Wrigley faithful, meet your new daddy

Assuming all the paperwork goes along smoothly, Cubs fans can expect an end to their seasons of nightmare where their team played without a big boss in charge.

After years under corporate control in the Tribune media machine, the team is lined up to be the property of the Ricketts family in the next few days. After an early release where they were essentially tabbed "bidding group A" - which terrifies any fans who also follow Illinois politics and assume any lettered entity to be a high-profile witness in a corruption trial - the Tribune released word that the Ricketts were the answer to the big question for the ballclub.

The Tribune reports:

The family, which has Chicago connections but made its fortune building a discount stock brokerage in Omaha, confirmed Thursday night that it has been selected by Tribune Co. to begin exclusive negotiations to buy the team, Wrigley Field and a 25 percent stake in Comcast SportsNet, a regional cable network.

Sources put the value of the bid at about $900 million. That works out to $9 million for each season since the team's last World Series title in 1908.

Thanks for clearing that up, guys. I need to know every piece of Cubs-related trivia in relation to years of futility. It really helps define me as a person.

The article goes on to explain what the process is (especially in the context of the current credit crater).

The family will have to hammer out a final agreement with Tribune Co. and secure financing amid the worst credit markets since the Depression. Once a contract is inked, the deal must be approved by 23 of Major League Baseball's 30 owners. Cubs officials have said they hope to have the new owners in place by the start of the season in April.

So, welcome to Chicago, Ricketts family! It's a wonderful town to own a team - just ask the McCaskey's or the Wirtz's.

Five ways to make baseball more blog-friendly

When I play the "What's My Perfect Job" game from time to time more often than not that dream job has something to do with professional baseball - go figure, huh?

Unfortunately, the jobs seem to be few and far between and from what I'm told you need some sort of letter of recommendation from your senator to be considered for work as the San Diego Chicken.

Recently, I was wondering if it would be worth a team's time and energy to hire some sort of blogger liaison to try and feed content to the blogs of the nation. Here is my simple five point plan to make the home team more accessible to bloggers.

1.) Provide access to the lower-level players - Any plan to actively involve blogs with the team would have to take care not to alienate the traditional media by undercutting their access. We all know the dangers of cutting beat writers out of the loop or the buffet line.

The simple solution to this is to provide access to the clubhouse bottom feeders to bloggers to help drive content. Not even face-to-face interviewing in the locker room, but once or twice a week via a chat window for blogs that feature the home team. Pick someone other than the team's stars and have them answer questions for 45 minutes or so.

Limit access to a few blogs each time - either at random or based on page views/posts in the previous week/or based on who would be representing the team - so it's not a total free for all and there's an opportunity for real information to get out into the blogosphere.

The blogs get fresh, first-person content in a virtual huddle around the player's locker while the traditional media isn't being undercut for access. Additionally, it drives exposure for younger players and allows them to get used to answering questions in a controlled environment.

Given time, it could even become a minor rite of passage. The unheralded rookies - obviously not the Jay Bruce or Joba Chamberlain level guys - are tapped for basic information and the bloggers are now in posession of fresh content that didn't get filtered through the media first.

Transcripts would be made available for those who couldn't participate or whose blogs are still finding their feet.

2.) Blogger night a few times per season - Much like the Los Angeles Dodgers have done in the past with bloggers they've cherry picked, tab a dozen blogs that cover your team and invite those nice folks over for dinner every now and again.

Make those from the front office accessible for a few innings to answer questions and bounce a few ideas off of some informed fans. Three times per season with a dozen or so bloggers means contact with 36 team blogs per season. Minor risk for major reward.

Again, bloggers get fresh content and at the very least the front office has a captive audience for free focus group work.

3.) Release pregame notes to registered bloggers - The notes sheets passed out to season ticket holders and members of the media before games are already being researched and typed up, why not make those available to bloggers as well?

While some teams do have these online, they are difficult to find at times and not always available to those without a password.

Why is this important? Those sheets are a great resource regarding records that players are on hot streaks or closing in on milestones. All of that information is available other places, but having it all in one place saves a lot of time, especially for the fan blogger who is probably working a 9 to 5 and doesn't have time to be chasing down how many times Jamie Moyer has started against the St. Louis Cardinals.

The team can compile a simple roster of who is writing about the team in exchange for game notes they're generating to begin with. Hey, you can't expect to get something for nothing.

4.) Provide a liasion to answer strange questions - A few weeks back, I wrote about why laptops are not prevalent in major league dugouts. To get an answer I was comfortable standing behind, I pored over the official rulebook trying to find any sort of ruling on electronics, sifted through a few posts on the web about the subject and eventually found the answer I was looking for.

Like most of the five points here, the basis is predicated on providing a point of contact for bloggers who are big enough to have an established site, but too small to have people directly contacting them with inside information.

Having someone in the team's press office who watches the blogs and lends a hand is a positive step. Having that person provide an e-mail address to make that a two-way street would be indispensible.

5.) Provide perks, any perks - Aside from the top level blogs that produce a ton of content, post several times a day and generate revenue that allows the writers to continue to do what they do, most blogs are run by regular fans with something to say. This, of course, is a double-edged sword.

This isn't the place to open the discussion regarding the relative merits of fan blogs versus the heavy hitters, but at the basest of levels, most fan-run blogs are done for reasons other than money. (Hey, maybe Brett Favre should start a blog with his free time?)

All told, there are very few perks for bloggers just scratching out a few posts a week between work, family and Xbox 360 marathons - why not throw them a bone? Is the team out of town on a road trip? How much would it really cost the club to invite a few out of shape bloggers to come down to the ballpark and fail miserably at batting practice? Or to do a tour of the behind the scenes areas and the locker room when the stadium is closed for the All-Star Game?

Why is this something a team would even consider? - Take a solid mid-level team like the Twins or the Padres and have them employ one guy to operate out of the media office and help out bloggers, watch to keep track of the fans' pulse and what is being said about the team and any ideas that the fans are throwing around the message boards. Pay them a few bucks - hell, it could even be an intern - and see what happens.

It's worth noting that not once have I advocated putting bloggers in the press box, on the sidelines or in the line of fire for any members of the traditional media.

At worst, the bloggers smell blood in the water and try to pummel the poor sap for high-level information (Why aren't the Royals pursuing Barry Bonds? Why? Why? Why?) and the experiment ends as quickly as it begins. At best, the team builds a degree of goodwill, gives a little back to fans who dedicate countless hours over the course of a season to collecting information on their favorite team and essentially promote the home team for free.

Five simple points - what's the downside?

(Image from: SnaggingBaseballs.mlblogs.com)

How technically advanced!

You hear about MLB being on the cutting edge when it comes to technology - to the point that they leased their bandwidth to the NCAA a few years ago for tournament coverage - but I thought this was pretty cool.

It's not so much in the traffic it generates, but in how they seem to be making a legitimate attempt to reach out to the kids.

You know, those crazy kids with their iPods and internets...

Mark Cuban still sniffing around sale of Cubs

For those who don't listen to much sports talk in Chicago for whatever reason - living out of town now / working a job inside a concrete bunker at a suburban office park / warden took away your radio privileges after shanking fellow inmate over a pudding cup - you probably missed the discussion on ESPN Radio today with Mark Cuban.

Cuban confirmed that he is an approved buyer as far as MLB is concerned and that he was still very interested in the prospect of owning the Cubs.

In addition to the usual show of respect for the owners already in place, Cuban made attempts to reach out to the population within a few blocks of the ballpark:

Does Sam Zell owning the Cubs help your bid?

Cuban: Well it really depends on what the other bidders do. You know, Sam's obviously a smart businessman and he's gonna do what's best for him. Major League Baseball has survived a long time without Mark Cuban and they can survive a long time without me and so they'll do what they think is best for them.

And my job is to convince everybody involved that not only is it a good financial move to sell to Mark Cuban but it's also, you know, a good partnership move that I can add value beyond just my checkbook to not just the Cubs, to not just the city of Chicago, but also to Major League Baseball. Because to me one of the thing's I've learned with the Mavericks is when I thought I bought the Dallas Mavericks when I wrote the check eight years ago, and in reality even though I wrote the check the city of Dallas and Fort Worth still own the Mavericks and it's about being a good citizen, it's about contributing to the community and to me that's viewed to be just as important as Major League Baseball or the Tribune company, you know, what can I do for Wrigleyville, what can I do for the community, and what are the ways that I fit in and add value.

Because, you know, part of the issue that's been apparent to me in looking at all this is that, you know, the previous owners before Sam Zell bought the Tribune, you know, the Tribune and the Wrigleyville area around Wrigley Field didn't always get along so well and so I think there are a lot of things we can do community-wise that can enhance my chances and so, you know, I'm gonna pull out all the stops, that's about the best way to describe it.

In the past, I've been pretty lukewarm on the prospect of a superstar owner breezing into town to "save" the Cubs. While it would be nice to have one person to hold accountable - being able to point fingers at one person in their luxury box for a poor product on the field instead of a faceless board of directors at Tribune Tower would be nice - the possibility of a strange, unconcerned tyrant isn't all that appealing, either.

Perhaps it's been my reading of God Save the Fan this week and its laundry list of horrible owners who do little to nothing in terms of keeping a team competitive that make me a little more skittish than usual about this interview.

Still, if I go back one more book on my summer reading list to One Day at Fenway, I start to feel just a bit better. The book was written based on one Yankees/Red Sox game in 2003 when a team of reporters followed fans, players, management and staff members at Fenway, the book patches together a game experience from multiple angles.

Obviously, Theo Epstein, John Henry and Larry Lucchino were part of the story and it was Henry's portrayal that gives me some hope in the whole sales process on Addison. It's no stretch to compare the Cubs with the pre-2004 Red Sox and two World Series championships later, that ownership group has proved themselves in Boston.

While it remains to be seen whether or not a new owner for the Cubs would be able to turn the franchise around so quickly, a change of pace certainly couldn't hurt. Say what you will, but I feel that one person who takes the heat for a futile season feels more obligation to change course and try to build a winner than a small group that goes largely unnoticed by the fans.

Chicago's future owner faces a similar punchlist that Henry's ownership group did when they took control of the Red Sox. This includes:

* A World Series drought spanning many decades
* A team known more for losing than winning
* The perception that the fan base is more than comfortable backing a loser every season
* A crumbling relic of a stadium that is "historic" but is more accurately falling apart
* A large, but unfocused payroll
* A popular team that makes boatloads of money almost in spite of itself
* A perception that the team will never, ever win the World Series because of a cursed history

Much of the book plays out like a love letter to baseball, so I suspect there's a degree of artistic license woven in there somewhere, but Henry comes across as being a man who wants to win. Taming the beast that is 100 years of false starts, late season collapses and teams that didn't stand a chance is a major challenge, but comes with immeasurable rewards as well.

An owner that prizes winning and makes an effort to connect with the fan base is what the Cubs should be hoping for above all - an owner who paces a bare patch into the carpeting in his box when things turn south and puts together a strong plan to turn the page on the team's history of losing by aggressively addressing the team's shortcomings.

Epstein even has a twin brother - someone should get his number, just in case.

(Image from: Time.com)

Day baseball is proof God loves us

With this afternoon's morning's Patriots' Day game in Boston, it made me appreciate day baseball that much more - well, that and the fact that an "early" Red Sox game is 11 a.m. and not 4 a.m. like the series in Japan.

After two years of games in a dome, I've been to Wrigley in the rain, in the sunny cold and in the warm(er) evening air. It's kind of nice to have some variety, even if it means holding your breath and murmuring about proper warm up procedures every time someone comes up a little awkwardly in the cold.

It makes me wonder just how random the computer-generated scheduling really is, though. Obviously, there have to be exceptions to allow the yearly Red Sox game that follows the Boston Marathon and some allowances have to be made for day and night games at Wrigley and for get away days - why can't those be plugged in for early season contests?

When you factor in scheduling nightmares like last season in Cleveland and this year in Chicago, I'm pretty sure none of the players would complain too loudly. Here it is four weeks into the season and the weather in Chicago is finally safe - aside from the revenue generated by Opening Day and the associated home openers that follow, what's the reason for forcing games into cold weather climates in early April?

Setting aside the usual arguments about interleague play, what's wrong with adding a little humanity to the schedule? Would it kill the league to front load the schedule with interleague matchups (like the nonconference schedules in college athletics) and allow the division rivals to duke it out starting in June?

(Image taken for Siberian Baseball)

So very cold

Piggybacking on this week's Opening Day in Japan is this link from my dad, wondering if the University of Chicago's games would be televised here in the United States.

My guess is maybe, but probably before the 5 a.m. starts for the live games and most likely a week or two after the games were actually played. I'll be sure to update the public access schedules when they're updated.

I was listening to sports talk in the car yesterday and heard the call for someone in baseball's front office to get a better handle on weather in Chicago, Detroit and New York in late March and early April, which rolls in nicely with the outcry for fairness after the Japanese series.

These are really no-win situations - save for axing the far, far away games outright, which isn't a bad idea - for the schedulers. If you shy away from the cold-weather towns to start the season and schedule for warm weather or domed stadiums, you make it harder on the Cubs, Mets, etc. to get out of the gate.

On the back end, teams like Los Angeles, San Diego and Florida are punished at the end of the season when the home games start to dry up.

Short of cutting down the season from 162 games, I can't see how any of this works out well for people who enjoy complaining about schedules. The simplest answer is to shut up and play your games, but what fun is that?

On second thought, ask me again when I'm sitting at Wrigley for Monday's opener in what is expected to be 35- to 40-degree freezing rain.

Yeah! Outdoor baseball!

(Image from: UChicago.edu)

What's the going rate for good will?

Sam Zell, you blockhead...

With a few quick sentences, Zell has raised the ire of bloggers, fans and dead chewing gum tycoons. It seems the new owner of the Cubs has no problem selling off the various assets piece by piece.

You know what? That's his prerogative. He's free to do whatever he'd like with his property, but I'm surprised that a man so renowned for his business sense has failed to grasp the lessons learned by Macy's in Chicago.

The short version of the story goes like this: Macy's buys Marshall Field's and despite a public outcry, renames the store. Burly Midwesterners accustomed to trudging to work in the dark despite negative double digit temperatures and other situations requiring mental toughness vow to boycott Macy's for what they've done to our fair city.

Macy's loses money by the truckload as Chicagoans take a degree of pride in trying to torpedo the retail giant.

I'm not saying that fans would cut off their noses to spite their faces - and even if they did, there's a line that starts in Iowa to grab up any empty seats that such a stupid move would produce - but I don't think this is the best plan for the owner of a newspaper that is facing an industry-wide slowdown and a need to start fighting back in an online world.

At the end of the day, the team and the ballpark are still Zell's, and he strikes me as the type of guy who would be more likely to sell the team and its assets piecemeal to maximize profit and cause a stir. This just reminds me to hug my kids every day when I have them to try and prevent this personality type.

So, where does that leave Cubs fans?

In the car this morning, WXRT's Lin Brehmer was asked what he would name Wrigley if he had the money as part of a larger conversation about who the listeners would like to see buy the naming rights. Brehmer didn't miss a beat and said he'd buy the naming rights to keep the name the same.

This has me asking why that wouldn't work. If the idea is to build brand loyalty in the town where you purchase the naming rights - I don't drink any more orange juice because Tropicana owns the rights in Tampa, nor did I rush out to open a checking account with Bank One when they set up shop in Arizona - what better way to do that than to buy the rights and save the name?

If you figure that non-baseball fans won't care one way or another, don't you stand a better chance of pulling in new customers both in Chicago and beyond by that sort of goodwill gesture? Why not have one of the Chicago institutions step up and try this?

The initial media blitz when oh, let's say, McDonald's buys the name and grandstands about tradition and respect for the fan base and baseball fans worldwide would surpass the ink spent to mention another name change in the era of corporate sponsorship.

I'm not saying this is a can't lose proposition, but isn't it at least worth exploring?

At the very least, it would probably piss off Zell.

(Image from ESPN.com)

Could the key to Yankee success be seats?

Forgive me if I'm coming late to the party on this one, but it kind of struck me yesterday when I was driving back from Chicago.

The White Sox radio broadcast team was talking about the large and increasingly rowdy Red Sox fan base that was taking over late in Sunday's blowout.

They made reference to the fact that many people will travel to see the Red Sox on the road because they're better served by opponents' ballparks than their own. (It's worth noting that they also advanced the theory that there were a lot of Boston transplants in town, too, so I assume they were just throwing everything they had at the wall to see what stuck.)

My train of thought went from thinking of seating capacity at Fenway (listed at 36,108) and Wrigley (listed at 41,160) as compared to Yankee Stadium (currently at 56,937, with 74,200 listed on the Yankee site as the attendance for the first home game).

The quick math says Yankee Stadium has 15,777 more seats than Wrigley and 20,829 more than Fenway. (Quick disclaimers - these are the best stats I can find, so if they're off, let me know. Also, I'm betting I'm not the first one to explore this possibility - only the laziest.)

Multiply that capacity out on sold-out games or nearly sold out games and that becomes a serious chunk of change. In a sport without salary caps, is it that much of a stretch to say that for three teams that have similarly-sized fan bases (huge) the Yankees might be doing better because they can produce a larger supply for their demand?

There are too many factors for me to track down tonight - this sounds like more of an off season project - but even with a full capacity, no fire marshall crowd at Fenway, the best they could do was 47,627 for a Yankees game in 1935, according to the Red Sox site.

Just think of all that lost revenue that comes from having a goofy wall and aging ballparks that the community is attached to.

(Image from NJ.com)

Vote, robot, vote!

Quick, who was the starting shortstop for the National League in 1986?

Exactly, who gives a damn after a few years, right?

My initial reaction to Larry Brown Sports' findings that some San Francisco fans might have used technology to their advantage to vote for Bonds up to 50 or 60 times per minute was to make quick, snarky judgments about cheater athletes having cheater fans, but with a little time to cool off, I'm pretty indifferent to the whole situation.

Like most fans, I don't have a great deal of interest about the team, beyond who actually makes the rosters. Truth be told, I get a bigger charge out of the Home Run Derby and Celebrity Softball Game than the All-Star game most years.

For the players, while - say it with me, campers - "It's an honor to be recognized by the fans..." I imagine most of them enjoy having a few days off in the middle of the season to get home, see their families, maybe cut the grass or sell a few grills on eBay.

Aside from cash bonuses that are part of some contracts, there's not a whole lot of incentive to get the players out there. I guess what I'm saying is that if the players don't seem to care, I'm not going to lose a lot of sleep over it.

That's not to say that I believe everyone in the majors is apathetic about the game, but I'd bet that most of the guys who missed out on the voting and the selections are over it by now.

So if it was Bonds' faithful fans or Pat Neshek's that employed the vote-bots to drive the numbers up - as was suggested in the comments section on the Ballhype link - it seems like a few people have all sorts of time on their hands.

Personally, I vote a few times and lose interest and I can't imagine that you wouldn't find odd voting trends for any of the winning players. The then gleefully gloat about how you "duped" MLB by using fake e-mail addresses just makes things that much more pathetic.

That said, I'll be royally pissed off if any of those IP's match up with MLB offices in New York.

(And for anyone who's wondering, the starting SS was Ozzie Smith.)

(Image from: BoingBoing.net)

This is getting out of hand.

See the guy to the right?

That's Rondell White - sometimes Twins player, fill-in designated hitter, easy punchline here at Siberian Baseball and injured since April.

You can look it up anywhere, even the Twins site - the last game White played was April 4. He was hitting a blistering one-for-nine when he left the lineup. Oh, and two RBI.

Rondell was on pace to hit no homers for the year before he was cut down by injury.

OK, look to the right now.

See all the Twins the team is trying to get us to vote for in the All-Star Game? Because there they all are - Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Torii Hunter, Nick Punto... Wait, Nick Punto, really? Punto's probably not even the best third baseman in the state when you consider beer leagues and Division III colleges.

Oh, shit - that's White, too! Right at the top! In a picture from an e-mail from this week! And on the Web site!

What the hell is going on?

Not since Nomar Garciaparra was leading voting despite tearing apart his groin on national television - everyone saw it happen, stop voting for the guy - have I been this worked up.

I don't remember things being this out of whack last season. Sure there are weird spikes for Japanese players and those aided by the East Coast (Yankees/Red Sox) bias, but this is out of hand.

If you're trying to put your guy over the top in a close outfielder race or if you have a young star - Like Mauer versus Jason Varitek and Jorge Posada last season - then go ahead and push for your guys from the front office.

When you're just listing your roster, including players who haven't seen the field since the third day of the season and a few who wouldn't make the All-Star team in your division, that's over the line.

I know lots of guys are hurt this year, but let's try and be a little more realistic in the future, shall we?

Would I like more money? Well, sure!

As baseball ramps up this week - last to report, way to be, Twins - the stories coming from the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues will fall into a few categories.

It's spring, there are rusty cobwebs to clear and let's face it, there's not a lot going on in a saturated media market.

* Injured player is doing well, but not pushing it - Kerry Wood and Eric Gagne
* Injured player is still injured - Pedro Martinez
* Old veteran is trying one last time - Javy Lopez
* Old veteran is being told by the market to hang up the spikes - Bernie Williams
* New addition is making a big splash - Barry Zito, Alfonso Soriano
* Next year's free agent class is testing the water - Ichiro Suzuki, Carlos Zambrano

Is it worth noting who'll be on the open market next year? Hell yes, especially if you're in one or more fantasy leagues.

Is it interesting to see what types of deals are struck to patch contracts through for 2007? Sure is, if for no other reason than to see who has a fat wallet they're willing to open to try to make a run this year or next.

Should anyone read too much into Ichiro or Zambrano clearing their throats for the media to let management know they're serious? Not as much as they should try to gauge the reaction from the front office.

What can I say? Slow news on the Spring Training front makes for slow news for bloggers.

Why don't you all swing by in a week or so when Barry Bonds has wasted away to 105 pounds.

(Photo from: Spopre.com)