Rozner: Why would Reinsdorf still want White Sox?
What must Jerry Reinsdorf be thinking?
That thought kept popping up as Chris Sale took the mound Thursday night at Wrigley Field, the Cubs playing another game that mattered, the White Sox playing yet another game that didn't.
What must the Sox owner be thinking and how much longer does he want to endure this?
Sure, he wants to win another World Series, but at least he's got one and that's one more than any other owner in Chicago has been able to say for the last 200 hundred years of combined local baseball.
And, yeah, he'd like to get this turned around soon so that he can enjoy the baseball team in his golden years.
Makes sense.
But little else makes sense about what's gone on this year with the White Sox, and you wonder why Reinsdorf wouldn't just take a billion-something for the club and call it a day.
Seriously, who needs the aggravation? And that's what Sox players are best at delivering.
There are reasons to criticize Reinsdorf's ownership of the Sox, just as there would be for any owner. He's far from perfect. He has made many mistakes.
But he has tried to win. In fact, he has tried to win every year, a desire that has cost the team years of development.
Yet, there was rarely a Sox fan angry that he was going for it again, even while some observers were calling annually for a rebuild.
And now Reinsdorf's reward is to be subjected to the continued madness of Chris Sale, a player he drafted, developed and brought to the big leagues, rewarding him after 29 starts and at age 23 with a $56 million deal (including options).
In March, it was Sale's incomprehensible defense of Adam LaRoche, followed by an attempted coup after Drake was sent home to begin a childhood existence that didn't include charter flights with a professional baseball team. And then the screaming attack on his boss, Ken Williams.
It was at that moment that Reinsdorf had to wonder how a raving lunatic had seized an entire locker room.
Of course, that was merely prelude to what occurred Saturday, and the carving up of a marketing approach designed to - wait for it - sell tickets and jerseys so that Sale could collect $1.5 million per month.
Sorry, Mr. Sale, for trying to run a franchise. Should have asked you first for permission.
As if it all weren't bad enough, Sale buried Robin Ventura in an MLB.com story Monday night, bus-tossing yet another Sox executive after getting Williams in March and marketing director Brooks Boyer when he shredded those uniforms.
Sale's close friend and partner in all things bizarre is one Adam Eaton, another player who was paid $40 million (including options) at age 25 after only 123 games in Chicago, even after being run out of Arizona by his teammates.
Upon hearing last week that the Sox might be sellers at the deadline, Eaton said of Reinsdorf, "There's zero loyalty in this game. Sell tickets and win ballgames, that's what ownership and the front office wants to do. However they want to do it, that's how they're going to do it."
It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic. Reinsdorf is the most loyal and generous owner in sports, often making the mistake of caring so much about his employees that he overlooks their faults.
Loyalty? You've got to kidding. You're ripping Jerry Reinsdorf for his loyalty? That's so far beyond irony as to be considered unbalanced.
In the last few days came to light a story by Fox Sports that Sale and Eaton led a revolt against paying dues and tips to the Mariners' visiting clubhouse attendant, skipping out on a couple hundred bucks per player.
This is such embarrassing and childish nonsense by very rich professionals that it would be enough to make an owner throw up his hands and say, "Enough. Get me out of this game and get me away from these fools."
So instead of enjoying a packed house on a summer night, watching the best pitcher in baseball apply his craft against a team favored to win the World Series, Reinsdorf might have been wondering why he was wasting his time with these goofs.
Rather than focusing on Sale, maybe, just maybe, he was thinking about a sale.
If it were actually true, no one would blame him.
brozner@dailyherald.com
• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.