Reinsdorf opens up on 'absolutely the worst season' of White Sox baseball

At least White Sox fans don't have to wonder what Jerry Reinsdorf is thinking anymore.

Like it or not - and it sure seems like the majority fall in the latter category - Reinsdorf decided the time was right for a rare interview Thursday afternoon at Guaranteed Rate Field.

Meeting with a select group of reporters in his ground floor office with a view of 35th Street, Reinsdorf had plenty to say during the 30-minute gathering.

As has been widely reported, the Sox's 87-year-old chairman promoted Chris Getz to general manager because he's familiar with the organization and an outside hire would take "a year" to get up to speed.

"I came to the conclusion that if I've got a guy inside who can do the job, why not?" Reinsdorf said. "Why not do it inside and save a year? And that's basically how I got to Chris."

Reinsdorf also talked about the shooting at Guaranteed Rate Field during an Aug. 25 game against Oakland and rumors he is either planning on moving the White Sox or selling the team before the GRF lease expires after the 2029 season.

His thoughts on both of those topics have also been widely reported.

There were many other subjects that came up in the interview. Here are some of the highlights:

The Sox's season

"The 2023 season is my 43rd season in baseball," Reinsdorf said. "It is absolutely the worst season I've ever been through. It is a nightmare. It's still a nightmare. It's embarrassing. It's disgusting. All the bad words you can think of is the way I feel about the 2023 season. It absolutely is just awful."

Why are the White Sox so bad?

"It's hard to say," Reinsdorf said. "And I don't want to get too deep into it. But in the beginning of the year, we had a lot of injuries. And also, if you go back game by game, we were one hit away from maybe winning another dozen games. It wasn't that bad, but somewhere along the way, it spiraled out of control.

"Some of it was the clubhouse, and I think we've corrected that. And some of it was bad luck. Some of it was just people not playing up to their potential. But it is a nightmare. This season is absolutely a nightmare."

Message to fans

"If I were a fan, I'd be (peeved)," Reinsdorf said. "I'd be very angry. I would not be happy. I have a hard time watching these games. There are some nights when I don't even watch the game. I record and then if we win, I watch it. First and foremost, I'm a fan. I didn't get into this game to make money. I got into it because I love baseball. It was in my blood.

"But at the same time, this is the first really, really bad year. We won the division in '21, we were .500 last year. That's nobody's goal to be .500, but that's still average. This is the first disaster. This is the first real disaster."

Tony La Russa

"I am so sick and tired of reading that bringing Tony La Russa back (as manager) was a mistake. Tony La Russa came back in 2021, does anybody know what we did in 2021? Does anybody remember we won 93 games, we won the division by 13 games? Was that a mistake to bring Tony La Russa back? Last year, he was sick. The man had a heart problem, he had cancer. You didn't see the Tony La Russa last year that we saw before that.

"Now, with respect to this involvement, Tony had nothing to do with the decision to fire Rick and Kenny. Not once did he ever say to me, 'You ought to get rid of these guys.' Now I did ask him, as I asked a lot of other people, give me some names. Give me some names as I was building my list. But Tony, the only way Tony found out that Chris was going to be the (general) manager was I told him. He was not involved in the process. Now, going forward, Tony will not have any decision making authority in the organization. But he's a tremendous asset."