Jim O'Donnell: Like Duchossois, will Reinsdorf try and take his playground with him?
SOMETIME AROUND 1992, retired Arlington Park COO Sheldon Robbins - a brilliant businessman - predicted that if Dick Duchossois could one day take his regal racetrack with him, he would.
As more events this past week suggested, Duchossois, even from beyond The Big Finish Line, is doing just that.
The clairvoyance of the late Robbins re-entered the frame in recent days because of fresh public statements made by Jerry Reinsdorf.
For reasons known only to the 87-year-old sports mogul, he participated in panel discussions at an artificial "think tank" in California called "The Milken Institute."
Founder of the bird cage is Michael Milken. He's the felon who once pushed junk bonds outside the scope of existing U.S. securities laws.
REINSDORF APPEARED NOT ONCE, but twice. The first roundtable was hosted by Rachel Nichols. The second - about "mentoring" - focused on Reinsdorf and Alex Rodriguez.
Chair Jer's house mouse Sam Smith must not have been available.
Reinsdorf made a slew of tone-deaf comments. Items included: the stupidity of many other MLB owners, the implied vacuity of White Sox fans and the conveyance of the self-opinion that he, Jerome Michael Reinsdorf, is, in fact, the smartest sports operator on the planet.
He also yet again tried to present a revised history of his gratuitous shooing away of Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson and the most theatrically compelling major sports championship dynasty in the history of the world.
This despite the fact that, way back in 1997-98, only one person could have signed off on that flatulent breakup and only one person could have prevented it.
That person is one and the same - Jerome Michael Reinsdorf.
MOST CHICAGO SPORTS MEDIA responded to Reinsdorf's latest Jer'-libs in predictable fashion. They played pattycake with the words of a man they both fear and softball at every turn.
In the wink of some precisely measured phrasing, an ultra-carnivorous sports capitalist became merely that rascally ol' Jerry Reinsdorf.
As the insightful Taylor Bell - long a paragon of Chicago sports journalism - noted: "Most of those people wrote or reported like their season parking spots at Guaranteed Rate Field depended on it."
Jay Mariotti - forever the arch-nemesis of "The Chairman" - simply referred to Reinsdorf and his record of one championship (that of the 2005 White Sox) in the past 50 combined playing seasons of the Bulls and Sox (1998-2023) as "a civic killjoy."
THAT SUMMARY TAG WILL BE as good as any when His Chairmanship finally crosses The Bridge.
Decades of Bulls and Sox disappointments - at constantly escalating prices - are testimony to that.
But just as Duchossois departed with his racetrack, will Reinsdorf figure a way to take his free ball park with him?
STREET-BEATIN':
Chris Fowler is in and Steve Levy is out as No. 2 play-by-play man on ESPN's expanding "Monday Night Football." Fowler is admittedly on the far side of his career arc but the deletion of Levy from any broadcast platform is a win for opponents of blowhard audio annoyance. ...
The Kentucky Derby has been a haunted race since the heroic 2019 disqualification of first-place finisher Maximum Security. But there has seldom been a Derby as strained to get to the gate as Saturday's 149th renewal. Bunker Bill Carstanjen and cohorts at Churchill Downs Inc. must have been staring at their mint-julep Rolexes like ushers praying for the end of a Billy Ray Cyrus concert. ...
Struggling Audacy announced that Mitch Rosen is now both VP and brand manager of WSCR-AM (670). That's like hearing Tony LaRussa will be back as manager and exec VP/ baseball ops of the White Sox. Revenue from gambling advertisers has been a lifesaver for the hollowed-out station. Audacy stock was trading for 11 cents per share on the NYSE Friday (down from 14 cents Thursday). ...
Yes, the NBA and its broadcast partners can only hope the Lakers-Warriors Western Conference semifinal goes seven games. But the disparity in Game 1 free throws in favor of LeBron James and mates (25-of-29) over Steph Curry and Co. (5-of-6) was pure Penn and Teller. LAL won, 117-112, and a straight-faced Steve Kerr said the officiating was, "Outstanding." ...
The defection of superstar Aneesah Morrow from DePaul to defending national champ LSU is a huge kick in the clipboard for Doug Bruno. Morrow is a sensational basketball player; Bruno must have had a moment when he wished he was back coaching Rita Easterling, Janie Fincher and the Jimmy Carter-era Chicago Hustle. ...
The NFL announced that Nielsen has boosted the total audience net of last February's Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl 57 to 115.1M - the second-highest ever. Like old-style Chicago Democrats, they must have been waiting on results from outlying graveyards. ...
And empty-netted Teresa Hanafin, on Boston's biggest sports disaster since the departure of Babe Ruth, "I still can't believe the Bruins are gone."
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.