Just when you thought Jerry Reinsdorf was restoring order on the South Side, The Chairman had one more trick up his sleeve during a shocking week in White Sox land.
Just as fired vice president Ken Williams and general manager Rick Hahn were carrying their belongings out the door Wednesday at Guaranteed Rate Field, Tony La Russa was making a — we won’t call it triumphant — return.
Yes, that Tony La Russa.
Clean slate at 35th and Shields? Not exactly. And we should warn you, that slate is messier than it appeared on a crazy Tuesday night, when Reinsdorf did the seemingly unthinkable by presenting overdue pink slips to Williams and Hahn.
A new beginning for the Sox? Hardly. All signs point to Chris Getz being tabbed as the next general manager. The same Chris Getz who has presided over a frustratingly mediocre farm system.
Getz, who executed the Sox’ roster moves Wednesday, carries the title of assistant general manager now. If he has all the answers to turn around a completely lost franchise, why didn’t he share them over the last couple of years?
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale — the only writer in the nation with a direct pipeline to Reinsdorf — delivered more bad news, suggesting first-year manager Pedro Grifol will be safe during this housecleaning.
You remember Grifol. He’s the skipper who admitted spotting a lack of leadership on his underachieving team during spring training but didn’t see the need to do anything about it until traded reliever Keynan Middleton revealed earlier this month a clubhouse culture based on no rules and zero accountability.
It was the kind of indictment that gets most managers fired. But Hahn was more concerned with damage control than clubhouse control. And ever since Grifol took note that he had been asleep at the wheel, the Sox have shown no signs of responding.
No matter how much Hahn tried to stain Middleton’s character — after implicitly proclaiming “what happens in the clubhouse stays in the clubhouse” — by tattling on his former player in a way most GMs would never dream of doing, Middleton’s words were likely the final blows for Hahn and Co. Nightengale reports that Reinsdorf made his decision a week ago, and time only strengthened his resolve.
Nightengale notes that a shocking dip in attendance didn’t help at a time when the Sox are sending out season-ticket renewals to fans who lost hope long ago. The Sox’ attendance has dropped by 179,836 — the biggest dip in baseball.
Still, the timing — in the middle of a season that was swirling down the drain — shocked everyone.
“At my inaugural presser, I spoke of winning multiple championships,” Williams said in his statement. “That was my goal, our goal, and we failed. I am a bottom-line guy, and the bottom line is we didn’t get it done. This is what happens as a result.”
Credit Williams for admitting he failed to deliver during more than two decades in charge. Hahn stopped well short of accepting the blame.
“I firmly believe that many vital ingredients of a championship team are in that clubhouse and within the minor-league system,” Hahn said in his statement.
Hahn might be the only person on the planet holding that belief. He’s the one responsible for hiring Grifol, who continues to inspire zero confidence from fans.
How Grifol avoided blame for the laughable culture in the Sox’ clubhouse is anyone’s guess. Evidently, Reinsdorf is willing to eat only so many contracts.
Which brings us back to La Russa.
How in the world did Reinsdorf wake up Wednesday and think: “Today would be a great day to have Tony La Russa back at the ballpark”?
Nightengale tells us Reinsdorf called a meeting Wednesday night with Grifol and La Russa, who departed as Sox manager less than a year ago. Does Grifol really need La Russa peering over his shoulder?
What we have here is another mess orchestrated by Reinsdorf, who already has fans sweating over the idea that he might make a St. Petersburg-style threat and move his team to Nashville, Tennessee, or even Arlington Heights. There are a million things wrong with the Sox, but their ballpark isn’t one of them. Reinsdorf knows this as well as anyone.
But he already has shown he’s barely paying attention. While there’s no question La Russa still has plenty to offer from a baseball perspective, the day after the Williams-Hahn bomb dropped was not the time to turn back the clock to Tony.
It’s good to hear La Russa is doing better after cancer treatments that led to his departure as manager at the end of last season. The horrible hair dye is gone. The fire remains in his eyes. And he is an encyclopedia of baseball knowledge.
But he’s a bad look for the Sox now.
Maybe Reinsdorf could’ve waited to bring La Russa into the picture. Grifol will still be an ill-equipped manager in October, when the three could have a quiet dinner in Scottsdale, Arizona, to pick over all that’s wrong with the Sox.
A day-game appearance at Guaranteed Rate Field when Hahn’s and Williams’ chairs were still warm? That’s a miscalculation that only Reinsdorf could execute. He thinks everyone loves La Russa the way he loves La Russa.
Just when we thought Reinsdorf gets it, he shows us he clearly doesn’t.
