This month, days after Major League Baseball’s Opening Day, taxpayers face the deadline to file their tax returns, and I don’t think even White Sox great and Peoria-area Hall of Famer Jim Thome could persuade Illinoisans to embrace Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf’s request for $1 billion to build another ballpark.

And Thome’s one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet.

I’m not sure about Reinsdorf.

His idea is to partner with developer Related Midwest to build a new stadium on a 62-acre vacant space called The 78 with a hotel, office complex, restaurants, 5,000 residential units, and a 4,000-space parking garage. Reinsdorf would also abandon Guaranteed Rate Field (GRF), owned by the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority (ISFA), which still owes a reported $50 million on the stadium. The Sox’s lease for GRF is through 2029.

Awkwardly, Reinsdorf went to Springfield to plead his case the day before Gov. JB Pritzker’s budget address, and says he needs more revenue than gate receipts and overpriced concessions — like fees to park in his proposed garage.

In 1981, Reinsdorf and the late Eddie Einhorn bought the Sox and the original Comiskey Park that opened in 1910 and renovated it in the ’80s. But “Reinsdorf began lobbying for a new ballpark just eight years after his new Comiskey Park uprooted a neighborhood at $150 million in public expense,” wrote Joana Cagan and Neil deMause in their 1998 book “Field of Schemes.”

In 1988, the General Assembly “stopped the clock” to prevent the Sox from moving to Tampa/St. Petersburg by giving Reinsdorf some $200 million to replace the “new” Comiskey. GRF’s construction and renovations in 2001-2007 cost $485 million, adjusted for inflation.

Recent rumors had the ChiSox moving to Nashville.

Most studies say subsidies aren’t supported by claims of economic development, job creation or promised growth. Using public funds to enrich private ventures by wealthy owners takes money from infrastructure, public services and other needs.

“Research indicates that state and local subsidies for professional sports franchises generally are not economically justified,” wrote Daniel J. Lathrope in South Texas Law Review in 1997. “There are several reasons. First, despite public perceptions, a professional sports franchise has only a small total economic effect, about the same as that of a new department store. Second, the impact studies typically used to support public expenditures on sports facilities are flawed. The increased spending and economic development produced by a new facility is exaggerated. The impact studies generally assume that increased stadium revenue represents a corresponding expansion in the local economy; however, it is more logical to assume that a large portion of such spending is being shifted from other activities in the city or surrounding area.”

In “The Atlantic,” Rick Paulus agreed: “Pro sports teams are bad business deals for cities, and yet, cities continue to fall for them,” he wrote. “Construction on the stadium might be performed by local workers, but it might not. Even if the construction workers are local, their gigs last only a few years. Afterward, all that remains are the jobs inside the stadium — ticket sellers, vendors, janitorial staff — which are low-paid, seasonal and few.”

Nationally, the median, or midpoint, for stadium subsidies is $500 million, up from $350 million in 2010.

“This is without exception,” said J.C. Bradbury, a Kennesaw State University economics professor who’s researched the issue. “It’s really across the board that these are really poor public investments.”

Taxpayers must be skeptical and surely resent paying for a billionaire’s investing in real estate instead of his team.

Reinsdorf, 88, has a net worth of $2.4 billion, Forbes magazine reported in January.

That’s a lot of money.

Take a second. If you count 1 million seconds, it will take 11.5 days. Counting to 1 billion would take 31.7 years.

Government responsibilities should be about roads, schools, libraries, public safety, etc.

“I think I’ve been really clear about the fact that the taxpayers’ dollars are precious and the idea of taking taxpayer dollars and subsidizing the building of a stadium as opposed to, for example, subsidizing the building of a birthing center, does not seem like the stadium ought to have higher priority,” Pritzker said.

Maybe Reinsdorf’s ask wouldn’t come directly from state coffers. The ISFA would sell bonds, and Reinsdorf could repackage bonds and use a sales taxing district and sleight-of-hand Tax Increment Financing, intended for “blighted” areas.

Meanwhile, the Red Stars women’s soccer team and the Bears also hope for new stadiums, and the Cubs say they need government help to qualify for hosting an All-Star Game.

Aren’t we at a tipping point?

Are there options? In Washington, D.C., a bipartisan bill, the No Tax Subsidies for Stadiums Act, cosponsored by Sens. Jim Lankford (R-Okla.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is stalled in the Senate. How about a statewide referendum? Or a box on state tax returns where taxpayers could check if they’re OK with X-percent of their taxes going to Reinsdorf?

“Let me see if I have this straight,” commented State Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D-Chicago). “Billionaire businessman doesn’t like the last stadium we built for him and wants us to pay for a new one. I don’t think we should be subsidizing successful billionaire businessmen. Period.”