Heading to Wrigley this morning through the rain to attend the news conference to introduce Tom Ricketts and his family. They want to hold it on the field, but that may not be possible.
Anyway, check back at dailyherald.com about 11 this morning for some stories. We'll have more here at the blog later and in Saturday's paper. For now, it's off to the ballpark.
Bruce Miles and Scot Gregor
Bruce Miles has been covering the Chicago Cubs for the Daily Herald since 1998, and major-league baseball since 1989. He grew up in Chicago and is one of those rare birds who followed both the Cubs and White Sox.
Along with Cubs radio announcer Pat Hughes, Bruce co-authored the book, "Harry Caray: Voice of the Fans."
He checks in on the fan blogs and is a daily reader of Baseball Prospectus.
Scot Gregor has been covering the Chicago White Sox for the Daily Herald since 1994, and major-league baseball since 1990.
He grew up in Pittsburgh, where he idolized Roberto Clemente. Scott graduated high school in 1979, when the Steelers and the Pirates were both the best in the world.
He often checks out whitesoxinteractive.com and southsidesox.com, and contributes to Street & Smith’s Sporting News baseball guide.
Hey Cub fans, the game is played on the field by the players, not in the corporate office.
Yes some of these players should not have been signed, and are over payed, but that's
in all sports, football, basketball, & hockey.
The fans demanded better players, and more free agents, and the Tribune Company
gave it to them, yes also to make the product more attractive to new owners also.
People forget, Henry acquired, Lilly, Dempster, DeRosa, Pierre,(gone & goodbye),Harden, Reed Johnson, Soriano,Bradley(mistake),and where would they be and are without most of these guys. Lot's of good memories with these players.
The other major newspapers baseball writers started this hatred, which the fans and other media got into against the Tribune. No the Tribune didn't do everything right, but
neither does big Wall Street and large banks in our country.
As far as young foul mouth drinkers at Wrigley Field, go to US.Celluar, they also have them there, including middle age one, Comiskey Park, and Soldier Field, and at Blackhawk
games, and every stadium in the U.S. including College Stadiums.
I'm working on an updated blog and a story for tomorrow's paper off today's news conference. The Ricketts family put on a nice performance today. As far as the organization goes, Crane Kenney will remain as president, and Jim and Lou will remain in their jobs.
The Cubs hope to bid on the 2014 All-Star game to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Wrigley Field.
More later today. Check out our early stories online. The Daily Herald had a chance to meet with Tom on Oct. 15, but we had to hold our stories and columns until today.
Talk to you throughout the day and weekend.
--Bruce
Bruce why did Ricketts retain Crane Kenny as President? What value could he possibly bring to the Cubs from a baseball perspective? I can understand the value with regards to the spring training facility but isn't this the same guy that signed off on all of Hendrys bad contracts? Does this mean that Crane Kenny is no longer employed by the Tribune?
Crane said he hasn't worked in the Tower for a couple of years anyway. I guess Tom wanted him for transitional purposes. Both Crane and John McDonough had large input into the Soriano contract, for example. We'll see how long it lasts.
So Sam Zell sold Crane Kenney to Ricketts along with the Cubs. No wonder he had to knock $50M off the initial reported price...
Thanks To The Still Employed GM, The Ricketts Are Going To Be Operating With One Hand Tied Behind Their Back For The Next Season At Least!
Thanks to the Trib for giving the Cubs a workable budget the past few years. We've seen three division titles since 2003 so they were trending upward.
Someone had to say something nice.
The purse strings loosened in response to the empty seats in 2006 and the pending sale that began that year. Hard to sell if your product is losing customers.
The success in 2007 and 2008 was a result of the desperation by the Trib to maximize the value of the team in a sale.
Whatever the reason, the budget was a manageable amount and the Cubs had success. There were playoff appearances before 07 and 08, too.
Cubs had their highest attendance ever in 2006 and that's continued to grow since.
Welcome Mr. Ricketts and God speed!!!
Final Tribune Obituary: Owned the Chicago Cubs mlb franchise 1981 - 2009
Cumulative Standings: 429 games behind St. Louis Cardinals
Zero World Series appearances
Good riddance Tribune!!
You newspaper is broke and you did an awful job running the Cubs
But the Tribune company did
1) Beat to death the Harry Caray tribute in the seventh inning
2) turn what used to be a family friendly venue into an open air bar complete with foul mouthed twenty somethings more interested in drinking beer than watching baseball
3) Sell out to the democratic party to place a story about then candidate Jack Ryan's divorce so they could get duh mayors endorsement to rebuild the bleachers.
4) Held the Team hostage for over two season because the owner was so Greedy that instead of selling the team when the economy was good he out smarted himself
Yeah Tribune Good Riddance
And as always ... TEAR DOWN WRIGLEY NOW...give the fans a real ball park.