Jerry Reinsdorf’s threat to move White Sox nothing new

The good news for Chicago White Sox fans is the team eventually will be up for sale, according to Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf.

The bad news is it won’t happen as long as Reinsdorf is alive.

Before he does go, Reinsdorf — who turns 88 Sunday — wants to leave Chicago with a special gift: a shiny, new ballpark for the Sox that would anchor the redevelopment of The 78 site in the South Loop. Sox fans would enjoy the gift long after he’s gone, and Reinsdorf believes the city and state would benefit as well.

The funny thing about this particular gift is Reinsdorf doesn’t intend to pay for it with his own billions, preferring public funding of more than $1 billion.

Swell guy.

After stiffing reporters in Springfield on Tuesday, when he went begging politicians for funding, Reinsdorf and his son Michael, the president of the Chicago Bulls, sat down with Crain’s Chicago Business for lunch and an interview.

Michael, according to the report, said nothing. But Jerry had a lot to say, especially about the new park. According to Crain’s, he noted his age and said “when I’m gone,” Michael will be obligated to “do what’s best” for the other investors.

“That likely means putting the team up for sale. … The team will be worth more out of town,” Reinsdorf said.

A brief history of the Sox is in order before getting to the hypocrisy of this statement.

Sox fans have worried about the team leaving town since Crain’s first reported back in August that Reinsdorf is seeking a new ballpark.

Reinsdorf and the late Eddie Einhorn, then controlling general partners of the team, threatened to move it to St. Petersburg, Fla., in the late 1980s if they didn’t get public funding for a ballpark to replace Comiskey Park. Florida had offered the Sox a new, rent-free stadium for 10 years and a $10 million low-interest loan to move into what is now called Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays and one of the most despised parks in baseball.

The threat to move worked then, so why wouldn’t Reinsdorf try again?

When the Crain’s report that mentioned Nashville, Tenn., as a possible new home appeared, Reinsdorf was busy looking for a new general manager to replace longtime GM Rick Hahn. During a meeting with a select group of reporters on the day Chris Getz was hired as GM, Reinsdorf denied the Nashville rumor.

“Somebody at Crain’s decided he wanted to write that you’re looking at the Bears (stadium options) and the White Sox lease has six or seven years left to go and the White Sox have some options, they might move out of the city, they might move out of town, they might go to Nashville,” Reinsdorf said in his office at Guaranteed Rate Field. “That wasn’t us. That was a (reporter) at Crain’s.

“And ever since the article came out, I’ve been reading about that I’ve been threatening to move to Nashville. That article didn’t come from me. But it’s obvious, if we have six years left… we’ve got to decide: ‘What’s the future going to be?’ We’ll get to it, but I never threatened to move out. We haven’t even begun to have discussions with the (Illinois Sports Facility Authority), which we’ll have to do soon.”

The next time Reinsdorf was available to the media was in December at the winter meetings in Nashville. After telling stories about his friend and newly elected Hall of Famer Jim Leyland, he asked if there was anything else. But he actually meant anything about his friend.

Reinsdorf declined to talk about the possibility of moving from Bridgeport, or the state of his team, or the gunshot mystery at the park, or any topic except Leyland. He claimed the media liked to take his quotes “out of context” and that he was “too honest” and got himself in trouble by talking.

The next day Reinsdorf met with the mayor of Nashville. The Sox said not to read anything into the meeting.

After a brief lull, a Chicago Sun-Times report in mid-January said “serious” discussions were underway for a new ballpark on the South Loop property known as The 78. Reinsdorf clammed up again, but the Sox and Mayor Brandon Johnson released a statement saying Johnson and Reinsdorf met to discuss “the team’s ideas for remaining competitive in Chicago for perpetuity,” as if the Sox were anywhere near competitive now.

Renderings of the proposed new park soon were leaked, which excited fans looking for a state-of-the-art ballpark. After seeing the renderings, Sox pitcher Dylan Cease told me, “It would be hard to argue that it would not be an upgrade on ours.”

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MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who rarely steps foot in Guaranteed Rate Field, told Crain’s “a new facility could be a game changer for the White Sox.”

All along, the question of how the park would be paid for was ignored.

But Crain’s reported last week that the Sox would ask for about $1 billion in public funding. Then came Tuesday’s episode of “Mr. Reinsdorf goes to Springfield,” which included the sight of Reinsdorf wearing a leather jacket while strolling through the Capitol between meetings with lawmakers. No one told him there is an age where wearing leather jackets is no longer cool, unless you’re in a motorcycle gang. That age is 30.

Asked for specifics of his request to lawmakers, Reinsdorf told a gaggle of reporters: “Come on, fellas, that’s enough. I don’t mean to be evasive. Everybody’s been cordial.”

Nothing to see here. Move along.