While the White Sox will be commemorating the 20th anniversary of their only championship over the last century, Bobby Jenks will be front of mind for more poignant reasons.
In an interview with Scott Merkin, Jenks announced that he's battling Stage 4 adenocarcinoma, a form of stomach cancer. It's been a brutal winter for Jenks, because in the middle of dealing with a series of health issues preceding the discovery of the cancer, his house in the Pacific Palisades burned down in the California wildfires last month.
Jenks discussed his condition frankly:
“You know, the shit I was doing in my 20s and early 30s, no normal person would have survived,” said Jenks, mincing no words as is his custom. “So, in one way, I’m grateful to be alive. In another way, I’m not surprised this happened."
And yeah, his body has been through a lot. There were the pervasive alcohol issues that nearly derailed his career before the White Sox claimed him on waivers in 2005, and then the back surgery in Boston that led to an addiction to painkillers and a $5.1 million settlement with the hospital and surgeon.
Jenks returned to the Chicagoland baseball scene last year as the manager of the independent Windy City ThunderBolts in Crestwood, and both sides planned on a second season in 2025. The ThunderBolts organization expressed its support in an update on Instagram:
First things first, Jenks wants to return stateside. He's spent the winter in Sintra, Portugal to be closer to his wife's family, and he told Merkin that he doesn't intend to die there.
“Now it’s time to do what I got to do to get myself better and get myself more time, however you want to look at it,” Jenks said. “I’ll tell you one thing: I’m not going to die here in Portugal.
“They are not going to put any numbers on it. I wouldn’t even want numbers. You hear stories all the time, ‘Oh, they gave me six months, 25 years ago.’ I don’t buy into that. Whatever happens is going to happen regardless.”
Brian Ball successfully appeals dismissal of lawsuit against White Sox
Back in May 2022, former White Sox athletic trainer Brian Ball sued the team and Rick Hahn for wrongful termination, alleging the White Sox discriminated against him due to sexual orientation, age and disability.
Nearly a year later in April 2023, after Ball voluntarily dismissed two of the five claims against the White Sox and all claims against Hahn, an Illinois Circuit Court judge dismissed the remaining three claims against the White Sox with prejudice. Afterward, the White Sox issued a statement saying the matter was closed "unless there is an appeal of the court's ruling."
Ball did appeal, and as Daryl Van Schouwen reported on Friday, the Illinois Appellate Court's First District reversed the ruling, reviving the lawsuit.
You can read the opinion here, which sided with Ball on two procedural points. One is that the lower court "prematurely resolved factual issues in favor of the White Sox and improperly shifted the White Sox's initial burden onto Ball." The other is that Ball is contesting the validity of the termination agreement, alleging that the White Sox misrepresented the reason for firing him. If that turned out to be true, the agreement wouldn't be valid regardless of whether Ball signed it, and the motion to dismiss can't be used to authorize a "fact-based 'mini-trial' on whether the plaintiff can support his allegations."
What stands out is the White Sox's boilerplate response:
‘‘As policy, the White Sox do not comment regarding ongoing litigation,” team spokesman Scott Reifert said.
Indeed, that's been the standard response to the alarming number of public lawsuits and legal issues the White Sox been embroiled in over the past several years. But when Ball's lawsuit emerged in 2022, the White Sox diverted from that policy with a lengthy five-paragraph rebuttal that took up more than half of Merkin's story, ending with "we are committed to vigorously defending the club’s reputation against Brian’s meritless allegations, including the pursuit of all remedies under the law.”
Given this background, the White Sox's return to discretion is notable.
