the scene will be another lowlight from the last century.

      Krause hated me, suggesting publicly I was anti-Semitic when I referred to him and Reinsdorf as The Jerrys. I’m not anti-Semitic; I’m anti-bad sports owner. Once, when I was preparing to put him on my national radio show, Krause took apart my producer and said the station should ashcan me before he appeared. On a snowy Christmas Week, he and Reinsdorf were firing Bulls coach Tim Floyd — the man Krause needed to replace Jackson, for some reason — and when I entered the facility with flakes all over me, he stopped his press conference and told me to wipe a smirk off my face.

     “Merry Christmas!” I yelled, on live TV, as Floyd’s family sat on the practice floor in a dim setting.

     One evening, he was so upset with me that the team publicist, Tim Hallam, urged me to play a game on press row. He would yell at me, on behalf of Krause, but Hallam really wasn’t mad. So when he’d say something meaningless, I’d fire back with a faux pained look, “Why does Krause sit in that same damned seat every night?”

     Having fun with Krause was not to be taken seriously. Yet throughout the NBA and anywhere else in sports, he poisoned me. Basketball writer Bob Ryan was one of his close friends and had to warn me, to the point he grew grisly about me as a partner on ESPN’s “Around The Horn.” That’s journalism? In a small way, I learned what Jordan, Pippen and Jackson learned. Cross Krause, and in his mind, he would retaliate. Such were the mind games with both Jerrys, who should have accepted their media fates but too often tried to get writers and broadcasters fired.

     It’s digestible when Steve Kerr, part of the dynasty, ripped the booing fans. “It’s absolutely shameful,” said the Golden State coach, who was brought to the Bulls by Krause. “I’m devastated for Thelma and for the Krause family. What can we possibly be thinking? … Whether people liked Jerry or not, whether they disagreed with the decision to move on, we’re here to celebrate the team. Jerry did an amazing job building that team. Tonight was all about the joy and love that team shared with the city and I’m so disappointed in the fans. And I want to be specific, because there were lots of fans I’m sure who did not boo. But those who booed, they should be ashamed.”

     Also defending Krause was Michael Reinsdorf, the team’s president and CEO. “An important part of our history,” he said. “His legacy deserves to be celebrated and respected. We were incredibly honored to have Thelma with us this evening to recognize Jerry as a member of the inaugural Chicago Bulls Ring of Honor.”

     Said Bulls broadcaster Stacey King: “The people that booed Jerry Krause and his widow, who was accepting this honor for him, it was the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Whoever booed her in this arena, that’s not Chicago. That’s New York, that’s Philly. We don’t have a reputation of being that way. That man brought six championships here. He didn’t shoot a basket nor did he get a rebound, but he put six titles up in this arena. That was really classless. I hurt for that lady. Brought her to tears and those booing her in this arena should be ashamed of themselves.”

     Are they ashamed? Wrong word. Next time, they should stop spending excessive money to attend games and pad Reinsdorf’s pocket. Next time, they shouldn’t buy a jersey or watch road contests on TV. Just move on so Thelma Krause doesn’t have to cry. “That man had family, friends that are still here that ought to be appreciated and shouldn’t be disrespected in no type of way, by hearing boos or anything like that,” Bulls star DeMar DeRozan said. “It just sucks that their family had to endure something like that. You can never take away what he created. Without Jerry, there wouldn’t be the historic Chicago Bulls. You gotta give him credit for as long as basketball is around.”

     I live in Los Angeles, after 17 years as a Chicago columnist, and I was informed about Krause by text during an Eagles concert at the Forum — where the Bulls won their first NBA title. “Hotel California” sounded even better. In the big Midwestern city, where Krause grew up, most folks have compassion. The ill-natured rose and booed, and as a new day begins, I’ll tell the Reinsdorfs how to shut them up.

     Win.

     ###

     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.