(670 The Score) White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf is “so sick and tired” of hearing about how his hiring of manager Tony La Russa ahead of the 2021 season was a mistake.
In a rare media session Thursday in which he addressed the promotion of assistant general manager Chris Getz to senior vice president/general manager, Reinsdorf also reflected on La Russa’s tenure in 2021-’22 with the team and addressed La Russa’s role with the organization now. Contrary to speculation, La Russa’s role doesn’t involve decision-making power, Reinsdorf said before essentially describing La Russa as an advisor who only provides feedback when asked directly for it.
After resigning for health reasons after the 2022 season, La Russa, who's now 78, has recently been a presence around the team, which is what prompted so many questions.
“I’m glad you brought up Tony La Russa,” Reinsdorf responded when a reporter asked what his role is in the organization. “I am so sick and tired of reading that bringing Tony La Russa back was a mistake. Tony La Russa came back in 2021. Does anybody know what we did in 2021? Does anybody remember that 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. Remember, this guy has won as a manager more games than any other manager in the history of baseball who had an over-.500 record. Connie Mack won more games, but he also lost more games than anybody and he was the owner of the team. He was like me. He couldn’t be fired.”
The White Sox went 93-69 and won the AL Central crown in 2021 before losing in the AL Division Series. They went 81-81 and missed the playoffs in 2022, when La Russa stepped aside in late August due to health issues. La Russa had also managed the White Sox from 1979-’86 and has long been a close friend of Reinsdorf’s. La Russa is a three-time World Series champion manager.
“I reject the idea that it was a mistake to bring Tony La Russa back,” Reinsdorf said. “We won a division with Tony La Russa. Now, with respect to his involvement (now), Tony had nothing to do with the decision to fire Rick (Hahn) or Kenny (Williams). 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. The only way Tony found out that Chris was going to be the (GM) was I told him. He was not involved in the process. Going forward, Tony will not have any decision-making authority in the organization, but he’s a tremendous asset. He’s a tremendous asset. So if Chris wants to talk to him or Pedro (Grifol) wants to talk to him, they can talk to him. If they don’t want to talk to him, they don’t have talk to him. Or if they do talk to him and he makes a suggestion, they can follow it or they can not follow it, whatever they want. But it would be stupid not to have this man available to Pedro and Chris if he’s willing to be available, and he is.”