Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
Hurry Up and Wait
Happy Friday Chicago!
I hope you enjoyed last week’s edition of Still Gotta Come Through Chicago from Jack Silverstein. Thanks to those of you who dove into a new kind of newsletter Friday, and thanks again to Jack for thinking of SGCTC for one of his awesome stories.
But now it’s back to the brass tacks of the newsletter: my general mood on a week-to-week basis, non sequiturs, and musings about the world that no one asked for.
For the 53rd straight vacation weekend, I have not come back through Chicago replenished, revived, or reenergized.
I texted my cancer survivor friend that I now understand his plight, because drinking multiple days in a row at the ripe age of 29 has made me realize what radiation feels like since Sunday. He didn’t reply.
I arrived back to the sewage smell outside of my apartment building Sunday, and as if that wasn’t enough of a reminder that vacation was over, I found out the shocking news that the Elon Musk-Donald Trump friendship is on the ropes. If they’re on the ropes, so too is my poster with them AI-generated as the Blues Brothers.
I’ll have to replace my main living room decor if that union falls, perhaps with yet another picture of Michael Jordan. “Living room” is doing some work there, too, as my living room is technically also my kitchen, entry way, bedroom, and bathroom.
A vacation is a vacation away from everything these days, which means I have to catch up on who my brother and dad think sucks on the Cubs now, and then all the less important news.
My email is still flooded with articles that say things like, “There’s a 35% chance AI will bring an end to humanity… but check out our new AI initiative at explosion.ai. We’ll help you turn your data into action.”
Much to my chagrin, I still have not gotten the Sunday email that says my company figured it all out and my services are not needed in the morning.
What’s left of the non-AI news is sports news, at and at least I got to see that Aaron Rodgers has yet again unveiled a “secret” relationship. He’s engaged (or married?), and I’m happy for him. He didn’t want anyone to ask him about it, guys, that’s why he wore a wedding ring out in public. If that relationship comes to an end and Musk and Trump call it quits, though, I’m losing hope in humanity before AI does take over.
But I did up my post-vacation doldrums with some late onset inspiration from a podcast Monday morning, when I found out that Gwyneth Paltrow’s “goop” business — which I thought was exclusively for making vaginas smell better — started off as a newsletter.
That bitch is now worth $250 million. I’m not calling Paltrow a bitch (though she seems like one), for the record, but instead referring to the business as “that bitch.”
Maybe if I do get cut off at the job after AI replaces me, I can turn this bitch into something worldwide.
Come for the updates on the 26-38 Chicago Bulls, stay for the organic dick cream that keeps you half chub all day. I’ll have a GPT of myself, too, where you can send me a comment and then I’ll respond to it instantaneously. The idea will probably crumble once it becomes evident that I didn’t figure the tech out and that I am actually just responding to these comments, that it’s just the human version of me calling you a moron.
Listen, I’m not trying to go in on AI because I’m a writer and people love telling me that writing is becoming obsolete, either. AI has done good for me too. For instance, when someone calls me over and shows me how AI can do this or that for me, I realize more quickly that person is an idiot for needing help with such a menial task.
We all have our use cases.
Our collective humanity may be at risk. But as my friend smoking cigarettes at 15 used to respond to our qualms about him doing so — something’s gonna kill us.
Enough of the filibustering. Do you hear that? Open up your windows and let it in. I can hear it faintly coming from 35 or 36 households around the Chicagoland area.
White Sox… White Sox… Go, Go White Sox.
After a long, dumb fight, Chicago Sports Network has landed on Comcast. You can watch the Bulls, White Sox, and Blackhawks on your TV now, or you can do anything else.
But the bigger news is that Jerry Reinsdorf has finally agreed to sell the White Sox. It’s like Christmas morning, only your parents told you presents won’t be opened until 5 p.m.
The lead is that Justin Ishbia will, eventually, be the new owner of the White Sox. In the second and third paragraphs, however, we’re obligated to mention that could come to fruition as late as 2034.
Time flies by when you’re an adult, so I’ve begun to operate with the assumption that any date that seems far will arrive before I can remember we’re in the year 2025. But man, 2034 is so far. I hope for Sox fans, and just for Chicago in general, that the handoff comes far sooner than that.
And I think it will.
Even if you have to wait for a new owner to spring new life into the White Sox, there’s a decent chance Reinsdorf is such a dick that he’ll start spending for the first time ever now, knowing the bill may never actually land on his desk.
If he turned around and extended Andrew Benintendi with a deferred $200 million deal, I may respect one of his moves for the first time since I’ve been born.
The White Sox will use Ishbia to “make capital infusions into the White Sox as a limited partner in 2025 and 2026 that will be used to pay down existing debt and support ongoing team operations.”
Forget what I said about ever respecting Reinsdorf. What a loser.
Specifically, Reinsdorf can sell to Ishbia, well, whenever he wants, but probably between 2029 and 2033. Reportedly, Ishbia already owns more of the team, but just doesn’t have control.
Then, after the 2034 season, the cards will be in Ishbia’s hands. Ishbia, the founding partner of the private equity firm Shore Capital, is no dummy, which means he’s getting the White Sox one way or another.
I suppose the process would be sped up if Reinsdorf died earlier. But Sox fans gave up on the mortality play years ago.
“In the event of any such future transaction, all limited partners of the Sox would have the opportunity to sell to Ishbia at that time,” the team release said. “In addition to Justin Ishbia, his brother Mat Ishbia, and father Jeff Ishbia will also be significant investors.”
Remember that the Sox denied this would ever take place just a few months ago.
I wrote about Ishbia back when he first came into the picture in February. He’s independently wealthy, with a net worth over $5 billion. He already is a part owner of the Phoenix Suns. Hopefully, he’ll learn from his brother’s mistakes there before taking the helm.
His brother’s mistakes are not mistakes that Sox fans would be particularly mad at. He traded everything he had for Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, and went all in on his team winning the championship immediately.
They actually got worse, and he has embarrassed himself publicly and privately since then. He said that 30 other teams would want to be the Suns prior to this year’s season, and the Suns did not even make the play-in game. He got in a public tiff with Nikola Jokic over a ball that went out of bounds in the playoffs two years ago, and he has fired three head coaches in a three-year span. He’s a douche bag.
But Justin is his own man, and if he came in and threw $300 million at the roster right away, I have a hard time believing Sox fans would say, “can we take a step back and think about this?”
Ishbia is also a longtime Chicagoan, which I think adds to his allure as the future owner.
This all comes shortly after Reinsdorf’s latest failed ploys, one suggesting he may take the team to Nashville and another suggesting he may take the team to a new stadium in Chicago (with public funding, of course). The good news is the Sox are not going to Nashville, the bad news is that the Chicago Fire seemed to have supplanted the Sox as the next inhabitant of ‘The 78,’ which is on the river, undeveloped, and west of the South Loop.
The public is still paying for Sox Park, which was built in the 1990s. I’m not sure why every new team needs a brand new stadium every 20 years. So, although it is funny that Jerry couldn’t beat out the Chicago Fire, it’s probably a good thing if the Sox have to continue playing in a park still being funded by Chicago residents and tourists.
Am I wildly jealous that a new era is on the horizon for the White Sox, when the same can’t be said about the Bulls? Yes, of course I am. But I am still excited for my beloved baseball fan friends, who haven’t had more than a shred of good news in two decades.
It’s agonizing that more waiting has to take place before the deal is closed. But it’s certainly better than nothing, and it’s certainly better than Reinsdorf offering up the team to a family member or one of his buddies who has a group of people that have a total cash stack of around $1 billion.
Comcast customers can watch the Sox again. Jerry Reinsdorf’s reign of terror is coming to an end, eventually. And the White Sox also called up Kyle Teel last week, the prize of the Garrett Crochet deal and one of the best prospects in all of baseball.
Things are looking up, my friends.
I’ll be walking alone in 40 years when I see a ripped Kirk Hinrich Bulls jersey wash up alongside a polluted river. I’ll look at the kid next to me, smile, and tell him that the best basketball team in the world used to play here. He’ll run as fast as he can away from me, to his father. Sure, Grandpa.
But things are looking up, my friends. I’m happy for you. Can you hear it?
White Sox, White Sox, Go, Go….
It is important to note that the NBA’s Eastern Conference Central Division has now been represented in the finals six times over the last 10 years. LETS GO BULLS!
Right now, though, we’re nearing the dog days of the sports summer — when football isn’t yet on the horizon, Chicago’s winter teams have long been out of it, and every Cubs loss feels like the end of the world.
Off a 4-5 road trip that felt unsatisfying, but was completely fine given the competition, the Cubs pulled off a much-needed win Thursday night.
Jameson Taillon tossed another quality start. No one will be buying a Jameo jersey anytime soon, but his efforts have buoyed an otherwise hurt and bad starting pitching group of late. His WHIP is still below 1, and his ERA is a tick above league average. That’s an under-the-radar massive win for the Cubs thus far.
Pete Crow-Armstrong and Seiya Suzuki both homered, and the Cubs got a win in a game that would have turned things sour in Chicago if they had loss.
Things still could turn sour the rest of this weekend, but for now, things are at bay.
Shota Imanaga will be back soon. Since he got hurt, Taillon and Matthew Boyd have done their jobs, but Colin Rea and Ben Brown haven’t been able to keep up. Rea has sputtered, and after Brown’s good start with the opener, he has not kept up the momentum.
Javier Assad may be dead, and Jordan Wicks is hurt and probably not the answer. That means the trade deadline — not until July 31 — is already a topic of conversation.
Jed Hoyer has made great moves around the edges of late. The bullpen is the league’s best since April 19.
But all signs are pointing to a bigger deal as the trade deadline nears, for a high-caliber pitcher. I have to admit that makes me a bit queasy.
The Cubs big deals have mostly paid off lately, like the one for Kyle Tucker and the one for Matt Busch. But big prospects have also gone out in the process.
Given Hoyer’s position as a financially handcuffed GM, will it be worth it for him to double down on this year’s team? It may make sense for him, and it may even make sense for the Cubs given their offensive prowess. But I’d rather the Cubs err on the side of caution, knowing that this core will compete beyond this year — especially with some help from up-and-comers.
Plus, the names I read on the market aren’t all that enticing. Are the Cubs going to desperately mail out an A or A- package for a B or B- pitcher? That’s precisely what I would not like to see.
Hoyer’s tipping his hand a bit with his strategy to find another starting pitcher. But I guess the Cubs results are too. Even still, I’d rather the Cubs hang wait to make a deal with a team that cannot take advantage of them in July.
If the Cubs get Imanaga back, and they win this series against the Pirates, it will allow us all to settle down a little bit. Let’s not get out sprinting on a race that hasn’t started yet.
Thanks for reading another edition of Still Gotta Come Through Chicago! We’ll be back and maybe better than ever next week. Comment below.
