TIME FOR REINSDORF’S NATIONAL MEDIA MOPES TO START REPORTING THE SCAM

It’s disgusting how Ken Rosenthal and Bob Nightengale do coverage favors for the godawful White Sox owner — you’re picking on Pittsburgh and not Chicago? — and their media bosses should call them out

     If I’m Mr. Bob Nutting, the I-don’t-belong-here owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, an urgent call would be made to Ken Rosenthal. Yes, maybe my proprietorship has been cheaper than a Capicola and Cheese at Primanti Bros. Yes, maybe we behave like a Triple-A team in a passionate sports town where World Series were claimed before 1980, where the Penguins have won five times and the Steelers have won six.

     And yes, the Pirates had Gerrit Cole and Tyler Glasnow and Josh Bell recently, just as they had Barry Bonds years ago, just as Oneil Cruz and Paul Skenes will be abandoned someday, just as a museum and a bridge and a statue are dedicated to Roberto Clemente’s legend.

     But if I’m Nutting, I’m also asking Rosenthal an ethical question after his major piece on the Pirates in The Athletic with colleague Stephen J. Nesbitt. Why are you not picking on, say, Jerry Reinsdorf? Why is Rosenthal protecting Reinsdorf? Why not go after an owner, in the massive city of Chicago, who has been much uglier for the sport than Nutting in five decades of wreckage?

     Why doesn’t he go after the man who killed baseball in the ‘90s with strongarm labor tactics — “I’m going to be a hawk,” he said in the press box in 1994, and he didn’t mean Hawk Harrelson — and left the World Series to be canceled with a long work stoppage? In that time, the NFL and Michael Jordan bypassed baseball, which wound up with a helpless, hapless steroids scandal as commissioner Bud Selig doddered on and Reinsdorf served as his buddy and right-hand man.

     And winning? The Pirates made the playoffs three straight years through 2015 with Nutting as a bad boss. The White Sox, with Reinsdorf as owner since 1981 in a market of nine million people, have made the postseason twice the last 19 years and were eliminated both times. Entering his 45th season, Reinsdorf has won one World Series — did it ever really happen? — and been to the playoffs only six times, three less than the Pirates did consecutively last decade. At least Nutting, low-economy as he is, gave outfielder Bryan Reynolds an eight-year contract for $106.7 million. That means only two Major League Baseball owners have failed to give a player a nine-figure deal. One is John Fisher in Oakland, off to Las Vegas, if Nevada wants the Athletics.

     The other is Jerry Reinsdorf.

     Right now, with gall that should have him ejected from the state of Illinois before his 88th birthday on Sunday, Reinsdorf wants Gov. J.B. Pritzker to approve $1 billion in public funding for a new South Loop stadium. Many lawmakers chuckled Tuesday when he made a trip to Springfield for political visits, perhaps his first visit there since convincing Jim Thompson, then the governor, to approve funding for a new Comiskey Park in 1988. Where Rosenthal might start his work is by calling State Rep. Kelly Cassidy, a Democrat in Chicago, who wrote on social media: “Let me see if I have this straight: Billionaire businessman doesn’t like the last stadium we built for him & wants us to pay for a new one. Couldn’t even bother with the usual not quite a billion demand and just going full Dr. Evil. Not a penny, pal. #ReadTheRoomJerry.”

     There are many other Reinsdorf haters who will stop attempts to reach Pritzker, whose family is worth $41.6 billion yet he won’t help sports billionaires who want public money. As the governor said recently, “You understand my view in general is, the taxpayers shouldn’t have to pick up any bills for private businesses that are trying to extend their franchises in the city or the state.” Wednesday, a day after he scolded reporters for asking too many questions — “Come on, that’s enough fellas,” Reinsdorf said — the White Sox weren’t a factor when Pritzker announced a $52.7 billion spending agenda. But he did approve state-regulated sportsbooks to help solve substantial pension debt.

     Why haven’t national baseball reporters grabbed onto this story? Why can’t they see how one man, atop the national pastime when he purchased the White Sox, has struck out as an abysmal power player? The Series drew all-time-low ratings of 9.1 million viewers last fall, only a few months before the Super Bowl attracted at least 123.7 million. Jerry Reinsdorf is baseball’s devil. Yet, where are the reporters who’ve fallen beneath football and basketball media?

     Come on, Ken Rosenthal, who always pooh-poohs Reinsdorf on rare occasions he writes about him. Come on, Bob Nightengale, the USA Today staff reporter who is so friendly to Reinsdorf as a source that holiday greetings come 12 months a year. Jeff Passan writes almost everything at ESPN — not Reinsdorf. Why? Oh, Jerry loves to play games with the national guys, enjoys talking to them off the record as long as they quietly play his game. That’s not journalism. That is safeguarding a fool.

     Notice how I ignore Chicago itself, a lost cause decades ago as I often point out. Ask basketball reporter Sam Smith, who still works for Reinsdorf at Bulls.com after protecting him in print for decades. Ask Tribune columnist Paul Sullivan, who won’t pull triggers while the other paper’s general cushion doesn’t matter anymore. And The Athletic? We’re still awaiting anything locally other than corny jokes.

     Reinsdorf has ruined sports in Chicago, ruined baseball in America and ruined the Bulls in the NBA. Since wreckingballing a dynasty that was entirely about Jordan — who will be in town Sunday for the jersey retirement of NHL friend Chris Chelios — his basketball team has been a 27-year farce. Reporters should be eyeing a chance to run him off, finally. Or are they too far in bed with him? Might they ask, “Why am I such an idiot?”

     I’ll be curious to see what develops this week in Australia, where Scottie Pippen is back to mauling Jordan on a three-way tour of National Basketball League stops. “No Bull,” the tour is called, with visits to Tasmania, Melbourne and Sydney. Surely, Pippen will repeat why the G.O.A.T. was a “horrible player” despite their six titles. He might even stumble into the on-again relationship between his ex-wife, Larsa, and Jordan’s son, Marcus. But he’ll also be joined by the Aussie big man, Luc Longley, and Horace Grant.

     In Grant’s case, he blew out Jordan after “The Last Dance,” saying he was guilty of “a downright, outright, completely lie.” That was after Jordan blamed Grant for providing leaks to Smith for “The Jordan Rules” book. In fact, I was the one who accused Grant — and Reinsdorf — of providing leaks to Smith. There are bigger issues here. Grant left Chicago in 1994 to  “look out for myself and my family.” The Orlando Magic gave him a $22.3 million deal, more than Reinsdorf, who bitterly complained Grant retreated from a handshake deal to accept $20 million plus incentives. Then the Magic re-signed him two years later for $50 million, as owner Rich DeVos promised.

     So let the “No Bull” crew bash on. There will be more Jerry Reinsdorf stories told Down Under. At some point, our national media should end their shoe-horned deals and realize $1 billion for a stadium is consumer theft, straight from the mastermind.

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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.