My day of days has arrived! The sale of the Cubs from the Tribune Company to the Ricketts clan is official now.
TribCo purchased the team in August 1981 for $11M. They sell today for $845M. I’m sure the company’s happy with it’s 27-year reign. Its return is nearly 78 times greater than its initial investment! The team set attendance records nine times. Tribune Tower suits, Cubs front office honchos, the players, coaches, ushers, security people, washroom attendants, vendors, and even Chicago cops out directing traffic after games all raked in piles from the money tree.
The results on the field? Eleven Cubs teams finished above .500. One made the playoffs as a wild card entry. Five were division champs. One team won a playoff series. No team reached the World Series.
Big deal.
The Trib’s first act as proprietor was wise; it turned the keys over to Dallas Green. The irascible Texan cracked the whip, sending a letter to all players in the organization to get the hell in shape before spring training. He cleared the clubhouse of fat and happy paycheck-cashers and actively sought players who’d trip their own grandmothers as they rounded third. He modernized and professionalized all facilities and departments. He realized Wrigley Field needed lights for the team to compete financially so he threatened to move if the city didn’t give him permission to play night games. In his third year at the helm, he sensed the Cubs had a shot at the division title so he traded a couple of promising young studs and a beloved oldster for a couple of pitchers who made it happen. His farm system a few years later began producing the likes of Greg Maddux, Rafael Palmiero and Mark Grace. He was the man who’d lead the Lovable Losers to the Promised Land.
Of course, Dallas Green was forced out after six years on the job. Since Green’s ouster in October, 1987, very little TribCo has done in the name of the Cubs has made any goddamned sense.
Good riddance.
Now we have an owner who became an adult in Wrigley Field. Tom Ricketts fell in love with the Cubs as an 18-year-old in the bleachers in 1984. He met his wife there as well. His brother lived in an apartment across the street from the ballpark. It’s the next best thing to me owning the Cubs.
Of course, Tom Ricketts is now a few hundred mill in debt. But his family runs TD Ameritrade and he founded Incapital LLC. He’s been in high-end investment banking and stock trading all his life. He’ll find a way to dig up lunch money. It’s just that he won’t be dumping bushels-full of cash at every free agent who hits the market.
That’s okay, too. Nobody ever built a championship team solely by signing free agents — not even the New York Yankees.
The advantage Ricketts will have over previous team owners is he’ll have an emotional stake in the fortunes of the team. I’m hoping (and praying to the god I don’t believe in) that he won’t be satisfied merely by a healthy quarterly report from the team’s accountants. Oh sure, he’s a businessman. He wants the firm to make dough. But here’s hoping he has the good sense to shed a tear or two while he’s counting receipts after a year in which the Cubs fail to make the playoffs.
That said, here’s my unsolicited advice for the new Cubs owner:
Call Alan Trammel in and tell him he’s the manager after Sweet Lou retires next fall. Forget good old Ryne Sandberg. Dreamy-eyed sentiment has no place in this decision. I never thought Ryno was an intellectual titan. Nice guy, I’m sure. Loves baseball. Loves the Cubs. Loyal as the day is long. So what? Those qualities describe me as well. I doubt Tom Ricketts would consider me for the job.
Rid the team of Milton Bradley. Not an easy task, sure, but it has to be done. Signing Gameboard was the dumbest-ass thing Jim Hendry ever did. If Hendry can’t find an equitable trading partner for him, he has to work out a financial settlement with Bradley that would grant him immediate free agency.
Speaking of Hungry Jim, I’d call him into the office and tell him I’m bringing in a Vice-President of Baseball Operations with whom he’ll have to work hand in hand. Hendry may not care to share his responsibilities. Fine, I’d say, let’s work out out nice severance package. Thanks for everything.
Hire a smart, creative, risk-taking, envelope-pushing GM. Someone like Kevin Towers, Billy Beane or Kim Ng. It’d be fascinating to see what any of them would do with a $125M+ player budget.
See what the trade market is for Carlos Zambrano. Perhaps the strongest personality in the clubhouse, Big Z is another in the Cubs’ long line of dumb ballplayers. He can’t control his emotions and he tries to do more than he’s capable of. He’s the anti-Greg Maddux. If the Mets, say, want to talk about sending Jose Reyes or Carlos Beltran here, I’d have to listen to them very carefully.
See what the trade market is for Derrek Lee. I love him. He’s a terrific hitter, a fine fielder and an upstanding citizen. He’s also just about ready to become a very old man. Among the teams that hope (rationally and otherwise) to compete for division crowns next year, the Red Sox, Rangers, Mariners, Braves and Mets all could find a comfortable spot for Lee. Might the Bosox, for instance, wish to move Kevin Youkilis back to third base and ship minor league monster Lars Anderson our way for him?
Find a second baseman, shortstop and centerfielder. You don’t win without superior talent up the middle. As I’ve yelled before, the Yanks became a powerhouse only when they started running the likes of Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams and Jorge Posada out there. You won’t win anything with Ryan Theriot, Mike Fontenot and a platoon of Reed Johnson and Sam Fuld, especially if Geo Soto continues to suffer from the terminal munchies.
See? That’s all you have to do to reverse a hundred years of bad luck, bad decision-making and bad baseball. Ha! I hope Tom Ricketts has half as much emotional strength as ready cash.
