White Sox eager to send Reinsdorf off with one more title

OAKLAND, Calif. — Jerry Reinsdorf was finally welcomed into the Basketball Hall of Fame on Monday, and after six NBA titles, it’s an overdue tribute.

Reinsdorf said all the right things in his prepared statement — his preferred method of speaking to the public these days — calling it a “humbling honor.”

The Basketball Hall is great and all, but it’s not Cooperstown.

That’s where Reinsdorf would love a permanent spot of glory. His true love has always been baseball.

But one World Series title doesn’t stamp your ticket to Cooperstown.

And that brings us to the current state of the White Sox.

Reinsdorf has had a financial stake on the South Side for 35 years. The Sox quickly reached the postseason in1983 and even though Chicago celebrated as if a World Series had been won, the only official title during the Reinsdorf era came in 2005.

In terms of Chicago baseball title droughts, 10 years is nothing.

But there has been a different sense of urgency around the Sox the last two seasons. Maybe everyone is feeling a little … antsy?

“Antsy is probably a decent way of describing most all of us around the club the last few years,” general manager Rick Hahn said with a chuckle before the Sox opened the 2016 season with a 4-3 victory against the Oakland Athletics. “None of us really have the best patience streak in us, and Jerry is certainly no exception.”

This seems more than just impatience.

Reinsdorf turned 80 in February and there have been whispers since the winter of 2014 that he is ready to step away from his baseball business. Soon.

Soon would have been 2015. That’s when the White Sox had one of baseball’s best offseasons, stockpiling talent for that big push for Jerry. Then they lost 86 games and put on the worst offensive show in the American League.

Hahn double-downed this winter, adding power-hitting third baseman Todd Frazier — among others — to fill a need since Joe Crede left.

There is a feeling in some circles that a World Series run would be Reinsdorf’s Peyton Manning-style exit. That’s why he is sticking with beloved Robin Ventura as manager. No need for a dugout shakeup at this advanced stage of the Reinsdorf era.

Jerry seems to have long ago grown tired of the nonsense side of baseball — the kind of nonsense that dragged him into the middle of the Adam and Drake LaRoche Drama.

It was a spring training sideshow that gave the Sox the wrong kind of international fame. It was an episode completely mishandled by vice president Ken Williams that Reinsdorf had to intervene.

This is not the kind of lifestyle an 80-year-old craves.

So the first pitch of the 2016 season was delivered Monday by ace Chris Sale. There is talent, starting with Sale, continuing with first baseman Jose Abreu, who has MVP skills, right on to the sweet-swinging Frazier.

The Sox are second bananas in a Cubs-crazy town. Sadly, 2005 did nothing to change that dynamic.

But as the 2016 season got under way Monday night in Oakland, that antsy feeling was palpable.

“We’ve been going through a process here that began mid-way through 2013 in terms of retooling this club and getting ourselves back in a position to contend,” Hahn said. “We still realize this was going to be a process, one which hopefully here in the coming months is coming to an end as we take that next step.”

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