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The White Sox and baseball in general were probably THE stabilizing force in my life since I was a child, the one consistent activity I had was watching and talking about white Sox baseball, hence why I joined this site 21 years ago and became a regular. After 35 years of constant disappointment with zero hope in sight I decided to relinquish my fandom and cut the team out of my life. Instead on being jaded and synical, constantly bitching about Sox minutea that will not improve anytime soon I decided to just stop following them one day and you know what? I'm a lot better off for having done so, I'm infinitly happier in my life doing things that I enjoy. My removing the one thing from my life that I held most dear was 100% in response to JR's dreadful fucking ownership, I have zero positive feelings towards that man and the way he chooses to run his sports franchises. Its just further proof that you can find tremendous success in the business world and still be an enormous fucking loser.

Ok Jerry sucks, when does Spring Training start?

In fact I would argue he looks down on his fans more than he respects their feelings.

Banana Ball for everyone!!!

Even more than his hires is sabotaging his own guys even when they are 100% right. What do the Sox look like today if AJ Hinch, Manny Machado, and Bryce Harper had been brought in? These were all stopped by one person, and it wasn't the GM.

JR's biggest success as Sox owner, of course, was the 2005 World Series championship. But, if I'm not mistaken all but a handful of MLB teams have won at least 1 WS title since he's been owner. Five expansion teams, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh are the only franchises who haven't unless I'm missing someone. Two of those expansion teams didn't even exist until 1993 and 1998. What's so maddening is that he failed to build on that 2005 title to make the Sox more of a "big market" team. Instead, we've had 20 years of keeping or promoting loyalists who weren't very good at their jobs and failing to invest properly in this franchise to let it start developing enough talent to compete.

Santos was working towards a major league job, and he most probably wasn't in the Sox' immediate plans. As far as some others, that period coming out of the ASB was pretty telling for Thames. Venable went to the press to announce how hitters had to start getting more aggressive, and they exploded out of the break, scoring 7+ in 6 of their first 7 games. That seemed like an open rift between Venable and Thames. As far as Katz, the bullpen really stumbled in 2024 and 2025. No, he wasn't given an all Star crew to work with, but seemingly normal relievers who had past success were dropping like flies. Hill, Brebbia, Booser - Cannon and Burke took clear steps backwards. Not blaming Katz for those non-successes, but that all looked like a clear cut-off point for Venable to get his own support guys in the dugout.

He has left a lot of money on the table and depreciated the value of his organization by being such a penny pinching dipshit

Any feeling that JR is embarrassed by the state of his franchises is simply projection from people who need him to feel embarrassment for the sake of hope, there's NOTHING in that man's actions that indicates he thinks any of this is his doing. You don't surround yourself with an army of sycophants if you're practicing introspection.

Nitpick here: he's actually 89. And yeah, he's long had a adversarial relationship with both the media and fans who are critical of the team. He's not swayed by what we think. He's got plenty of yes men around him to tell him that he's right.

If they fired everyone who criticized the organization based on my conversations they'd have no one left working. The detailed story I did in November 2022 quoting six sources brought out how completely dysfunctional this organization was at the time and it doesn't appear to have changed much. FYI, these are the comments told to me at that time about the organization: “Things started to change when Howard Pizer (Author’s Note: Pizer is the Senior Executive Vice-President) was told that he’d no longer be in charge of everyone, that some folks would no longer have to answer to him. That opened the door and some people are trying to get themselves into position to become a team president. Folks aren’t telling JR everything; in some cases they are lying to him.” “Howard Pizer was the only guy who could tell JR ‘no’ and stop something. If people are angling to try to become a vice-president or president that’s just embarrassing.” “I know the friction in the front office just wore Bob Grim down.” (Author’s Note: Grim retired after 30 years with the organization. He was the Senior Director of Business Development and Broadcasting) “Here’s a story about scouting/development. Nick Hostetler was ‘promoted’ to the Special Assistant to the Vice-President/General Manager. He was ‘promoted’ because he was overheard complaining about a scout in Arizona, Ken Williams Junior. Someone got their revenge. I liked Nick, he was independent, he was his own guy.” “People wonder why Dennis Gilbert (Author’s Note: Special Assistant to the Chairman) is around.” “Mike Shirley is the darling of amateur scouts right now. (Author’s Note: Shirley is the Director of Amateur Scouting) He’s the power broker. I heard him saying that he’s been in baseball a long time, I looked up his career and it was only a couple of years maybe a half season of at-bats.” “I think Chris Getz (Author’s Note: Getz is an Assistant General Manager and in charge of Player Development) is getting to much power to soon but I like him, he’s got some interesting ideas.” “There are department heads in the organization who don’t know what they are doing, worse, all they care about is getting ahead themselves, some of them are real snakes.”

Isn’t Getz part of the argument in favor of Reinsdorf being the worst owner? A guy who failed upwards in Reinsdorf’s organization.

I don't blame you. I haven't relinquished my fandom, but I have mostly tuned out their performance on the field these last 3 seasons. Life's too short to let my anger at how JR ran this franchise into the ground affect my enjoyment of summers. What you say points to a concern I have about this franchise. How many other life-long Sox fans have simply given up on this team. It's going to take a lot of hard work to win these fans back. Just being good enough to make the wild card or win a weak division and then get quickly bounced in the first round isn't going to be good enough. And like I said, I'm not criticizing your decision or your loyalty in any way.

“Reportedly.”

https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2025/10/15/jerry-reinsdorf-legacy-2/ Pretty detailed article, positives and negatives. Jerry won’t like it lol

Miss you buddy, this place is better with you here!

They should (because the ballpark village wouldn’t exist in the first place if not for the baseball games at the ballpark) but I’d bet they’d settle for the owners of said profit centers to stop simultaneously pulling out their pants pockets to show how empty they are.

I’m of the belief that human nature says that even JR doesn’t want to be hated but it’s too late, so much alienation of the fan base in his 44 years can never be forgotten or forgiven.

Good take, I guess we will never know.

I think they may sign a cheap RHH OF that can slide to the bench when Braden comes up. I'm not entirely certain they bring back Tauchman (either non-tender or tender then trade).

Just talking about the coaching situations, and you snapped. As usual.

You have a weird way of just shutting down a conversation.

In a crunch it is either find capital, or go under. I don't think he got pushed.

No conspiracy needed. Jerry is not a cash rich owner, and he was having an active capital crunch. The signs are all there and public.

lol he needs to work on that saving face part a little bit

True but I’m just correcting your claim that he’s still around. Because he’s not until otherwise.

I think a Salary Floor is far more attainable and actually makes more sense. 100 million floor. Older veterans will still get reasonable contracts and bad teams wont just "throw away" money on bad players so they'd theoretically be forced to at least sign some guys.

JR doesn't care if he's hated by Bulls/White Sox fans. The only thing he cares about is making money. And he has been very good at making money.

There is some truth to this but what is also very true is getting new ownership on hand to flush everything the old ownership did right down the toilet and create a new identity among fans, media, players and agents.

Interesting. I was at a Fall League game today which did not have the Desert Dogs and there were some Brewer fans talking about bad owners and JR is often on top. The same thing happened last year when a couple was wondering who was the worst, Fisher or Reinsdorf. He has a legacy all right. The organization has to be blacklisted among quality free agents. The only solution is to grow your own superstars and not trade them away. Anyone of value our mental illness of trade frenzy kicks in. Cheaper and younger only works if you have great scouting and development but even that falls short. Even the big spenders have great scouting and development. Winning solves everything but it doesn't if it is not consistent.

Wait, you’re trying to use the Bears as an argument for why the Sox don’t suck or something?

And, you know, straight-up buying the most talented players available. I would say that’s probably more important.

The sale can't happen until 2029, so it is already built in.

1. Vaughn was key in the Brewers eliminating the Cubs. 2. Civale pitched innings as the young starters became tired. 3. Vaughn was important in the Brewers eliminating the Cubs. 4. Most people just wanted to dump or DFA Vaughn anyway. 5. Vaughn was crucial in the Brewers eliminating the Cubs 6. Civale was a veteran guide for the young Sox pitching staff. 7. Vaughn was clutch in the Brewers eliminating the Cubs. 8. The Sox were able to flip Civale for a prospect. 9. Vaughn was instrumental in the Brewers eliminating the Cubs. 10. The Sox only had to pay a small portion of Civale's salary. 11. Vaughn was essential in the Brewers eliminating the Cubs. My two favorite teams: The White Sox and whoever is playing the Cubs.

You already mentioned this but all the free agents are too old for this team. I would sooner see the Sox look for a team that wants to dump a bloated veteran contract and have that team pay the Sox in prospect(s) to take on their bad deal.

This guy sounds familiar. I think he may post here. 🤣

It's like literally 20 blocks, but the access to people is completely different, being on the edge of the financial district and in one of the fastest growing residential areas of the city.