SHOULD I HIRE A JEWISH ATTORNEY AND TAKE DOWN JERRY REINSDORF’S ASS?

A cowardly owner didn’t have the guts to do interviews with national media members, instead putting out a flimsy statement when asked about his 33-114 White Sox, which brings back my own Jerry farces

     The man is detestable, skanky, corrupt and very old. I say this when his baseball team has lost 114 games, with seven to go before Jerry Reinsdorf becomes the worst single-season owner in American sports history. I’m waiting to say more. But let’s tell a story about his cowardice after he released a namby-pamby statement Wednesday, when national media reporters asked to interview him on the South Side, where Al Capone would have been more cooperative.

     He said no to the Washington Post. He said no to ESPN.

     What about the days I said no to him?

     Reinsdorf once sent me a snail-mail copy, on office stationery, in which he expressed concern about my column-writing to numerous Jewish attorneys. He told them I was anti-Semitic, in print, with a signature. I should have called out his crabby ass, but instead, I knew the men who owned my Chicago newspaper were Conrad Black and David Radler. They liked Reinsdorf more than they liked me.

     So I carried on. As time passed, I was called into the office of editor-in-chief Nigel Wade, who asked if I was … anti-Semitic. I told him no, and when I prepared to leave, Wade blindsided me with a forearm shiver on the shoulder. He did so in view of workers in the Sun-Times newsroom, including union leader Charles Nicodemus, an investigative reporter who chose to probe the editor-in-chief. Wade was run off.

     How would I handle Reinsdorf, with Black and Radler still around? Jerry made it known in the clubhouses of the White Sox and Bulls that I was a hated person. His groundskeeper, Roger Bossard, told folks that I was the only bad guy in the Chicago media. One of his pitchers, David Wells, repeatedly called me “Kotex boy” — while our family was dealing with cancer. When I entered the Sox clubhouse, I was told to leave. Local media were timid and political and didn’t appreciate the attention I reluctantly received. I wanted to know why Reinsdorf built an obsolete stadium with taxpayers’ money and how, in America’s third-largest market, he paid players with the 17th-best payroll in the majors. There was a day when a group of people from Rockford arrived at the ballpark and couldn’t make it up the upper-deck stairs — they were too steep.

     They wrote me. I ran their letter. I also wrote when I found cracks in the concrete, and I wrote when the ballpark didn’t face the skyline, with a designer source from HOK Sport telling me Reinsdorf interfered when he was offered Camden Yards blueprints.

     Yet he cashed in with the city’s politicians, who still liked him after Michael Jordan and the Bulls won six NBA titles. When in doubt, Reinsdorf played a cheap-ass game, badmouthing me to other sportswriters, with Sam Smith making a living while up his sphincter. Often, he would call the newspaper and try to have me fired, even after he tried and failed. He did get me fired at a radio station, though my ratings walloped the other station. Someone said he called Disney Company officials to have me removed from ESPN’s “Around The Horn,” where I rambled for eight years.

     Say hi to Bob Iger, Jerry.

     How about when editors Michael Cooke and John Cruickshank — yep, a cook and a crook — said I didn’t understand sports business because of something I said about Reinsdorf? Weeks later, I saw them in the hallway and asked if I still knew nothing about sports business. Nah, Cruickshank said. Reinsdorf had turned down an offer to buy a table at a company dinner.

     Jesus. Where was I working? How could I write for readers and beat the Tribune when my bosses were in bed with Jerry? I was at the airport when I received a call from an editor, who said Reinsdorf had sent lawyers into the building and wanted my hide. Why did the editors let them in? The phonies needed him.

     I wrote for the readers anyway. And I beat the Tribune. Often, editors asked me to lay off Jerry, because he wanted life easier. I refused. His assistant urged me not to call Reinsdorf — ever. I did want to inquire why his son elbowed me, in the chest, when I was watching a halftime TV show at a Bulls game. Or when nails kept showing up on my tires in the parking lot. Or when Bill Simonson, a Sox radio critic, suffered two black eyes and a lacerated scalp near Armour Square Park, by the stadium. Funny how Jerry always sought media revenge. One of us left the paper, disgusted by deceit, and handed back a guaranteed contract. I won.

     He loses.

     Here I am, watching the most wretched infamy, reading crap from a mope who is 88 and has nothing to do but make life hell for a few fans. “Everyone in this organization is extremely unhappy with the results of this season, that goes without saying,” Reinsdorf wrote. “This year has been very painful for all, especially our fans. We did not arrive here overnight, and solutions won’t happen overnight either. Going back to last year, we have made difficult decisions and changes to begin building a foundation for future success. What has impressed me is how our players and staff have continued to work and bring a professional attitude to the ballpark each day despite a historically difficult season. No one is happy with the results, but I commend the continued effort.

     “I expect to have more to say at the end of the season.’’

     Sell, we must hope.

     Why not appear on the field and say that to the Washington Post, ESPN, the New York Times and Chicago beat reporters? Reinsdorf doesn’t have it in him. Once upon a time, he dropped the anti-Semitic line with startling ease.

     Would he like to apologize?

     Or should I hire a Jewish lawyer and take down his ass?

     ###

     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.