Ricketts (Finally) Gets The Keys To Cubdom

In April 2007, I voiced my excitement upon hearing the announcement that Tribune Co., a long-time nemesis (and hopefully one day, future employer) was going to sell the Chicago Cubs.  For a long time, I had compared TribCo.'s ownership of my beloved baseball team to a bad relationship.  Sure, guys like Andy MacPhail and Larry Himes tried to run the franchise into the ground, but in the end, they were always there for you.  For better or worse.  Always.

And after a two-year courtship, Tom Ricketts, whose family founded TD Ameritrade, is (officially) the Cubs' new partner in crime.  Ricketts will make a statement to the media Friday.  But as happy as this news makes me, I have already been warned about getting too giggly over the situation.

Older Cubs fans have been through this before, like in 1981 when ownership last changed hands.  They thought the Tribune Co. would save the Cubs after the Wrigley family had turned a once proud franchise into a hobby.  And after three years, it looked like they had done the trick.  But after getting a 2-0 lead in the NLCS over the Padres, the Cubs collapsed.

The 1980s and 1990s should have been much better to the Cubs.  Dallas Green had a plan, but never got to see it blossom thanks in part to TribCo.'s mismanagement of the team.  Young talent came through the system as player such as Ryne Sandberg, Mark Grace and Greg Maddux should have been franchise cornerstones.  They would go on to add Sammy Sosa, Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, each of whom had a share in why the Cubs have become one of baseball's most popular and profitable franchises.

Under a proper management system, the Cubs should have made at least one World Series appearance between 1981 and 2009. And that's just according to the law of averages.

Instead, all the Cubs have to show from the Tribune Era is the following:

• 6 playoff appearances
  
• 5 division titles, 1 wild card
• A 9-22 postseason record
• 1 playoff series win
  
• 0 World Series appearances
• 0 World Series titles
  

The Cubs went 2,179-2,282 from 1982-2009.  They had more 90-loss seasons (7) than 90-win seasons (4) and have had 17 different managers in the same time span in which the Cardinals have had only five.  We're talking nearly three decades of disaster.

In short, Tom Ricketts has small shoes to fill.

Ricketts, Tickets, Straight Cash & The Cubs

The gig is up on the North Side.  For the 23 years of my existence, Cubs fans have been saddled with bad-to-mediocre baseball with a sprinkle of good.  And for a good chunk of those years, part of the reason the Cubs have sucked like no other team in sports history is because of ownership's reluctance to put into the team what the fans put into them.

Remember when Andy MacPhail and Bud Selig tried telling baseball fans that the MLB and almost all of its franchises were getting by, if only by the skin of their teeth.  Then, days later, a report came out that most baseball teams were profiting with he Cubs being among the top three?  I do.  It confirmed to me something that true Cubs fans (not that guy who goes out there and blatantly tries to make him the most hardcorediehardfanboyevar) knew all along.  There's always been money in the safe, but no one knows the access code.

Yahoo! Sports found the access code and broke it down here.  I will break it down further after the jump.



David Kaplan suggests new owner Tom Ricketts might be penny-pinching in his first year of ownership.  I suggest that Kaplan give me the access he has when it comes to covering Chicago sports teams.  I guess we're all full of suggestions, huh?

Ricketts closing his wallet after spending $845 million on the baseball team he's loved since childhood would be like me buying a Cadillac Escalade and not ponying up for an iPod adapter to bump some tunes out of my new whip.

So, why should Ricketts make it rain during his ownership regime?  Well, for starters, the Cubs are in more green than a Brazilian rain forest.

GATE RECEIPTS: $140 MILLION ESTIMATED ANNUAL REVENUE

People flock to Wrigley by the tens of thousands on a daily basis.  When the Cubs aren't there, they go by the hundreds.  The ballpark on Clark & Addison is more than a place where grown men pay a child's game and make millions of dollars to do so.  Admittedly, it's a tourist attraction.  But it's cool.  Disneyland is a tourist attraction too, and that place makes bank.  So do the Cubs.


In 2005, more than 3 million people made the trek to Wrigley Field, marking the first time the Cubs had eclipsed the 3 million mark.  They won 79 games that year.  In 2006, they lost 96 games and drew more people.  I think it's time, and I feel as if Mr. Ricketts would agree with me on this one, that it is time to reward the fans that help fill your bank account.

BROADCAST RIGHTS: $70 MILLION ESTIMATED ANNUAL VALUE

I've seen a lot of baseball over the years.  Most of it through friends who have the MLB package or at sports books in Las Vegas.  I've heard/seen a lot of broadcast teams, and on the TV side, Len Kasper and Bob Brenly are among the best.  If you disagree, that means you are a White Sox fan who would rather hear Hawk say absolutely nothing during a loss and read Steve Stone's Twitter page bashing Milton Bradley while turning a blind eye to the steaming pile of shit left by Alex Rios and his .156 batting average since joining the White Sox.

Pat Hughes is great on the radio side.  Ron Santo, eh, not so much.  He's like Hawk ... but has never traded Bobby Bonilla nor has he ever fired Tony La Russa.

And yet, despite Ronnie's shortcomings, the Cubs will still bank $70 million a year because of broadcast rights.  That's a ridiculous amount of money, so much so, maybe it could buy good ol' Ronnie some original analysis.

CONCESSIONS: $15 MILLION ESTIMATED ANNUAL VALUE

The no-brainer of no-brainers.  Beer is expensive.  So is food.  But it doesn't matter that I can go to the Full Shilling down the street, eat for free and pay the same $6 for a beer that is two times bigger than the one I will buy at the ball park.  I'll still buy food and drinks at the game anyway.  So will approximately 40,000 of my closest friends.  Something has got to distract us while Aaron Miles is at the plate or Kevin Gregg is on the mound.


You know how when you drink beer at the bar, sometimes the girls look prettier.  It's too bad it can't have that same affect (effect?) when Miles, Gregg or any of these other mopes take the field.

COMCAST SPORTS NET CHICAGO: $15 MILLION ESTIMATED ANNUAL VALUE

Allow me to quote the Yahoo! story for this passage.  "The Cubs make an estimated $15 million a year from Comcast – a quarter of the regional network’s profits – and the ownership stake is worth far more. Three people involved in the pending sale valued the 25 percent stake at no less than $180 million. The big payoff could begin a decade from now."

Um, is that a lot of money or is that a lot of money?

In addition to those eye-popping numbers, the Cubs will also get a healthy $100 million tax break and $45 million through other revenue streams.  Sure, the Cubs have to kick back $35 million thanks to the collective bargaining agreement, but it's a price the Cubs could afford.  Put it this way, it comes out to approximately as much asthe 2010 salaries of  Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Zambrano.

So when Dave Kaplan says the Cubs should save some money by letting Rich Harden walk, I laugh.  And when he says the Cubs won't get in a bidding war for a player's services, I laugh harder.  And when Kaplan suggests the Cubs should wait and try to find a bargain such as Kyle Lohse, my face turns red with anger and I start cursing at my computer screen.

Kap, if you think you can win a World Series with a rotation full of pitchers who will make $32.625 million over the next year and hold a career record of 83-88, then you and Stoney should go buy a team and make it happen.

I'll take my chances with my 5 inning starter with a 10.9 strikeout-per-nine ratio.

Follow The Sox? I'd Rather Follow The Blind

If following the Reinsdorfian Model of Success includes making out with Mark Buehrle and jizzing on his head, then you can count me out!

South Siders got it right? Well, not quite.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist is no P.J. Franklin, by any means. So I guess maybe I should take it easy on her in regards to her latest column fodder in which she suggests new Cubs owner Tom Ricketts follows the game plan of the South Side White Sox.

The column reads as if the White Sox were run like a well-oiled machine drowning in a sea of championship trophies.  A little bit of research shows that Carol Slezak obviously didn't do hers.

Let's take a look at the White Sox since 1986, which is a fair point to start from in my case because it marks the first year of my existence.  The South Siders have notched four playoff appearances since the result of my mother and father's mistake I was born.  The first coming in 1993 and the most recent coming in 2008.  From 1987 (my first full year of birth) to 1993, the Sox averaged a little more than 80 wins per year, thanks in part to 267 wins from 1990-92, which helped balance out a .448 winning percentage from 1987-89the.  And unless you're breeding mediocrity, this is not how you want a franchise to be won.

Slezak suggests following the Reinsdorfian model?  Really?  Why would Ricketts want to follow a management group that hired Ken "The Hawk" Harrelson as its general manager, who ended up firing Tony LaRussa?  Sounds almost as silly as handing LaRussa your keys after a night on the town.

Truth be told, the Cubs haven't been much better, making five playoff appearances since being born as they clinched four division titles and a Wild Card spot, too.  As Sleezebag Slezak points out, the Cubs have built an outfield full of losers with Alfonso Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome and Milton Bradley.

Again, it's easy to ride on Soriano this year, but not a peep was heard from April through September the last two years.  Then, adding Bradley, who led the American league with a .999 OPS last season, should have made the outfield better based on stats alone.  But it's easier to take blinded swipes than it is to log onto baseball-reference.com, I guess.

The only thing the White Sox have on the Cubs, of course, is the most important thing in baseball: A World Series ring.  I could go the route of ignorance and note that the White Sox still play jealous little brother with a snotty (yet, ballsy) GM who pokes more jabs at the Cubs than he does at teams in his own division, a broadcast booth that feeds into a fan-base that acts like a jilted former lover by spewing Cub-flavored Haterade on a daily basis and a Twittering fool (account protected) who had more posts about a team he used to cover than the team he currently covers. This, of course, the same Twittering fool that Steve Rosenbloom wants to anoint as team president despite the fact that he has as much experience in that role as, say, the other celebs he names in his blogcolumn.

All that despite the team's 2005 championship.

Heck, if Ricketts wanted to follow a Reinsdorfian model of success, it should be the Chicago Bulls from 1987 to 1998.  Yes, Reinsdorf and the Bulls lucked into Michael Jordan, but it was what Reinsdorf and the organization's ability to draft and build around His Airness with role players such as Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant, among others.

Acquire. Develop. Win. Profit.

That was the recipe when the Yankees were winning their championships. The Braves used that same methodology to win a bazillion straight division titles. It's the same recipe Ricketts should use when he finally digs into the mess left behind by Sam Zell, Jim Hendry and the preceding ownership group.

However, that looks doubtful amidst this report.  So, how long until Cubs fans will be clamoring for a new owner?

Better yet.

How long until Cubs fans again start clamoring for Mark Cuban?

The One Shining Moment Of The 2009 Season: The Cubs (Finally) Have An Owner

For the first time in my lifetime, the Chicago Cubs have an owner that is not a nameless, faceless organization that also happens to be running a newspaper.

Welcome Tom Ricketts, to an organization that hasn't won a World Series in 100 years and is trying real hard to make it 101.

Tribune scribe Paul Sullivan has 10 suggestions for the new guy, and here are my five.

1. Don't listen to the weirdos. If someone begs you to not change the name of Wrigley Field, tell 'em to Plax themselves. Or if you want to be a nice guy, ask them if they would still care about the stadium's name if it meant the Cubs won a championship in 2010. If they say yes, then you can ignore them. They don't care about winning.
2. Bring in a real GM. Call up Oakland and write Billy Beane a blank check and tell him that he can actually work with a big boy budget. If he doesn't call back, maybe you can get in contact with Paul DePodesta in San Diego. And if you're really interested in a GM that loves to blog, contact me at bigdeadsidebar@gmail.com and we can talk business.
3. Lower beer prices. I'm jumping on Paul's bandwagon. Hopefully one day, I'll be in the press box (which should be expanded somehow if possible) and I won't need to buy beer at Wrigley. Until then, beer prices matter to me.
4. Lower ticket prices. It shouldn't cost me Mark Prior's bum arm, Alfonso Soriano's shoddy legs and Kyle Farnsworth's illegitimate baby to see the Cubs get smoked by an inferior team.
5. Fire Carrie Muskat. There is a young, hungry sports writer who's one goal in life is to be the Chicago Cubs beat writer. Hire me. Now.

Other suggestions include anything on this list (then applying it to Aaron Miles too), saying goodbye to Jim Hendry, bleacher-babe cheerleaders, and bringing in Greg Maddux as pitching coach and Mark Grace as pimping hitting coach. Oh, and there's this Albert Pujols guy who becomes a free agent in 2011 ... hand him a blank check too, while you're at it.

Alright, kiddies. Go celebrate a new day in Cubs lore!

TBDS Late Night: The Curious Case Of Cub Ownership

Megan Fox = Hits right?

A long time ago in a blogosphere far, far away, this blogging outfit presented a feature called TBDS Late Night which reported on late-breaking news and provided games to watch for and links to read at your own peril. Once in a while, yours truly will revive that segment when necessary. This is one of those times.

It seems as if since the beginning of time, fans of the Chicago Cubs have been yearning for a new owner. And who can blame them?

All the team has to show for its time under the Tribune Co.'s ownership run are a handful of division titles and more than two decades worth of heartbreak. It is hard to believe that Trib Co. can claim bankruptcy after basically stealing money from Cubs fans throughout the years without re-investing that into the team until late into the newspaper company's ownership of a baseball team.

Now there's this. One day after reportedly agreeing to a deal to sell the team to life-long Cubs fan Tom Ricketts (of TD-Ameritrade fame), Sam Zell and his gang of cronies also are looking at a deal from Chicago native and New York investor Marc Utay.

This is very eerily similar to an episode of any late-90s, early-2000s romantic comedy sitcome in which the guy has two dates at the same place with two different girls. In most of those episodes, the guy gets dumped by both, making yours truly feel a little bit better about his own dating disasters.

As for this very unique Cubs situation, I have a happy ending that can appease all parties.

Let 'em both buy it.

The Ricketts family apparently had its issues raising the rest of the money to buy the Cubs, so much so that the final bidding price ended up falling short of the $900 million projection. Let the Ricketts and Utay camps come together and share ownership of the team. It seems like a far-fetched deal, but it isn't. For example, Jerry Reinsdorf is the principal owner of the White Sox, but he's got a team of investors ... lots of teams do this.

If Ricketts and Utay really want to get creative, they would make a quick phone call to Mark Cuban and make an ownership super-team with a face that has Chicago ties (Ricketts), the experience of owning a professional sports team (Cuban) and plenty of cash behind the deal with that three-headed monster.

As a Cubs fan, here's hoping this turns out better than those romcom sitcoms I referenced earlier.

Quality Linkage:

• Here comes another stupid idea from ESPN. Who is America's Team? [Awful Announcing]
• Tuesday in a nutshell: Jason Whitlock gets his "Becky" on. People ask me what "getting Becky on" means. I explain. Laughter, confusion, disgust ensue. As MJ Hartwig said "haha white people." [Fox Sports] ["Becky" def.]
• Ron Artest's tribute song to the King of Pop. [The Sports Hernia]
• Obama first pitch odds. Is there anything Pete Rose can't bet on? [Vegas Watch]
  

Where Can I Borrow $500 Million?

It looks like the sale of the Chicago Cubs has hit a snag ... not that it should be news to anyone.

Because the Ricketts family missed a deadline and has only raised $400 million of the $900 million price tag, the sale that was expected to be completed in May, will be delayed.

The longer this plays out, the worse the Cubs will get. Not that what happens in the ivory towers has a direct correlation with what happens on the field, but whoever owns this team right now has his/her/its hands tied right now. In a nutshell, all that means is not to expect high-price mid-season acquisitions, or even possibly a lack of contract extensions at the end of the year.

As for the remaining $500 million, the Ricketts family plans on borrowing it from the outside. College graduates around the nation are wondering where they can get that kind of deal.

Meanwhile, Mark Cuban is furiously texting, tweeting and blogging for the Ricketts family's attention.

Tribune Co. needs a closer to salt away Chicago Cubs deal [Chicago Tribune]

Photo Credit: YardBarker

Tom Ricketts just put Tribune Co. in the black

The Tribune Co. has held the Chicago Cubs and their fans for 28 years.

Their reign of terror is over.

Billionaire Tom Ricketts, who grew up a Cubs fan and met his wife in the Wrigley Field bleachers, has purchased the Cubs for a whopping $900 (pinky finger to the edge of my lip) MILLION DOLLARS!

So, finally, the Cubs and their fans have a face instead of a corporate building downtown to relate to. They have someone who cares about the team as much as they do. That's nice. Now go win a pennant.

Let the record show that Ricketts paid $879.5 million more than the Tribune did when they bought the team back when dinosaurs, 8-tracks and polyester ruled the world.

There are a few things that really heighten my interest in this story.

Numero uno: When you spend $900 million on purchasing the baseball team, how can you go about affording the day-to-day baseball team stuff. You know? Free agents. Taxes. A hot dog at the ball park. I have a problem spending money on beers, hot dogs and more beers at a game. How can someone not flinch at the idea of spending $900 on an entire franchise?

I guess it pays to be rich.

Numero dos: Tom Ricketts is a Cubs fan ... is that a good thing? Will he be willing to throw money at the Cubs as if he was PacMan Jones and the Cubs were his personal strippers? Does he care? Is he going to lead the Cubs to the promiseland?

Numero tres: Will he introduce me to my wife in the bleachers? Dear God I hope so.

Numero quatro: Did Tom Ricketts just save Tribune Co.? Seriously, when you get $900 million for a baseball team, shouldn't that take you out of the red? I think so. Because I know if the DE just added $900 million after selling a baseball team, we would be good for the next ... oh ... 900 million years!

Maybe we should buy the Miners.