Jerry Reinsdorf

Interview

This pandemic is certainly unlike anything I can remember in all my time in Major League Baseball. The only thing that would be reasonably close would be the baseball strikes in ‘81 and ‘94. They’re only similar in that we stopped playing. We always knew that sooner or later they’d be settled, and we’d come back and play. This is totally different because we don’t know how this whole pandemic thing is going to end. We don’t know if or when there’s going to be a vaccine or a cure,[ or ]when it’ll be safe to resume baseball. In my lifetime I can't think of anything that hit suddenly like this or is as uncertain as this.

I don’t have a specific recollection as to where I was when spring training was officially cancelled. This was building up and you could sort of see it coming. It wasn’t like somebody dropped a bomb and it started out of nowhere. For the longest time I was wondering what impact [the pandemic] was going to have on attendance. Really the only thought I had was, “How long is this going to last?” The future is really unknown.

My daily routine has completely changed. My normal routine would be to go into my office either at White Sox park [Guarantee Rate Field] or the Bulls practice facility. I’m not even in Chicago at the moment. I stayed in Arizona because the weather is nicer, and I might as well be somewhere warm enough that I can go outside from time to time. It’s pleasant but when it gets to be 100 degrees here and 75 degrees in Chicago, I’ll go back to Chicago. In the meantime, most of my time is devoted to what we're doing as a result of the pandemic.

We have a lot of questions that still need answers. Are we going to play a season? How do we deal with our season ticket holders? What about our sponsors? We’re in constant communication with our business partners, talking to our sponsors, trying to see how we can help them. We want to see if there are ways we can help them without playing baseball games or basketball games. There aren't many times in a day where I said, “boy, am I bored.” I’m pretty much getting through a full day. I’m working full-time, I’m just doing it on the phone and the computer. The only thing is that being out here in Arizona, I’m three hours behind [MLB offices in New York] and two hours behind Chicago. My day ends early. Once I get to about four o’clock here, I know I can’t reach anybody back East so I can have relaxing evenings.

We’re definitely talking to season ticket holders and trying to do everything we can for them. Every season ticket holder has an account executive. We’re constantly communicating with them, telling them what we know — which is not much. We’re sort of focusing on unwinding a business rather than running a business. We’re having to think ahead to what happens next year. The basketball season starts late October. We don’t even know if we’ll be able to have a training camp. Baseball season starts in February [2021] with spring training. So, there are a lot of unknowns we’re thinking about instead of pleasant things like winning ball games.

I miss the competition. Just seeing the games and, hopefully, winning more than we lose. We’re very optimistic about this year and now it’s disappointing that we’re not able to play. I miss working with the people that I interact with on a daily basis because I really enjoy them. They're just wonderful, wonderful people. I also miss being out of the house!

I’m sure there will be opportunities that will arise out of this because no matter what happens, somebody always figures out a way to make money. Companies [will be] coming to market with testing kits or selling masks. I personally am not interested in any new opportunities because I’m too old to worry about it. There are a lot of clever people out there though.

In terms of baseball operations, rosters are frozen. That’s not a big inconvenience. The biggest inconvenience is we’re just not playing. When things start up again, we’ll be able to make trades, sign free agents, do all the things you’d normally do.