Black Jack McDowell, the Comiskey Park castoff, says the slumping White Sox, and particularly chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, “is getting exactly what he deserves for doing what he did.”
McDowell, in an interview here Monday night, put the blame on the apparent Sox demise on Reinsdorf and General Manager Ron Schueler.
“We really had a good chance to win, but he just gave up on us,” insisted McDowell, a former Cy Young winner who was traded to the Yankees during the off-season. “The front office broke up the team. It was as if Reinsdorf said, `Forget it.’ “
In defense of Reinsdorf, I pointed out that he hasn’t been cutting back financially. The current White Sox player payroll is higher than it was last year.
“I know it,” McDowell conceded. “But if you want to keep the team together you have to pay more. And more. That’s the way it works. You have to pay as you go.
“They had it easy for a number of years. Larry Himes made all those good drafts. The club got lucky. That kept the payroll low. But when it came down to crunch time, when it was time to really keep the team together and give it another shot, they went the other way.”
McDowell said his departure wasn’t fatal, but merely one in a sequence of “mistakes.” The others were the failure to re-sign Julio Franco and Darrin Jackson, both of whom fled to Japan, and relievers Paul Assenmacher and Dennis Cook, who are now with the front-running Cleveland Indians.
“I keep hearing about their relief pitching, that it’s been ineffective,” McDowell said. “But what could you expect when they gave away their left-handed bullpen with the exception of Rad to the No. 1 contender. The organization is getting what it deserves.”
I asked if he is surprised that the club’s starting rotation had been erratic.
“Everybody thought they would be much better than been.”
McDowell acknowledged that he had read that because of his absence, the Sox pitching staff is without a leader.
“I hope that I’m missed in some ways,” McDowell said. “But the only thing that’s different is that everybody has to bump up their innings a little bit. All of a sudden instead of going six or seven, they have to go a little longer.”
McDowell seemed confident the Sox starters will turn it around: “I can just remind them of what happened to me last year. Nobody struggled more than I did. I was 2-7 with a big ERA–I think it was over seven–after my first 11 starts. But I finally began putting it together. I won seven of my last nine starts.”
He admitted, however, that the chances for a White Sox championship are exceedingly slim.
“It’s going to be tough to catch Cleveland,” he said. “Right now, that’s almost out of the question. It’s hard to get out of a tailspin when it starts so early.”
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McDowell indicated he sees the Sox essentially as a .500 club.
“It’s different now because instead of playing for a pennant, they’re going to be playing for pride,” he said. “And it’s tough to play for pride, especially after you’ve been contending for five or six years.”
The Yankees make their first Comiskey Park appearance with a three-game series July 3-5.
McDowell said he hopes to pitch against his former teammates, but quickly emphasized that he is not seeking vengeance.
“It will be weird,” he acknowledged. “But there won’t be any special incentive for me. If I win, I win. If I lose, I lose.”
The White Sox traded McDowell to the Yankees for two minor-leaguers because they feared losing him as a free agent and getting nothing in return.
Still, McDowell insisted he still doesn’t understand “the reasoning” behind his trade and he insisted that he is disappointed but not bitter.
“I’m kind of torn in between,” he explained, “because the front office is getting what it deserved, but I’ve been good friends, and still am, with a lot of the White Sox players. I don’t like to see them struggling.”
As for McDowell, his early-season struggles appear to be over. Overall, he has a 3-4 record and an earned-run average of 4.37. Worse, he has given up 11 home runs in 78 innings. He has won his last two starts, including a 9-5 Father’s Day decision in Cleveland on Sunday.
It was McDowell’s first Father’s Day. His wife, Meredith, gave birth to a son, Lucas, four months ago.
“They’re making this trip with me,” McDowell revealed. “Watch for me tomorrow. I’m pushing a buggy around the hotel.”