Top 79 Quotes & Sayings by Jerry Reinsdorf
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American businessman Jerry Reinsdorf.
Last updated on December 22, 2024.
It's not uncommon for a big free agent to come to a new club with a big contract and not perform up to his standards.
It is a very humbling honor to be selected as a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
I've said this over the years publicly - this is not a lucrative business. My goal every year is to break even with the White Sox.
We can't make a decision based on PR value. We have to do what we think is right.
I only had one player in my 33 years of sports that couldn't be traded. He wore No. 23 - and 45 when he played baseball.
When I got started, the Bulls weren't even that popular in Chicago. The Chicago Sting, the indoor soccer team, was outdrawing the Bulls. Now you can travel all over the world - Europe, Far East, Africa, wherever - and you see people with Bulls memorabilia or merchandise. It's incredible and the one thing I never could imagined accomplishing.
O'Malley wanted to move the Dodgers out of Brooklyn because he saw the promised land. He was right about that, but to this day I think he was wrong to take the Dodgers out of Brooklyn.
I thought I would spend the rest of my life being a good tax lawyer. The interesting thing about being a tax lawyer is, none of your clients are poor. I had clients come to me and say, 'Can you help us make investments?' That led to me getting into the real estate business.
I haven't said anything bad about Fay Vincent publicly, and I won't. I like him personally.
Baseball is a poorly run business.
The small-market teams should know I've always been with them.
I admire honesty more than any other trait.
I love Mark Buehrle. He's just a fun guy.
A team is supported by the community, and a team must support its community.
I had a vision of how basketball should be played. And the vision was the Knicks teams that won the championship in 1970 and 1973. I wanted a team that emphasized defense. I wanted a team that on offense had a system where players moved off the ball, and the ball moved.
I think every parent takes more pleasure in seeing their child succeed than seeing themselves succeed.
The best thing for the fans is having a team with a chance to win. That's what everyone wants.
If you're doing something wrong, you deserve to be caught.
I was a Knicks fan until the day I bought the Bulls.
The Commissioner was correct to ban Mr. Sterling from all official NBA business, to levy the stiffest allowable fine, and we will support his recommendation to press for Mr. Sterling to relinquish his ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers franchise.
The team was supported by the fans, and the city was committed to a new building. But that wasn't good enough for Walter O'Malley. He had a better deal, and he passed up a good deal for a better one. I don't think that was right, because ownership of a ballclub is at least a semi-public trust.
I know I could have a better public image if I were less open, if I ducked more issues and didn't speak out. But it's not my nature.
Sometimes you pay a premium to get what you want.
A Bar Mitzvah is the time in his life when a Jewish boy realizes he has a better chance of owning a team than playing for one.
It's bad for baseball to have owners who can benefit another business by losing money in baseball.
I never heard of anyone saying they want to deploy their capital wisely and go buy a sports franchise. What you want to do is just not lose money. You see, I don't have to work anymore. I tell people I don't have a real job. On the other hand, I learned long ago that you can't go broke if you turn a profit.
Chicago seems to follow New York, and coming from New York and being in real estate, I worry about things happening in Chicago that have happened in New York. I've seen a great city like New York go downhill. It has a wonderful financial downtown, but the rest of the city is not very nice.
When I gave up law to go into real estate, my mother said, 'How can you give up the law?' But she lived long enough to see the Bulls win all six championships. She would wear all six pendants at the same time. She could barely stand up.
I never believed in pushing my kids. My dad was very unhappy I wasn't going to be a doctor, but I couldn't stand to see the sight of blood. And I wanted to be a lawyer since I was in seventh or eighth grade.
There must be free and open interdepartmental discussion and consideration of everyone's ideas and opinions. These internal discussions must not be considered an invasion of turf, and must remain private... When everyone is on the same page, trust develops, and teams can grow and succeed together.
Losing is not fun. I know the fans don't like it, but they don't have to watch it every day. I have to watch it every day. I don't like watching bad teams.
Making the Hall of Fame has long been considered the top individual honor that one can achieve in any sport, but for me, I feel it is a culmination of all the input and effort afforded me from so many other people over the years that put me in this position today.
If I hadn't been fair, I would never have made the $6 billion in real estate deals that I did. I mean, if you're not fair, people don't want to deal with you.
I operated a business where I let someone steal three-quarters of a million dollars.
I have to let the general manager do what makes the most sense, or I can't hold him accountable.
I don't think people realize how much I love basketball. A lot of people think because of this idiotic comment I made that I love baseball and don't like basketball. Baseball came first because if you grew up in Brooklyn in the 1940s, that was the No. 1 thing. But if you have more than one kid, you love them both.
I've always been a leader in the push for revenue sharing.
You can't make a manager have a coach he doesn't want. I can't make the head of the accounting department work with someone he doesn't want.
We strongly believe that children should not be exposed to smokeless tobacco or see such products being used by their on-field sports heroes.
One of my friends, picture of health, worked out his whole life, never had a weight problem. Calls me up one day and says, 'I have pancreatic cancer.' Gone. I've lost too many friends.
I just put people together. I just identified jobs that have to be filled. And then I have to go out and find the right people and make sure they talk to each other. So I'm the beneficiary of good things that other people do. I get credit for that. If they don't do a good job, I get the blame for it.
I do sincerely hope the Cubs win a World Series. After I die.
I'm a boring guy. I don't play golf. I read, but how many books can I read?
I thought that the Bulls were an undermanaged, under-operated team and that it could be a very successful franchise if run properly.
I coasted through high school. I was 203rd in a class of 987.
Players alone don't win championships. It takes an entire organization. Someone has to acquire the players. Someone has to coach them. Someone has to generate revenue to pay them. But at the end of the day, the players are the ones who put their minds and bodies on the line to win.
I am constantly the butt of jokes.
My greatest moment as a jock occurred when I was 14 and playing punch ball in front of my house on Albemarle Road near East 17th Street in Brooklyn. I ran back, back for a ball, and it fell in my hands. I didn't even see it. Everyone congratulated me on the catch, and I never told them how it really happened.
They'd have to force me to take the All-Star Game. They take over the building, your season-ticket holders have to be in a lottery to see if they get tickets, and then they don't get a good ticket. Really, no good can come out of it, and all it can do is upset your fans.
When I look back, I did what I had to do for business and then fit family life into it.
I had been a basketball fan growing up, and I felt that if we brought in the proper coach, and we played basketball the old fashioned way - where defense is paramount and offense involved movement off the ball and movement of the ball - we could build a winning team, and Chicago would respond to that.
Live every day like it's you're last because one day you'll be right.
I don't see any baseball expansion right now. If it were up to me, I would contract two teams. But I certainly don't think expansion on the horizon.
If we kept all the players I liked personally, we'd be a lot worse team over the years.
When I bought the team, I wasn't thinking about a new arena. But obviously I'm very proud of the contributions that the Bulls franchise has made to the community between Chicago Bulls Charities and the re-development of the West Side with the United Center being the catalyst.
Discrimination and prejudice of any kind have no place in sports or in our society.
We completely support Commissioner Silver's decision today regarding Clippers owner Donald Sterling, and praise him for his prompt investigation and action.
You get into sports with the idea that you want to win. If you aren't trying to win, what's the point in being involved? Once you do get involved, you realize the team draws so much from the community, and it would be nothing without the support of it. You've got to give back. It needs to be a two-way street.
Don't write us off. Nobody thought we'd win the World Series in 2005, but we did. There are years when we think we're great, and we're bad. I mean, the funny thing about this game is that you can't figure it out.
Baseball and its teams are proud of the sport's long-standing role as a change agent in American culture and society.
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