Why can't we stop doing this?
I'll be the first to admit that I have been a transient White Sox fan. I have grown to believe that I shouldn't invest my time in any activity or pastime that is not beneficial to me. And being a White Sox fan has almost exclusively NOT been beneficial, for coming up on 20 years now.
Now, I don't expect the Sox to be perennial champions, or even persistent contenders. But I DO expect them to have a clear, pointed vision for the future.
These last couple of years have been exciting in that sense. I enjoyed watching the development of our young core, and felt that, for the first time since before the dual departures of Sale and Quintana, that there was at least a roadmap for how we make the team one worth watching, and investing time in.
Gone are the days of insular thinking, of 'good ole boy' hirings and firings. No more insistence on trying to make the way things are now more like the way it was in the past. It felt revitalized.
Then they rehired LaRussa.
Now, I won't discredit him as a manager or a man, and I won't discount his previous successes in the slightest. But why on EARTH can't we stop looking inward? Why do we have to persistently be the team that can't come up with a new idea?
And for that matter, what exactly was wrong with Renteria? He seemed like he developed a very good relationship with the clubhouse, and didn't do anything glaringly wrong to deserve such treatment.
The game is persistently changing, even if it is in nuanced ways that are hard to differentiate on the surface. and LaRussa, for all his past value, is NOT going to cut it as a manager in today's baseball.
I can't quite tell if this was Jerry attempting to pluck at our heartstrings and dust off some LaRussa jerseys to sell, or if it was simply out of a severe apathy for the quality of product his team is going to produce.
But what I can say is this: This hiring is not the action of a man that genuinely cares whether or not the White Sox are successful. He has an unfortunately long track record of similar actions, as well. He does not care about the Sox as much as the Bulls, and he is essentially on record saying as much.
The stock for the Sox hasn't been higher in at least 15 years, Jerry. Sell the team now, and get out from under what I think you feel is no more than a nuisance real estate investment with some revenue potential.