Home Run Derby

The Chicago Tribune has announced that the Ricketts family has won the bidding for the Chicago Cubs. 

And go figure, Jay Mariotti doesn’t like it.  In his most recent post at FanHouse, Mariotti describes how he apparently wanted (and still wants) Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to be the owner of the Cubs. 

But since that didn’t happen, Mariotti had to first do a little name calling about Ricketts and Cub-Fandom in general …

I don’t care that the new owner of the Cubs, Tom Ricketts, met his wife somewhere in the Wrigley Field bleachers. Nor do I care that he lived every guy’s Wrigleyville dream, slumming in an apartment above a bar by the ballpark. This is just more of the same gooey romanticism that Cubdom eats from the first victory in April to the last inevitable loss of autumn — and never amounts to anything but the same “OHHHHH, NOOOOO!!!” from Ron Santo in the radio booth, echoing 101 years of agony.

We’re going to come back to this later.    Mariotti then goes on to assault Ricketts’ ownership qualifications …

What I want to know is simple and to the point: Can Ricketts and his family — best known for the TD Ameritrade discount brokerage founded by his father, J. Joe Ricketts — produce what the Tribune Co. couldn’t produce, the Wrigley family couldn’t produce and every Cubs owner since 1908 couldn’t produce? Can these people win the friggin’ World Series already? With no experience in pro sports ownership, what do they know about running a baseball franchise?  In particular, what do they know about running a franchise supported by a fanatical cult of loons, who ignore tidal waves of hopeless futility and, somehow, come back for more punishment after every October choke job?

So you need experience in “pro sports ownership” to run a successful baseball franchise?  Carl Pohlad (Minnesota Twins), Jim DeWitt (St. Louis Cardinals), Stuart Sternberg (Tampa Bay Rays), George Steinbrenner (New York Yankees), and Arte Moreno (Anaheim Angels) would like to differ.  Except Pohlad.  And only because he’s dead.

And besides, I would think “running a franchise supported by a fanatical cult of loons” would be easier than running one without said loons.  The key word is “support” – the loons pack the park nearly every game – without question.

Mariotti continues …

Do Tom and J. Joe understand the scalding temperature of the pressure cooker they’ve purchased for $900 million? Do they grasp the enormity of the burden they have inherited, the public trust that falls upon them? Do they realize that Cubdom treats a victory over the Pirates in early May like a postseason win, standing as one and belting out “Go Cubs Go!” with almost goofy vigor? Did they hear the same folks grow eerily silent when the boys fell behind the Dodgers in Game 1 of the 2008 National League playoffs, as if knowing what was ahead? The entire six-month experience is disproportionate to reality and unhealthy for the heart and mind.

“Pressure cooker?”  Enormity of the burden?”  “Public trust?”  Sheesh, it’s not like Ricketts bought the Yankees or something.  Seriously – the “pressure” was on the Cubs to win the World Series BEFORE the odometer hit 100 years – they failed.  Pressure’s off.

And when did getting your hopes up just to have them crushed become “disproportionate to reality?”  I had hoped I’d never read a Jay Mariotti column again … look how that worked out.

And now, the Ricketts clan is responsible for curing the sickest patient in sports.  Good luck with that.

I thought the Detroit Lions were a little worse off than the Cubs. 

Then, Mariotti endorses someone else.

A better choice — and I speak for Cubdom — would have been Mark Cuban.  

Interesting.  I’m wondering what Cuban’s “pro sports ownership experience” was before assuming control of the  Dallas Maverick – oh right … none. 

Yes, he still can be that maniac who walks onto an NBA court and approaches opposing players who throw elbows, but the maverick basketball owner would have been the quintessential fun/winning/beer D.J. for the Wrigleyville baseball bash.

And wouldn’t a “fun/winning/beer D.J.” owner just be “more of the same gooey romanticism that Cubdom eats … and never amounts to anything?”  His words, not mine.

He originally was said to have bid $1.3 billion — $400 million more than the Ricketts bid — before the credit crisis hit and he asked the Tribune Co. for an extension that apparently was ignored.

Curiously, Mariotti fails to mention the insider trading charges the SEC filed against Cuban back in November.  No way that could could possibly have affected Cuban’s bid, right?

… when I e-mailed him about the Ricketts news, he responded quickly — and with dignity.  “All the best to him and Cubs fans,” Cuban wrote.

Oh I get it.  Mariotti wanted Cuban because he was already in his BlackBerry. 

But there’s something else …

For the lords of baseball, Team Ricketts is a much safer choice than Cuban, who surely would have sparred with commissioner Bud Selig — and posed a significant business threat in Chicago to White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf. In a recent blog posting, Cuban unwittingly revealed the power that Reinsdorf has in management circles, power that represents a blatant conflict of interest when it involves the heated two-team competition within the Chicago market.

“My sense of the entire situation was that whoever the new owner of the Cubs would be, it was in the Sox best interest for things to stay business as usual  … I’m guessing the people in the Sox organization knew that if I bought the team, particularly at the price point that was being suggested in the papers, there was no way I would just accept parity in future business dealings. I was going to have to try to negotiate the very best deals possible for the Cubs, even if it was at the expense of the White Sox.”

There it is.  Cuban would have been a thorn in the side of Jerry Reinsdorf, with whom Mariotti has had a pretty public feud over the years, which extended to all things White Sox, including announcer Hawk Harrelson and manager Ozzie Guillen. 

Mind you … Mariotti has a point here.  It is odd that the Cubs and Sox have equal bargaining power in Chicago even though the Cubs have more significant ratings, ticket sales, and merchandise sales.  But in some regards, that’s a credit to Reinsdorf and his ties to Mayor Daley and Bud Selig.

Mariotti seems to think that Cuban’s success with the Dallas Mavericks is reason enough for him to be a successful owner with the Cubs.  But the Mavs have had the NBA’s version of the Cubs’ recent October collapses. 

• In 2006, the Mavs blew a 2-0 series lead in the NBA Finals, losing in six games.
• In 2007, the #1 seeded Mavs lost in the first round of the playoffs.
• In 2008, the Mavs lost in the firts round of the playoffs

Then again, maybe Cuban is the perfect fit.  His teams have choked just as well as the Cubs in recent years.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 4:27 pm and is filed under Attenion Whores, Baseball Business, Cubs, Other Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.