Even the very rich have had a tough year; look at owners of Chicago’s pro sports
The very rich are different from you and me, as F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote.
But they still had to stay at home and wear masks this year, if it makes you feel any better. And hopefully they all remembered to socially distance and frequently wash their hands.
For the men and women in charge of Chicago’s five major pro sports franchises, 2020 has been such a stressful year, you almost feel sorry for them.
We can only imagine their frustration over empty stadiums, massive losses of revenue, departures of longtime executives, unforeseen layoffs and an uncertain future.
Sure, the Rickettses and Mccaskeys, along with Jerry Reinsdorf and Rocky Wirtz, will get by much better than the rest of us. It’s good to be rich.
But, oh, what a year they’ve had.
It started innocently enough in January, when Cubs co-owners Tom and Laura Ricketts were criticized for canceling their question-and-answer session at the Cubs Convention. The outcry was over the top, but it turned out to be the least of their worries.
Now 2020 is ending with calls for Bears Chairman George Mccaskey to clean house and get rid of President Ted Phillips, general manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy — or any combination thereof — for a season that went off the rails after a 5-1 start. Only a win Sunday against an awful Houston Texans team muted the conversation, at least temporarily.
In between, our favorite teams’ owners have been subjected to putrid offensive performances by every team except Reinsdorf’s White Sox, the one shining light of 2020 in spite of their late-season plunge from the top seed in the American League to No. 7.
Even the goodwill generated by the Sox success didn’t last long. The firstround playoff loss to the Oakland Athletics preceded the unexpected firing of manager Rick Renteria, an AL Manager of the Year finalist, and paved the way for the controversial hiring of Reinsdorf’s close friend, 76-year-old former Sox manager Tony La Russa.
Reinsdorf said in a statement that La Russa’s “hiring is not based on friendships or on what happened years ago,” but few believed him.
Months earlier, Reinsdorf was blindsided by former Bulls star Michael Jordan, who said at the end of the acclaimed documentary “The Last Dance” that the dynasty didn’t have to end and the team should’ve been kept together for a shot at winning title No. 7.
“We may not have, but man, just to not be able to try, that’s something that I just can’t accept for whatever reason,” Jordan said. “I just can’t accept it.”
Reinsdorf told NBC Sports Chicago reporter K.C. Johnson he was “not pleased” with what he felt was revisionist history, but it was too late. You could either believe the world’s greatest player or the man who broke up the Bulls. Take your pick.
As the Bulls return this month to open the delayed 2020-21 NBA season, at least Reinsdorf can be optimistic about the new front office he and his son, Bulls President Michael Reinsdorf, put in place with the hiring of Arturas Karnisovas as head of basketball operations, replacing John Paxson.
Karnisovas in turn fired general manager Gar Forman, a 22-year Bulls employee hated by fans but loved by management.
“Gar will always be a part of our Bulls family,” Reinsdorf said in a statement.
Everyone believed that. Karnisovas eventually fired coach Jim Boylen, who wasn’t so much hated by fans as he was disrespected, and replaced him with Billy Donovan, who should receive a prolonged honeymoon period based on the team he’s trying to win with.
To cap off his newsworthy 2020, Reinsdorf stole broadcaster Len Kasper from the Cubs to become the new radio voice of the Sox, nearly four decades after watching Harry Caray leave the Sox booth for the Cubs.
The circle is complete.
Meanwhile, Wirtz and Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts both saw their teams make the playoffs, though the Blackhawks were gerrymandered in by a change in the NHL postseason format and the Cubs were swept in two games by a Miami Marlins team that will be remembered for having the first COVID-19 outbreak after the sports shutdown.
Ricketts told ESPN in June that MLB owners faced losses of “biblical proportions,” and he later laid off more than 100 employees, including vice president Carl Rice, a 39-year Cubs employee.
After the season, Ricketts watched Cubs President Theo Epstein — who once was Photoshopped walking on water by a local newspaper — resign with one year left on his contract, ending an era.
Wirtz said goodbye to his own designated Moses in April when he parted ways with Blackhawks President John Mcdonough, who steered the team through three Stanley Cup-winning seasons after arriving from the Cubs in 2008. On Wednesday, Wirtz followed Ricketts’ lead and split the job in two, promoting Stan Bowman to President of Hockey Operations and General Manager, and hiring Jamie Faulkner as President of Business Operations, just as Presidents Jed Hoyer and Crane Kenney share similar titles with the Cubs.
Whenever the NHL decides to start up again, the Hawks officially will be going through a rebuild, handcuffing stars Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews in their prime.
But at least the Hawks finally are being transparent about it — Bowman pretended it wasn’t a rebuild until after the 2020 season. The Cubs are going through a “re-something” that has yet to be defined but looks suspiciously like a slow-motion salary dump.
That leaves us with the Bears, who remain in the NFC playoff hunt despite a six-game losing streak that sparked calls for massive changes at the top. Owner Virginia Mccaskey, at 97, doesn’t have to endure the same sort of criticism reserved for Reinsdorf, Wirtz and Tom Ricketts. Being that old means never having to say your sorry.
Still, the Bears’ frontoffice missteps that led to the collapse ultimately are hers to fix, even if she makes George wield the ax.
As 2020 nears its longawaited conclusion, we all look forward to better days ahead for our embattled local owners and wish them good luck in 2021.
The better their teams fare, the easier it will be for the rest of us to get through another year.