Imrem: Oh, what might have been for Chicago White Sox
Here's what I'm thinking after a couple of events over the weekend.
Most of all, the Chicago White Sox wouldn't have lost 10-2 on Sunday if Eddie DeBartolo Sr. were allowed to purchase them way back in 1980.
OK, that's a bit of a reach unless we're in some sort of time warp.
But it's not a reach to think that history would have been different over the past 36 years.
Saturday night, former 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr. was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Connect the dots: The Sox currently are a mess … DeBartolo Jr. was one of the most successful owners in NFL history … Eddie DeBartolo Sr. happens to be his father.
In 1980, the Sox's ownership group headed by Bill Veeck accepted the elder DeBartolo's bid to buy the ballclub.
The deal was done until suddenly it wasn't when American League owners rejected the transaction.
The most public of reasons given was that DeBartolo Sr. would be an absentee owner and might move the Sox to New Orleans.
Another concern was that DeBartolo Sr.'s ownership of thoroughbred racetracks would cast a gambling shadow on baseball. Whispers also connected DeBartolo Sr. to the mob.
The American League instead selected Jerry Reinsdorf's group, which owns the Sox to this day.
That's what was … what might have been remains interesting.
DeBartolo Jr. is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame because the 49ers won five Super Bowls during his 23-year tenure, which ended amid unsavory personal and legal circumstances.
Without an NFL salary cap in the 1980s, money was no object. DeBartolo Jr. spent whatever it took for the 49ers to win championships.
It was difficult to listen to DeBartolo Jr.'s address in Canton without contemplating what DeBartolo Sr. would have made of the Sox.
Would he have moved the Sox despite vowing not to? Would a gambling scandal have broken out? Would organized crime have lurked?
Or would the White Sox have become baseball's model franchise the way the 49ers became the NFL's model franchise?
DeBartolo Sr. was set to become the Sox's sole owner, meaning he wouldn't have had to worry about other investors the way Reinsdorf has to.
If DeBartolo Sr. wanted to have the highest payroll in baseball ahead of even the Yankees, he could have done so even if it meant he would lose money.
When the economics of baseball changed, DeBartolo Sr. could have kept up better than Reinsdorf's group has.
When Comiskey Park was crumbling, DeBartolo Sr. could have used a big chunk of his personal wealth to renovate it or maybe even to build a better ballpark than Reinsdorf persuaded the state to build.
This is all fantasy baseball, of course, because nobody will ever know how history would have been revised if the big leagues welcomed in big Eddie DeBartolo Sr.
What we do know is the 49ers won five Super Bowls in 23 years under a DeBartolo family member and the Sox have won one World Series in 36 years under Reinsdorf's group.
Don't you still wonder just a little what would have happened if Eddie DeBartolo Sr. had gained control of the Sox?
It's doubtful that he could have prevented the Sox from losing Sunday, considering that he died 1994.
But just maybe the White Sox would have won more championships since 1980.
mimrem@dailyherald.com