Fool Me Once...

The summer before he bought the White Sox in 1981, Jerry Reinsdorf talked about team ownership as a responsibility: “I’ve always looked at the ownership of a baseball franchise as a public trust, maybe even a charitable thing. I’m serious about that. I never did forgive Walter O’Malley for moving the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.” [quote in Tribune story 1/29/2021, “Recalling Jerry Reinsdorf’s come-from-behind victory 40 years ago for control of the Chicago White Sox: ‘I’ve never celebrated anniversaries of this sort,’” Phil Rosenthal]. Wait, there’s more. In 1990, following a 32-day lockout that pushed back spring training, Reinsdorf told Bob Verdi of the Tribune, “Baseball is more a religion in this country than it is a form of entertainment, and it should stay that way.” [4/8/1990] Oh, what a paragon of public virtue and stewardship and whatever. Or not. Now, Justin Ishbia, the billionaire and eventual new owner of the team, comes out and says something similar, eerily so, this after meeting with the Pope on Wednesday in Rome, no less. Call me skeptical after reading his remarks in yesterday’s Tribune. Ishbia doesn’t think of himself as an owner. “The word I use is ‘steward.’ This team belongs to the city of Chicago, and I’m a temporary steward. Jerry today is the steward. Hopefully, one day I will hopefully [sic] have the good fortune of being the next steward of this franchise.” In addition, Ishbia invited the Pope to throw out the first pitch on Opening Day, once the Sox have themselves a new stadium. The steward-in-waiting was not quoted saying who’d be paying for the new digs. Speaking for His Holiness, I want to know.