Jim O’Donnell: The brokenhearted lament of a battered White Sox fan
FOR THE SPORTS TEAMS AND MEDIA OF CHICAGO — especially the White Sox and the Bears — Jim Martin of Arlington Heights is a dream fan.
He spends money and overflows with passion regarding so many of their fortunes. He has hung with them through the best and worst of times.
As he drifts toward the arms of Morpheus, Martin still sometimes falls asleep replaying “The Super Bowl Shuffle” in the happier echoes of his mind.
He listens to sports talk radio, though his time of engagement has long since begun to wane. He maintains subscriptions to the Daily Herald, the Chicago Tribune and The Athletic.
Martin — a senior executive with a major national food corporation — has held Bears season tickets since 1995. On game days at Soldier Field, he, wife Renee and anywhere from 40 to 70 friends begin around 7:30 a.m. with a group consolidation in the northwest suburbs and then caravan down to the South Lot for tailgating.
Martin was a longtime partner in a four-seat White Sox season-ticket package until the end of last season. Then, the bumbling of Jerry Reinsdorf's American League franchise — both on and off the field — finally got to him.
“The absolute breaking point was some game later in the year when they were letting everyone into Guaranteed Rate for $1,” Martin said. “Our four seats that game still cost us $250. I thought it was brazen and insensitive.”
FOR THE SAKE OF “VENT,” he recently generated what might be called “A White Sox Manifesto.” Explicitly and between the lines, it speaks with a disheartened texture that few in any press box could generate.
Martin's statement:
“The amount of underachieving that has gone on at 35th and Shields is an embarrassment of epic proportions. This season, 2024, has a very good chance of ending with the Chicago White Sox being the worst team in the modern baseball era.
“The underachieving and soft-tissue injuries that have occurred are unconscionable. The decisions Jerry has made from a leadership point of view makes me question his sanity. Letting Kenny Williams lurk as long as he did was his biggest mistake. He had a great baseball guy in Rick Hahn who was turned into a eunuch by Kenny.”
THE DOWNBOUND ESCALATOR that has been the White Sox player mover is particularly deflating, according to Martin:
“We have guys like (Michael) Kopech, Eloy (Jimenez) and Yoan Moncada, all Baseball America Top Ten guys who have turned out to be brutal. Luis Robert is great but hurt far too often.
“Then we have Cy Young-caliber talent that we trade instead of locking them up long-term. Golden arms like Chris Sale and Dylan Cease and Reynaldo Lopez. And now they want to trade Garrett Crochet, who is under contract through 2026.
“This is insanity.”
Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.