White Sox Flop, Undaunted Owner Dreams On

Letter to Romans: Don’t think White Sox’s playoff flop will affect owner Reinsdorf’s chutzpah. The tax lawyer & CPA has easily moved on from more stinkers in 40 yrs as Sox chief than Pepi LePew’s girlfriend. Ditto governor’s brush back to his latest stadium pitch …

I recall interviewing Reinsdorf in his “New Comiskey Park” office on Chicago’s South Side in the early 1990s & learning how he had maneuvered the Illinois legislature into helping finance his new park with the help of a threatened move to Florida. He was especially keen on influencing how I would portray his beautiful new stadium in the National Law Journal. Jerry, er, Mr. Reinsdorf gave me a Cuban cigar, which I greatly appreciated, and even though I frankly told him his new baseball emporium was spectacular EXCEPT the grandiose grandstands were 20 rows too high. “The perfect ballpark would be to move those 20 rows to the outfield ala Wrigley Field,” I said. Reinsdorf nearly swallowed his cigar while I puffed away on mine. But, realizing I was one of “those” Cubs fans, the true pro collected himself, threw me a smile and tossed a box seat ticket my way for that afternoon’s game. Of course, if I could see & tell the obvious in the paper, others told Reinsdorf the truth too. Within 2 yrs, those extra grandstand rows were gone & in the outfield ala Wrigley.

Surely, no one can ever say the Sox owner lacked the legal & financial ingenuity to get them done. Will power too. His latest (pipe) dream is to build a new stadium that would wow state & city Machine Democrats into again helping to fund it. After all, hadn’t Chicago been touched for God knows how many millions for the nearby Obama Presidential Library aka The Jail House? And yet, how times have changed & how fickle Democrat wish lists have become as election time nears. His latest fast ball with “a billion dollar” price tag inked next to “Spaulding” nose-dived into the dirt. The pols & officials for the near bankrupt governments refused to grant him anywhere near that much public funding. Reinsdorf hasn’t given up, while taking himself out of the line up pending retirement; his majority-owner-in-waiting, billionaire investor Justin Ishbia, has reportedly stepped up to the plate & is expected to lead the team’s “ballpark vision” whenever.

Davd Soul