It’s not clear what else could go wrong for the White Sox these days.
Last week, the franchise fired longtime executive vice president Ken Williams and general manager Rick Hahn. There also were reports that chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, 87, might want to move the team from Guaranteed Rate Field when the stadium lease is up in six years to some new place — maybe a suburb, maybe Nashville, Tennessee, maybe Bulgaria.
You’ll remember how much his threatening to move the franchise to St. Petersburg, Florida, back in 1988 endeared him to Sox fans. That feint was done to strong-arm the city and state into building a new, publicly funded Comiskey Park, which we all did, renamed U.S. Cellular Field and now ‘‘The Rate.’’
Besides thinking you ought to get your team in order before pondering such moving nonsense, you also have to wonder what difference relocating would make to a then-93-year-old man. Consider that if a new field were built, it might take another year or two after the lease expires, and Reinsdorf would be 95.
If that isn’t time to go fishing, when is?
But that’s only a bit of the bad Sox news.
During the fourth inning of their game Friday against the Athletics, a 42-year-old woman sitting in the left-field bleachers was struck in the leg by a bullet and a 26-year-old woman nearby suffered a graze wound to her abdomen.
From the same bullet or shrapnel? We’ll guess it was because all we can do is guess, given that details and facts about this thing are cloudy or missing.
The doctor who attended to the first woman, the one badly hurt with a bleeding thigh, says another woman approached her shortly after and dropped a bullet into her hands. The physician, Dr. Jeanne Farnan, says she gave the bullet to the police. After this, almost nothing makes sense.
Nobody has said they heard a gunshot or gunshots at the park. There was no apparent fight or dispute anywhere. The Sox said the bullet likely came from outside the stadium. MLB spokespeople have echoed that belief.
But interim Police Supt. Fred Waller has said the outside-the-stadium theory has been ‘‘almost completely dispelled.’’ He added that the shooting is ‘‘still under investigation.’’
Weird. Dangerous. Bullets are not things to be shrugged off. The Sox didn’t call the game. In fact, in light of so little information, nobody seemed to care much or do much. Fans a few rows behind and a few rows in front of the women who were shot barely seemed to notice the disturbance.
Was there an active shooter nearby? Did a person’s concealed gun go off accidentally? And, if it did, how did the weapon make it past the metal detectors? And with no sound? Gunshots, people, are loud. Unless you have a rigged-up silencer, that is, which is a concept too strange to fathom at a ballgame.
Were other fans in danger? Were the players on the field in danger? Would they have continued playing had they known of the shooting?
The NFL canceled the final eight minutes of a preseason game Saturday between the Dolphins and Jaguars because a wide receiver suffered a bad concussion while being tackled. It canceled the end of the Packers-Patriots game the week before when a defensive back suffered a concussion while making a tackle. Both men appear to be OK.
Yet Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said after the end of the game Saturday was canceled: ‘‘The two teams agreed that football shouldn’t be played anymore tonight. Without a shadow of a doubt, I know that was the right call.’’
But the Sox and A’s? Nobody even knew what was happening. Onward went the game to the end.
There are so many things wrong here, it’s hard to know where to start. If the players and fans weren’t warned of a possible threat just to keep business moving, that’s unconscionable.
A panicked announcement about gunfire would have been terrible, too. Crowds can stampede.
A postgame concert at the field was canceled, according to the scoreboard, ‘‘DUE TO TECHNICAL ISSUES.’’ That actually meant so that cops could search the empty stands for evidence. But in the absence of knowledge, what should the Sox have done? The police?
Something better, that’s for sure.
Here’s another problem: The word ‘‘Chicago’’ always precedes White Sox. Thus, our latest message to the world is, ‘‘Catch a baseball game in Chicago, a k a Dangertown.’’
