So, Jerry Reinsdorf is going to sell the White Sox and lose millions for his family and send a 125-year-old team to Nashville, of all places, at the same time he’s building his sandlot field in The 78? Got it

Please, please, please, please tell me you’re not that gullible

Apparently bored with the baseball playoffs and looming offseason, it seems every sportswriter and his business-writing cousin have reported, breathlessly, that JERRY REINSDORF IS GOING TO SELL!

The source of these rumors is someone talked to someone who had breakfast with Jerry and while they didn’t talk about selling the team, that friend just has a feeling Jerry is open to selling.

On one hand, it’s a relief to talk about anything besides 121 losses. But ... this?

With Twitter being steered off a cliff by Elon Musk, it’s no surprise that “telephone game” reporting via tweets and hearsay is shakier than it’s ever been. But fans who are old enough have lived with Reinsdorf ownership for more than four decades across two teams and at least two TV networks know what this is.

The current Sox Park has a lease that expires at the end of the decade. By traditional Comiskey/Wrigley/Fenway standards, the park is young (just 40 years old by the end of the lease), but by modern ballpark quickie-do-over standards (see: Braves, Atlanta and Rangers, Texas), New U.S. Rate Field is long in the tooth. As offensive as it may be for Jerry to have his begging bowl out once more (twice in a single ownership!), contextually it’s not out of hand.

And, as in Atlanta (ownership got its weirdo “Braves City” complex outside of town, city of Atlanta or transportation convenience be damned) and Arlington (a brand-new, air-conditioned Ballpark Warehouse!), the rapid shift from one new ballpark to a newer one marked improvements for both teams. The same would be the case with the White Sox in The 78 — it’s the ballpark the White Sox probably shoulda built in the first place, no?

So that’s all any scuttle about the Jerry selling is gonna be: Leverage. You’ll miss me when I’m gone (to NASHVILLE, snort).

Sure, if a megabillionaire wants to fly into Chicago and offer Jerry 150% of what the team is worth, covering what his family loses selling vs. inheriting his White Sox, sure, yeah, he might sell. He’s old, and his team is years away from getting back to the top of the division.

Don’t let your anger toward Reinsdorf cloud what is a playbook move — if there’s been a move at all (don’t forget this is all tweet wrapped inside of a feeling in hearsay reporting at this point). Jerry may truly believe that the one thing that will outlive him isn’t Championship Plaza outside of the current park but The 78, a presumed marvel of locale and fan experience. And if we get past his enormous and offensive ask of a billion dollars from a state that can’t and shouldn’t afford it and recognize it as another negotiation ploy, Reinsdorf is probably right. The 78 would long outlive him or memories of 2005 (well, it would live until a new park in The 79 is built in 2080).

Don’t yell at me after reading this. Despite being almost a 50-year fan, this past season and the current regime has killed my fandom about as much as a guy still working on a team site every day can. I honestly don’t really care how this wrangles out. The White Sox, by losing and greed and corporate socialism and sexual harassment and ballpark shootings and the most inbred incompetency in a front office since the days of the Macks in Philadelphia and gaslighting and signing/re-signing unapologetic domestic abusers have muted my fandom.

Reinsdorf, for all of his losing, may still be the luckiest sports owner in Chicago history, if not the luckiest owner anywhere. He bought a White Sox team with young talent ready to pop, and in two years had a division winner and 99 wins on his resume. Twenty years later came the crazy conflagration of Ozzie Guillén as manager and a can’t-miss run from Ken Williams that created one of the few wire-to-wire winners in sports history, the 2005 White Sox. On the basketball side, Jerry was gifted Michael Jordan by the Portland Trail Blazers and Rod Thorn and thus six NBA titles.

Jerry has done a lot of damage. In fact, he’s probably undermined his seven-title legacy, both by time (seven titles in 80 years of ownership is still sweet, but no miracle, especially with record-breaking runs of futility by the Bulls and 121 losses from the 2024 Sox) and recent history (both clubs are absolutely lost in the wilderness).

But in spite of all these extra words wandering the desert of my own broken fandom, see this “sell” talk for what it is: Jerry is too smart a businessman to part with the cash cow that is a sports franchise, especially so close to his finish line he can spreadsheet in a snap the tax burden of death vs. sale.

He may be many things, but foremost, Reinsdorf isn’t dumb.