It`s a week after White Sox co-owner Jerry Reinsdorf stunned Chicago-area baseball fans with the announcement that the Sox will move out of Chicago, and possibly out of Illinois if a new stadium cannot be built in Addison.
Last week Reinsdorf was sitting in his Balcor Co., office in Skokie, overlooking the Old Orchard mall. The late afternoon sun slanting in highlights his baseball shrine–a couch in the shape of a fielder`s mitt and framed newspaper front pages of the Sox`s 1983 division title.
But most prominent in the corner of the L-shaped office is what one might call the Ebbets Field wing. Reinsdorf, a Brooklyn native who left his hometown the same year the Dodgers did (1957), devotes one wall to a mural of the old ballpark. Against that wall are chairs from Ebbets Field. On the chairs are a Dodger cap and several books devoted to those Boys of Summer. On the opposite wall are several prints of Reinsdorf`s favorite ballpark and a large picture of the 1955 world champion Dodgers, who played there.
Reinsdorf concedes there are ”some parallels” between the White Sox situation and Walter O`Malley`s move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. But while he still faults the Dodgers for leaving, he says if the Sox are forced to move, his conscience will be clear.
”O`Malley wanted to move the Dodgers out of Brooklyn because he saw the promised land. He was right about that, but to this day I think he was wrong to take the Dodgers out of Brooklyn,” Reinsdorf said.
”The team was supported by the fans, and the city was committed to a new building. But that wasn`t good enough for Walter O`Malley. He had a better deal, and he passed up a good deal for a better one. I don`t think that was right, because ownership of a ballclub is at least a semi-public trust. If O`Malley wanted to go to Los Angeles, the league should have expanded and given him a franchise and left the Dodgers in Brooklyn, because they were an integral part of Brooklyn.
”In our case, we were not looking for the best deal, because that is clearly going out of town. The second best was Addison. The worst was the city, but we shook hands and put it down in writing. It didn`t get made. We agreed to everything the city wanted, but they could not deliver. Then we went to Addison.
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”We tried to keep the team in the city because we felt an obligation to Chicago. Chicago seems to follow New York, and coming from New York and being in real estate, I worry about things happening in Chicago that have happened in New York.
”I`ve seen a great city like New York go downhill. It has a wonderful financial downtown, but the rest of the city is not very nice. I`m afraid Chicago will end up like New York, and we didn`t want to contribute to that happening. That`s why we gave it our best shot. But my conscience is clear. We didn`t cause it to fail.”
Though Reinsdorf says the Sox will leave Illinois only ”if we`re driven to that,” he gave some indications they might move without him.
”Frankly, I don`t know if I have the heart to do it,” he said of moving the Sox to another state. ”I just might get out if it came to that. I might sell and get out. It`s a pleasure to be in a one-team market. We see that with the Bulls. But I don`t know if I could do it. I love Chicago, and I don`t want to live anywhere else, except for the winter months.”
Reinsdorf`s reputation already has been chilled.
”First of all, nobody is ever as good or bad as their reputation,” he said. ”I was not as good as people were making me out to be (when the Sox were winning), and I`m also not the piece of crap some people seem to think I am now. But I`ve been successful (in business), so I must have made more right decisions that wrong ones.”
Reinsdorf does not regret his role in the decisions to fire Stan Albeck as Bulls coach and Tony LaRussa as Sox manager.
”There was no purpose to be served getting into great detail on Stan and listing what he did wrong,” said Reinsdorf, who also owns the Bulls. ”That`s why I told him there were two ways to go. He could do what Roland Hemond did and say, `I think I did a good job and should not be fired, but it`s your club and you can do what you want,` or he could attack me. Whichever way you go, I told him, I will not attack you. He chose to attack me.
”On the other hand, if you call Tony LaRussa, not only won`t he say bad things about me, he`d say nice things about me. Tony and I used to talk a lot about when the time comes that there is no choice but to fire a manager. He recognized that and I recognized that. Which is why, when he got another offer (from Oakland), he came back to discuss it with me. Should he take it, what should he ask for.
”The public hates me for Tony LaRussa, but he doesn`t. So I couldn`t be that bad a guy.
”What really caused the problems there was what Hawk said,” added Reinsdorf, referring to Sox operations chief Ken Harrelson. ”He was asked whether he was thinking of changing managers and had he talked to Billy Martin, and he said yes. If Hawk says no comment, nobody`s mad at me.
”If we had not gone through the LaRussa thing, the Albeck thing would not have been a big deal. It seems to me when you run a club, you have the right to consider changing the manager or head coach.
”Of course, people say how badly Albeck was treated. He`s let go with a year on his contract. He`ll collect $250,000. How bad a treatment is that when you`re looking for a job?”
Reinsdorf feels he has become an expert in coping with bad treatment.
”There`s not a great deal of respect in general for sports owners,” he said. ”People think we`re stupid because we pay high salaries and then cry poverty. And here they think we`re money-grubbers, maybe, in part, because we`re Jewish. But what people ought to be able to do is keep their attacks on an objective, not personal, level.
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”People say I shouldn`t have fired Albeck, I should have drafted
(Johnny) Dawkins. I can understand that. But to say Comiskey Park is not at the end of its useful life and they want the engineer`s report, that`s calling me a liar. Saying I want to go out of town, that our real goal is to move, that`s calling me a liar.
”If I ever was caught lying once, then I would not have a right to have anyone believe me again. No one can go over the last six years that I`ve been involved in sports and find one lie I`ve been caught in.
”But when I`m criticized, I look at who it was. Is that somebody I should be concerned about. When (certain members of the media) say something, I can`t be too concerned because that`s what they do.
”They`re often wrong, so it doesn`t bother me what they say. Like when they write that Jerry Krause (Bulls general manager) has his job because he genuflects every time I tell him to. That`s wrong. The fact of the matter is, Jerry Krause never stops arguing with me. I wish the SOB would genuflect once in a while.
”Some people like me and some people don`t. But when you`re in public life, like politics, 52 percent is a landslide. You can`t expect much more than 50-50.
”But I think the tide will turn. I think I`ll be vindicated. And then I`ll find my niche, which is basically as an ordinary guy who most of the time makes the right decision but sometimes make the wrong one. Like everyone else in the world.”