Devils Known and Unknown

Hats off to Jerry Reinsdorf (and Tim Elko, for his tenth-inning walk-off single against the Tigers yesterday). As ever, he turned easy into hard. Just try following the press release the team issued Thursday afternoon. Reinsdorf, finally, agreed to sell the team to billionaire Justin Ishbia, maybe. But it won’t happen until 2029 at the earliest. That begins a four-year period during which Reinsdorf can initiate the sale, after which Ishbia can do the honors. And nothing requires “that any such future transaction will occur” at all, even though Ishbia “will make capital infusions into the White Sox as a limited partner in 2025 and 2026 that will be used to pay down existing debt and support ongoing team operations,” this, apparently out of the goodness of his heart. The Sun-Times tried to stir things up today with a story about Ishbia’s Nashville connection—a law degree from Vanderbilt and a seat on the law school’s board. Steve Greenberg then spun that into “major ties” to a city interested in being home to a major league ballclub. I doubt that Ishbia is spending $40 million-plus to build a mansion on the North Shore in order to move the Sox to Nashville and be an absentee owner. What we know for sure is a billionaire might sell the team to another billionaire, or not, and the other billionaire’s brother has been a so-so majority owner of the NBA Suns and would in turn be a minority owner of the Sox. Got all that? Best to wait and see, about ownership and rookies. Kyle Teel got called up and will start behind the plate tonight while Elko gets another start at first and Chase Meidroth at…