Imrem: How to and how not to conduct baseball business

Welcome to the latest on Chicago's polar opposite baseball teams.

The Cubs are swinging on the Milky Way with Theo Epstein; the Sox are stumbling on Planet Cuckoo with Robin Ventura.

The big Sox news early Wednesday afternoon: They want Ventura back as manager if he wants to return.

That's like attempting to retrieve a spaceship that crashed into a black hole.

The big Cubs news a couple of hours later: They extended the contract of baseball chief Epstein.

That's like attempting to launch toward higher heights during the next five years.

The immediate mood among South Siders was funereal; the immediate mood among North Siders was celebrate, celebrate, dance to the music.

The Sox haven't made anything official concerning Ventura. He and general manager Rick Hahn said they won't address the issue until after the season.

However, the report on Ventura came from USA Today's Bob Nightengale, one of the country's most respected baseball journalists.

Let's proceed under the premise that Ventura will stay on the job in 2017 and perhaps for centuries to come.

Ventura is a failed manager in the final week of the fifth and final year of his contract.

The Sox are verging on their fourth straight sub-.500 record under Ventura … after they collapsed out of first place late in his first season.

The only plausible reason the Sox would retain Ventura is that nearly everyone is demanding that they divorce him.

That's pretty much how the Sox operate.

This goes far beyond the Cubs contending for a World Series championship this year and the Sox heading for another fourth-place finish in the American League Central.

If Ventura indeed comes back, the Sox would be telling their fans that it doesn't matter how you feel, we're going to slap you around some more.

In other words, feel free to stay away from Guaranteed Rate Field like you have been from U.S. Cellular Field.

No wonder Sox annual attendance still is well below two million while Cubs attendance is back to well above three million.

All of it adds up to examples of how to (Cubs) and not to (White Sox) do the business of baseball.

Yes, this is why Sox popularity is low despite winning the 2005 World Series and Cubs popularity is high despite not winning one since 1908.

While the Sox would be settling for the beleaguered Ventura, the Cubs are retaining the successful Epstein.

All of this goes back five years to when Ventura and Epstein were hired.

The Sox entrusted their players to a manager who hadn't ever managed. The Cubs entrusted their team to an executive who was the general manager of two World Series champions in Boston.

Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts did the right thing by hiring the right man and then did the right thing by retaining the right man.

Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf did the wrong thing by hiring the wrong man and now would be doing the wrong thing by retaining the wrong man.

Of course, the USA Today report could be incorrect or the Sox might know that Ventura will decline their offer.

Even that would scream how complicated the Sox can make the least complicated personnel move.

With or without Robin Ventura, the White Sox still will trail the Cubs and Theo Epstein by light-years.

mimrem@dailyherald.com