By Paul Sullivan
The Ricketts family officially took control of the Cubs Tuesday morning, closing the $845 million deal to take 95 percent controlling interest in the team, Wrigley Field and 25 percent of Comcast Sports Net.
"My family and I are thrilled that this day has finally come and we thank Commissioner Bud Selig and Major League Baseball owners for approving our ownership," said Tom Ricketts. "Now we will go to work building the championship tradition that all Cubs fans so richly deserve.
"It's fitting that this closing takes place during World Series week. Out of respect for the Fall Classic, and at the league's request, we will wait to introduce ourselves to the media and fans until this Friday, a travel day in the series between the Phillies and the Yankees."
The Cubs will hold a news conference Friday morning to introduce the Ricketts.
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This is wonderfull news.
Good luck "mon coussin" !
Following my "Expos" departure, I long strived to find a LMB team to cheer for (can't stand the Blue Jays).
I guess I'm now a Cubs fan.
Don't worry Cubs' fans, the Ricketts will be good.(really!).
:-)
Rwilymz,
Believe it or not, I'm not typically a "fire the manager, fire the GM" type. Continuity is important once you have the right people and approach. If I were an Indians fan I wouldn't have been looking to dump Shapiro, who I think has been smart but unlucky. Anyway, you've convinced me that Hendry is not actually incompetent.
My "wounded inner Cub Fan" side is just desperate for signs that the Ricketts era is going to be better than the Tribune era. The Trib acted like a small-market team -- content to sell the familiar (veteran) lovable losers in the beautiful ballpark -- and only changed in the years prior to putting the team up for sale.
A change of ownership feels like the time when the Cub culture might really change. I'm hoping for more valuation on advanced stats (on-base percentage, noticing park and league influences when targeting players, etc.) and the value of prospects.
Hendry's signing of Bradley would have a very smart gamble if it had been for fewer years -- the guy is very valuable when physically & mentally healthy. So I blame Hendry less for picking Bradley than for letting him act out all year before doing something (he should have pressured Pinella to do much more).
My initial rant really wasn't asking for a splashy trade or signing "just to do something". I certainly wouldn't complain if Ricketts proved willing to break the bank to sign Pujols if he reached free agency -- what fan wouldn't? I was actually asking for patience and intelligence to "scientifically" develop a farm system.
Anyway, thanks for the interlligent conversation.
"Now we will go to work building the championship tradition that all Cubs fans so richly deserve."
Hahahahahahahahahhahahahaha! Enjoy another century of futility suckers.
Bill, the most consistently successful teams are those who have competent people in high places without the implicit or explicit threat of losing their jobs because of one move that didn't work ... like Bradley.
I look at what Dallas Green did when he got to the Cubs. '84, marvelous. '85, injuries crippled what was looking like an even better team. It wasn't too much longer before Green was fired. Goodbye long-term competence.
Hendry is competent. I have criticized individual moves -- or non-moves, as the case may be. The most recent was waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting to bring up Fox when Ramirez went down. An iffy 3B who can hit is better than a pair of iffy 3Bs who cannot -- which we had in Fontenot and Miles. Yes, Piniella was involved in this as well, but Hendry can pull rank if he needs to ... but didn't.
I have criticized the [seeming] pressure put on Hendry to make splashy moves to satisfy this whimsy of Cubs fans, who need splash to make it SEEM like the team is making progress. Soriano is a very good example of that. Just let these people do their jobs without micromanaging them from your barstools. There's a reason they are "Cubs Management" and you and I are not.
Splashy trades have a tendency to decimate the minors, splashy signings have a tendency to decimate the pocketbook. And it seems to me that one of the larger reasons for splash comes from the groundswell of us who demand it.
Rwilymz,
I'll give you credit for making many good arguments, and being more balanced than I was. Hendry is not a terrible GM, and I was probably misdirecting some of my Trib-loathing at him.
The expectations should be higher than average with the Cubs recent huge budgets, so I can't rate Hendry as above average. His Soriano signing will be a disaster on future team finances as he ages (although I've already admitted that the Trib may have pushed him to do that contract). He's had more than his share of other deals that most baseball writers hated, such as Juan Pierre and Bradley (good OBP, but too many years for someone who'd been shown the door from so many teams).
Still, I'll admit that Hendry's done some really good things like the Lilly signing and the Ramiriez trade. Hopefully the new ownership can get Hendry to put more emphasis on having a good farm system and not constantly trading away what prospects they have.
The Cubs have an atrocious history of developing home-grown talent, and Hendry was involved in that even before becoming GM. Because of that, they have almost no players that whose production is really good relative to their contracts. The system is currently among the lowest rated by Baseball America and others.
But hey, I've heard great things about Starlin Castro lately, so maybe the Cubs farm system will FINALLY provide fans with a good surprise.
Bill:
You are probably very sincere in your beliefs, but so are those who see little green men behind every mysterious light in the night sky.
These two comments of yours are at odds with each other -- and I'm certain you don't understand that:
Jim Hendry seems like a good human being, but please have the courage to fire him.
AND
Please don't be so pressured to WIN NOW that the team continually gives up prospects for middling veterans on the down-side of their careers.
Hendry has built playoff teams in 43% of the seasons he's GMed the Cubs. Not since the 30s have the Cubs had that good a chance to get Series Rings. In 28% of the seasons, the Cubs were in the hunt until the last weeks of the season. Not many teams can say that.
Hendry is among the more competent of GMs in the league, and if anyone is going to find someone "like" Epstein or Cashman or whomever you idolize without it actually BEING them, then you are, by definition, going to be taking a flyer on an unproven commodity who -- by law of averages -- is far more likely to be less successful than Hendry has been.
Whether you and the rest of the Hendry-phobes care to admit it or not, Hendry is about as good as we're likely to get. And the reality is we could do far, far worse.
Additionally, any team that is built to put up good seasons consistently -- which the Cubs have done since '03 and Hendry took over -- is built around one basic principle: do not change upper management based on immediate disappointment.
The Cubs had a winning season but didn't make the playoffs this year after two consecutive division champs. Everyone has their favorite "bad move" to blame:
Bradley for DeRosa
Gregg for Wood
Miles for a bucket of warm spit
whatever
On paper, a switch-hitting RF with some power, decent average and speed is better than a RH hitting glorified utility player -- even if superb and likable -- with some power and not much speed to worry about. It just didn't work as planned; and then the pouting started. Both Bradley's and those who denounce him. In the end, Bradley hit better than DeRosa, but with less power. Few of Bradley's detractors understand that.
Wood fared no better than Gregg.
Miles and Fontenot were a toss-up in futility/incompetence.
Even so, the Cubs had a .500-plus season and were technically in the wild card race until the last weeks. Not bad for a "failure" of a season.
...and I'm as far from a "glass half full" guy as you're ever going to find. But the Cubs are in far better shape this off-season than they were after '06 when 80% of the rotation had been yanked straight out of their AA diapers.
If Epstein comes available, then, sure. Eat Hendry's contract and hire Theo.
Barring that ... your tirade is old, tired, and fundamentally insupportable.
What ever happened to true investigative journalism?
True investigation takes objectivity, something few journalists have after the Woodward/Bernstein era taught them all to be gratuitous fault-finders.
It also takes money, something that print journalism no longer commands.
It also takes dedication, which is vanishingly rare in the internet era which prefers fast-n-sloppy to slow-n-accurate. If it took you that long to come up with a story, it's only because you needed to invent it.
Welcome Mr. Rickett to the Cubs organization. I would like you to hire Mr. Sandberg as the new manager and Mr. Stone as a GM.
Thanks.
the '03 had the best chance to get to the ws and perhaps win it all, they had that chemistry. '07 and '08 were built to win, but i'm not sure they had the chemistry. good players are one thing but they need to gel with one another.
Dear Mr. Ricketts,
Congratulations on taking over the Cubs.
Jim Hendry seems like a good human being, but please have the courage to fire him. Please find someone more like Theo Epstein or Andrew Friedman -- people with a more statistical and businesslike view on how to get maximum wins for a given budget rather than following old baseball adages ("what we need is an RBI guy!").
Please don't pressure team management to make specific deals. I understand that Tribune management pushed Hendry to do the Soriano deal to help make the team more exciting prior to putting it up for sale. That deal is going to be a drag on the team's budget for years.
If you decide to make a big free-agent splash, please let the GM look for long-term value, not the flavor-of-the-month who just had a career year after unimpressive prior years. Cub decision making generally seems too emotional -- the team announces their off-season target(s) and then feels pressured to do anything to get those players rather than waiting for bargains left on the shelves at the end of the off-season. Hire a good front office, then trust them to construct a cost-efficient team instead of constantly currying the favor of local reporters (who in Chicago tend to focus on all those tired old baseball adages).
Please don't be so pressured to WIN NOW that the team continually gives up prospects for middling veterans on the down-side of their careers. I would be willing to wait longer for a good team if it included young stars that could be a solid core for years to come. Please put more money into the draft and international scouting, and less into middling vets who won't be part of a long-term solution.
Thanks, and good luck to you!
First of all, get rid of Milton Bradley and then Wrigley Field, that place is a jinx. I would love to see those yuppie snobs without the business the Cubs generate. They cry about night games and the parking and everything else. But when you drive up to Wrigley there they are in the red shirts acting as Cub parking attendants, then they try to wave you into an alley to park in their garages for 200 bucks, and people pay it!!!! 200 bucks times 82 games $16,400.00 tax free, wonder if the IRS knows about this.
First of all, get rid of Milton Bradley and then Wrigley Field, that place is a jinx. I would love to see those yuppie snobs without the business the Cubs generate. They cry about night games and the parking and everything else. But when you drive up to Wrigley there they are in the red shirts acting as Cub parking attendants, then they try to wave you into an alley to park in their garages for 200 bucks, and people pay it!!!! 200 bucks times 82 games $16,400.00 tax free, wonder if the IRS knows about this.
It would be Great to have a winner in my life time getting very tired of "Wait till next year" been hearing that for more than 50 years, and I'm sure there are those around who have heard it for longer!!!
Paul, Are you going to ask them how much in taxes they dodged and avoided by morphing this shady deal? There was talk the IRS would be looking into the deal. The bankruptcy maneuver stunk. More corporate welfare for sports teams. But I don't expect to see that in this paper or the S-T.
"Now we will go to work building the championship tradition that all Cubs fans so richly deserve" The sale is now complete. Mr Ricketts,PLEASE BUILD A WINNER! World Series winner that is. Division title isn't enough. Do we have to wait another 101 years (and counting) and have to deal with poor decisions, bad contracts, and even worse players? I hope not. We as fans have done our part in sticking by our Cubs now it's time for you to do yours. Bring us a championship in my lifetime please.
Guess a World Series is right around the corner...don't hold your breath!
Does this mean we'll finally get some unbiased reporting for the Tribune about the Cubs?
My guess is no. They'll continue to pander to the masses with selective reporting on both Sports and Politics.
What ever happened to true investigative journalism?
Now, please clean house. Start up top, with empty suit Crane Kenney. We won't think you're serious until you do.
Hey, Now is the time to change the team name to the Crickets. cz
Thank God that the Zell era Tribune is all but 5% done, maybe Hendry can work a combo deal when he unloads Bradley and get rid if the TRibs 5% interest at the same time.
Wish Tribune would not even have the 5% they do!! Eradict them forever! Please.
Ok, Ricketts please make me a believer again and I will come back to the Cubs!! Let's see what ur going to do in the winter and how April goes. Rememebr we do not want rebuilding right now, it's been 101 years!! We NEED a winner NOW!! Thanks!
Hello Tribune people. You will note that many of us were a bit terse with you during the latter part of your tenure as owners of the Cubs. Now that you are no longer a factor, I want to say that it was nothing personal.
Please, please...better decisions Mr. Ricketts! As fans we deserve and need better! Bring us the day to celebrate a championship and shove it in the face of all the Cubs obsessed haters! It will be the biggest party in sports history!
Rob on October 27, 2009 10:11 AM
"Now we will go to work building the championship tradition that all Cubs fans so richly deserve"
Yeah, good luck with that.
Why not?
Mr. Rickett, please, I beg of you to please move the Cubs Spring Training out of gang infested Mesa, AZ. Florida is more suitable with much more for we Chicagoans to do when we visit. Just think, the Cubs and Mickey Mouse.
"Now we will go to work building the championship tradition that all Cubs fans so richly deserve"
Yeah, good luck with that.
"Now we will go to work building the championship tradition that all Cubs fans so richly deserve"
Yeah, good luck with that.
YES! Now the Cubs have a chance! No more corporate games and one guy making the decisions. If the Phillies can do it (I know PHL) then the CUBS can too. Go CUBS! And Go Fightens!