WITH AN IRAQI CREEP, A BAD TEAM AND NO FANS, REINSDORF IS DOOMED AT 88
I’ve explained to Chicago people that he’s stealing their money and doesn’t care about winning, and now that it’s clear after decades of pain, I’m pleased to say the owner’s modus operandi is dead
Through all the politics, all the bullcrappery and all the backroom deals in Chicago, Jerry Reinsdorf finally woke up and realized he was in big trouble. He can’t call up my bosses and blame me. He can’t fire off a letter to Jewish attorneys, with a copy to me, and say I’m anti-Semitic. He can’t fault anyone but himself because, in the end, his two teams suck and he’s viewed as a fraud who steals money from fans.
The White Sox and Bulls are losers so miserably pathetic — gag and hurl when you call up their year-to-year records in recent times — that folks who once suffered him because he owned the Bulls in the Michael Jordan era finally have stopped attending baseball games. This is the first time in the 21st century that Chicago, a metropolitan area that traditionally views teams as generational lads, doesn’t care if the Sox stop playing or move to Nashville or Hades. It is a one-ballclub town, belonging to the Cubs, and by decade’s end, places such as Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston are projected to be larger in population than the new No. 5 market … or lower.
He can leave town with all the others. Or Reinsdorf can dump the Sox for a low price in struggling MLB, where the Baltimore Orioles sold in January for only $1.72 billion while NFL franchises go for $6 billion and NBA franchises for $4 billion. It is horrific how he’s trying to remain in Sox business, at 88, after handing off the Bulls to lost son Michael. While his team has started 2-14 and gone scoreless six times, after a 101-loss season, they drew a paid attendance Monday of 10,569, only some of whom showed up and spent the game demanding Reinsdorf to sell. This is the meanest place in the sport beyond Oakland, where the Athletics at least are winning a bit before they leave for Sacramento and, presumably, Las Vegas. The Sox have a 40-year-old general manager, Chris Getz, who shouldn’t have the position after initially lying about the departure of manager Omar Vizquel, who eventually was sued for sexually harassing an autistic batboy in Birmingham.
Amid such wretchedness, Reinsdorf is stumbling and bumbling, hoping Chicago and the state of Illinois will pay for a dazzling new stadium south of the Loop. Um, why would anyone help a sorry SOB when the Bears will invest more than $2 billion in private money, hoping for some public help with a new stadium along the lakefront. In any NFL vs. Sox debate, the Bears will continue to command Chicago for decades — hopefully with a real quarterback, Caleb Williams — and deserve all civic distinctions in any showdown. Professional football rules American life. Baseball is slowly dying, and on the North Side, the Cubs currently have momentum and a credible audience.
Worse, Reinsdorf should go away and sob in bed when he ponders his lameness. His piece of ballpark land involves 62 bizarre acres and is owned by an Iraqi-British billionaire, Nadhmi Shakir Auchi, who was convicted of fraud in a French oil scandal and served two years in prison after he and 76 others tried to assassinate Iraq’s prime minister. One of those 76 was named Saddam Hussein, who murdered “one of Mr. Auchi’s brothers,” according to Auchi’s attorneys. In a brilliant Chicago Sun-Times news story, Reinsdorf wants to do a deal with a man whose visa was denied by the State Department. As recently as 2014, the visa was banned for Auchi’s “crimes of moral turpitude.”
Isn’t Reinsdorf guilty of moral turpitude? Where did he find Auchi and why is he maneuvering with him? Auchi wound up accepting $10 million for a stake in the land from Related Companies, founded by billionaire Stephen Ross, who owns the Miami Dolphins. Why would anyone who owns an NFL gold mine want a low-rent baseball team? He doesn’t, and his manager won’t answer Sox questions. On top of it all, Chicago mayors and Illinois governors — even President Barack Obama — are somehow involved in what’s called The 78, as in the city’s 78th neighborhood.
The mob, I suppose.
With every report about Reinsdorf’s sickening movement, fans should continue to boycott the Sox. Taxpayer money should be directed in a billion paths beyond them, as Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Senate president Don Harmon have indicated. All we need is for the Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson, to say no. Then Jerry can call his Tennessee buddy, the mayor of Nashville, and have his new stadium built by country music stars. Whatever chance he had of remaining in Chicago, he has botched it. Isn’t he too old to be out and about? Shouldn’t someone grab him before he wears his ridiculous leather jacket and makes a bigger fool of his life?
Oh, there’s even more. Because MLB is ravaged by torture from regional sports networks, Reinsdorf wants to tap his own operation, using Stadium to air games of the Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks. Does he not realize cables are being snipped beyond belief in America? He has a streaming component, but who in his right mind would watch a Sox game on any platform or advertise on it?
Chicago is about to deposit this man into a drain that empties into the lake. His ballpark will not be built. His team will lose 110 games this time. And no one will watch on any application. I wrote for years that he is a despicable owner who despises fans. It took a while, but now you know. I am not anti-Semitic.
I am against rotten human beings. He’s finally getting his.
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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.