O'Donnell: Stone, Jackson, Guillen - will any ever call out the Reinsdorf-La Russa implode?
WHEN TED KOPPEL AND "NIGHTLINE" came to be on ABC all those years ago, the show's initial title was "The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage."
It's too bad that there's not a sports broadcast outlet in Chicago bold enough to furnish the same sort of nightly monitor on the disaster unfolding at Guaranteed Rot Field.
Call it: "The La Russa Crisis: White Sox Fans Held Hostage."
Rather than the Ayatollah Khomeini, the role of problematic provocateur could be split into two - Tony La Russa and the enabling Jerry Reinsdorf.
La Russa's crust allows a very talented baseball team to loll along chasing a .500 record.
Reinsdorf's Brooklyn-branded ego and vanity allows The Sleepy Senor to continue snoozin'.
THAT'S ALL VERY BAD NEWS for Sox fans, who entered the 2022 season filled with more optimism than young Prince George becoming aware of The Royal Exchequer.
It would be great if a media advocate would step forward and loudly declare:
"Tony La Russa is costing the White Sox games in a championship window and Jerry Reinsdorf must do something about it!"
WHO COULD THAT be now?
Steve Stone?
Hah ... far too seasoned and self-protective.
Radio windup Darrin Jackson?
Hah ... hah.
Ozzie Guillen?
Most probable of the three, but he obviously needs el dinero or he wouldn't be working the late shift on NBC Sports Chicago.
LA RUSSA TO DATE lacks the professional integrity and updated sense of self to resign.
At age 86, Reinsdorf would seem an extremely unlikely rich man to acknowledge when to fold on an heirloom manager whose improbable curtain call has devolved into a failing gimmick. Not even a broke and battered Bill Veeck would have considered the Wham-O Bird Collar retro.
Right now, the best Sox fans can hope for is that an 82-80 record might actually win an astonishingly limp AL-Central and the No. 3 seed in the six-team American League playoffs.
In the interim, it's nothing more than "Week 11: White Sox Fans Held Hostage."
With no direct voice of truth manning the South Side "Nightline."
• • •
ROGER VALDISERRI DIED this week at age 95.
There is little more to do than toast an influential life extraordinarily well-lived.
As a young man in Pennsylvania, one of Mr. Valdiserri's major uphill goals was to attend Notre Dame.
Not only did he do that - graduating in 1954 - he returned in 1966 as Director of Sports Information, and in the ensuing three decades became one of the primary imaging agents at the storied school.
He assisted Ara Parseghian during the resurrection of ND football. He greatly helped the recurringly cantankerous Digger Phelps put the Irish favorably back on the national men's basketball map. He championed women and minorities.
IN RETIREMENT, HE COULD even find reasonably OK things to say about Charlie Weis.
He set the foundation for what later became Notre Dame's fabulously successful TV football showcase with NBC Sports. He knew everyone who mattered - and many who really didn't.
Somewhere along the line, Mr. Valdiserri decided to major in "being kind." "Big league" came naturally.
As recounted by John Heisler - an acolyte and his successor in 1995 - Parseghian once said, "No one understood and represented Notre Dame better than Roger Valdiserri."
Amen.
STREET-BEATIN': No less than Jay Cutler is reportedly trying to throw his helmet into the ring for the Notre Dame color man role at NBC. (He did grow up in Santa Claus, Ind., a mere 300 miles south of Touchdown Jesus.) ...
Sports funnyman Norman Chad is telling media that his no-speak feud with ex-Washington Post mate Tony Kornheiser is entering its 16th year. ESPN's "World Series of Poker" analyst says it stems from when Kornheiser knocked him off his perch as No. 1 fill-in on "Pardon The Interruption." (Mike Wilbon's back has got to be brittle after carrying the oily Kornheiser on "PTI" for all these years.) ...
Mayor Lori Lightfoot has taken time away from ramrodding the Chicago casino into the wrong place to declare June 11 as "Doug Bruno Day." The longtime DePaul coach will be inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame that afternoon. (Paging Janie Fincher and Rita Easterling from Bruno's old Chicago Hustle.) ...
Also Demon Dawging, Joe Ponsetto notes DePaul has a connection to the surging Celtics: Mfon Udoka - the sister of Boston head coach Ime Udoka - is in the university's Athletics Hall of Fame for her hoopin' hoppin'. (She has since long been involved in the development of basketball in Nigeria.) ...
Services for Roger Petty of Arlington Heights - a Formula Ford driver who opted out of open-wheel racing for family life and a North Shore auto shop - will be Monday at St. James Catholic Church. Mr. Petty's greatest "wins" were sons Russ and Ryan (Des Plaines Fire Department) and grandsons Brandon, Graham and Jack. ...
And golf-and-gaming kewpie Paige Spiranac, after getting trolled following a tweet spoofing the PGA's milkshake tradition at The Memorial in suburban Columbus this weekend: "Lighten up."
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.