THE PISSANT IS SELLING THE WHITE SOX — BYE, JERRY — EVEN IF NASHVILLE IS NEXT
The worst of sports owners is having discussions with former big-leaguer Dave Stewart, who has tried for years to bring baseball to Tennessee, and the sooner the Sox leave, it’s better for Chicago
This should be a heavenly day in Chicago, no longer as ill in blessed Illinois, except it’s daunted by a jolting cultural possibility. Jerry Reinsdorf’s reported sale of the White Sox warrants crazy drinking and night-long whizzing in the river, yet it also means the South Side ballclub could be headed to Nashville.
He is speaking at length with former big-league pitcher Dave Stewart, who has been trying for years with ownership group Music City Baseball to bring the major leagues to Tennessee. Until Wednesday, the thought was an expansion team. The Athletic broke a story that suggests otherwise. If Stewart has teamed with local connoisseur John Loar, former U.S. attorney general Alberto Gonzales and former Titans running back Eddie George, don’t be a homer and believe they’d deal with politicians about maintaining the White Sox as a hopeless No. 2 failure in a lopsided Cubs town.
Cheers to Reinsdorf for trashing the entirety of the franchise. Bill Veeck and other owners kept the Sox in Chicago, but no one in the history of American sports ever has lost 121 games in a regular season. The team has few fans, including those rooting for the record to be broken when I was at the ballmall — my own term — last month. He has nothing more than a UHF station on the so-called Chicago Sports Network, which is loathed already by Blackhawks owner Danny Wirtz and happens to be based in NASHVILLE. There are about nine million people in the region, all waiting for any kind of winner, and Reinsdorf is terrible at what he does — stealing too much money from diehards who finally see what he’s about.
And he has done this for a very long time, since he ran off Michael Jordan and only has won a forgotten World Series in the decades and losing years since.
Why would Reinsdorf speak to Stewart? Because both are close to Tony La Russa, who should be having another meal with Jerry about now. In the bigger scream, the team must sell in 2024, just as the Pohlad family is selling the Minnesota Twins when Forbes values them at $1.46 billion. In March, the Baltimore Orioles were sold for $1.725 billion. Reinsdorf will want much more, certainly. He’s not getting it because who else wants the Sox? Bozo the Clown? Anyone with billions and brains seeks a rare NFL franchise (the Washington Commanders went for $6.05 billion) or an NBA franchise (the Phoenix Suns went for $4 billion). The Sox might go for $1.5 billion, as a major-market team turned deathly sour.
Say goodbye, Jerry, and enjoy your nonagenarian entrance in less than two years. Was it worth hiring La Russa to run a long-rebuilding team into the ground? Was it worth building an obsolete park at 35th and Shields? Was it worth staying in the baseball and basketball business so long, to the point you looked ready for a nap while endorsing Doug Collins for the Hall of Fame the other night? His son, Michael, runs the Bulls and they will be as abysmal into the distant future.
Forget about Stewart moving the Sox to Oakland, his hometown, after commissioner Rob Manfred feuded with politicians. He met with Manfred and told Sports Illustrated in February why he wants a team.
“I’m not doing this to have you walk through the offices and see a bunch of Black people,” Stewart said. “That’s not what this is about. This is about all people. Males, females, Black, white, Asian … where you can really walk through an office and see what the country is supposed to be like. If I’m allowed the opportunity to get this team, well, that’s what baseball needs. That’s my vision. And it’s diversity in every form, including diversity of thought. A lot of people have focused on Black ownership, but it’s minority-slash-diverse ownership.”
And the Tennessee money people? “I won’t talk about my investors,” Stewart said. “What MLB has told me is that you make sure through this process that you put together your money, your cash. And I’ve done that. That’s been my focus.”
In Nashville, ownership intends to build a park by the Cumberland River. Until now, the team was designated to be known as the Stars, a tribute to the Negro Leagues. The city surely can support an MLB team with new post-pandemic residents, pushing metro population past two million. The Titans and NHL’s Predators are succeeding. Why not Reinsdorf’s former team? Said La Russa, to writer Tom Verducci: “The way I look at it, whatever Dave gets involved in, he’s going to be successful. He’s very intelligent and he has a personality that people respond to. Just start with all the boxes he has checked over the years. The next challenge is ownership. There’s no doubt in my mind that he will attack it in the same way as his other challenges: with intelligence and integrity.”
If Reinsdorf leaks the story with Stewart — that’s how he operates — he is waiting for a sale to be completed. He wants out of public life before Guaranteed Rate Field shuts the doors on him. Chicago is sick of him. Baseball fans are sick of him after he derailed the sport with anti-union railings in the ‘90s. Bulls fans are sick of him and his son.
Sox fans want to burn the stadium.
The preference would be a Chicago owner who throws his own money into a lovely project in the 78th neighborhood, with a precious downtown view. But who in his right mind has any interest in saving the Sox? They aren’t worth anyone’s time in a sport that struggles beyond a handful of teams, including three of the four playoff teams left, the Dodgers and Yankees and Mets. The Cubs work in Chicago. They’re enough.
Baseball needs the money for expansion teams. But taking care of shoddy franchises is more important. The Tampa Bay Rays finally will have a new park in 2028 to replace Milton-shredded Tropicana Field. Oakland is off to Las Vegas via Sacramento. Jerry Reinsdorf and his insufferable arrogance are atop the help list.
Just do the deal. Play a final season on a stadium site that could be considered by the Bears — why not? — with monstrous renovations that don’t require $5 billion for a lakefront dome. Let the team move to Chattanooga until a stadium is ready.
And Jerry can return to Paradise Valley in Arizona. Never mind what he said last year, telling the media, “Friends of mine have said: ‘Why don’t you sell? Why don’t you get out?’ My answer always has been: ‘I like what I’m doing, as bad as it is, and what else would I do?’ I’m a boring guy. I don’t play golf. I don’t play bridge.”
It’s time.
As he once said of me, he’s just a pissant.
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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.