WOULD REINSDORF AND THE SLEAZY WHITE SOX FIRE A HOMOSEXUAL HEAD TRAINER?
A sickening look at recent dramas — Brian Ball and Omar Vizquel — reminds us that a failed baseball team in Chicago is dreadfully worse than a 41-121 season, lost fans and a so-long stadium lease
A courtroom was the one place where Jerry Reinsdorf couldn’t lose a ballgame. Now, the besieged owner of the Chicago White Sox can’t make that assumption as 89 candles — or a stank prank with sparks — are scattered on his birthday cake. His administration, says an Illinois appellate court, might have fired the team’s head athletic trainer in 2020 because he is a homosexual.
“The law does not condone deception,” ruled the court, suggesting the Sox concealed “discriminatory motives while inducing an employee to waive protection (that) undercuts the very purpose of anti-discrimination statutes.”
Former general manager Rick Hahn might have been lying, apparently, when claiming Brian Ball no longer “fit in” after more than 20 years in the South Side clubhouse. Which means Reinsdorf continues to preside over a sleazy outfit, which accompanies a record 121-loss season and a massive fan abandonment as the team faces an eventual expiration of the (No More Guaranteed) Rate Field lease. Few owners in Major League Baseball history ever have been troubled by so many rash difficulties.
Would Reinsdorf please sell a failing franchise worth $2.05 billion, the lowest value of the city’s baseball, football, basketball and hockey teams?
Today, perhaps?
It wasn’t long ago when Reinsdorf’s current GM, Chris Getz, didn’t come clean about why Omar Vizquel was fired as manager of the Class AA Birmingham Barons. As the Sox’s director of player development, Getz knew Vizquel was accused of “sexually aggressive behavior” and “at least five occasions” where he “deliberately exposed his erect or partially erect penis” to a 22-year-old autistic batboy. According to a civil lawsuit against the Sox and a filing with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the batboy said a naked Vizquel gave him a bar of soap and told him to “wash my damn back!”
Said the lawsuit: “Humiliated, intimidated and frightened of what would happen if he disobeyed, (the batboy) complied with Vizquel's demand. As he washed Vizquel's back, Vizquel's hands were in front of his body near the level of his waist." When the back-washing lasted a minute, the lawsuit said, “Vizquel's penis was fully erect. He made no effort to hide his erection ... rather, he proudly displayed it.”
A confidential settlement was reached in June 2022. In a prime position in the farm system, Vizquel had been viewed in Chicago as a possible major-league manager. Despite the horrendous accusations and eventual settlement, Getz was disreputably quiet when he announced Vizquel’s departure after the 2019 season.
“Listen, Omar, ultra-talented player, very good instructor, created a good environment for our players," Getz told MLB.com’s Scott Merkin. "We just felt with where things are at, our player development system, that it was time to go separate ways. But not only for himself, but for the organization as well and we wish Omar well. He was a positive influence while he was here.”
Getz wished Vizquel well instead of, well, manhandling him.
A positive influence, he said. When he makes such a maddening assertion, how would any remaining Sox fans have faith in the future? Might 121 losses become 122 this year? We’re reading stories about prospects when the only question is this: Will Reinsdorf sell the team, perhaps to Dave Stewart in Nashville, or let everything die at 35th and Shields? Tampa Bay and Sacramento are playing in minor-league stadiums. Shouldn’t the Sox go away as the second team in a one-team town?
For the longest time, people didn’t care when Ozzie Guillen referred to a columnist — me — as a “f—ing fag.” Oh, to let that episode fade is impossible when a head trainer is fired suspiciously and a penis-erected Vizquel creates “a good environment.” Crass, unsophisticated behavior was the culture of the franchise.
Now, the franchise is all but gone. At least we’ll watch proceedings in the trial court. Root for Brian Ball against Rick Hahn and Jerry Reinsdorf. I remember hearing, when I asked an attorney about foolish Reinsdorfian stunts, that Jerry would win any legal Chicago argument including fuzz stuck between toes.
He’s 0 for 1 in 2025.
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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.