Cubs move talk a whole load of bunk?

Am I the only one who thinks all the talk these days about the Chicago Cubs “moving” (all over the front pages of newspapers and on broadcasts and websites) is a whole lot of nonsense?

How much will Wrigley change if Ricketts gets his way?

 

If ever there was a time when our government officials ought to take a hard line and not let themselves get intimidated by a professional sports team, it is this time now.

FOR THE RECORD, Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts made comments implying he’d consider moving his family’s ball club if city and Lake View neighborhood officials aren’t more sympathetic to the renovations they want to make so that Wrigley Field becomes more like other new stadiums – as in containing features that the team can justify charging top dollar for.

Is this just a reiteration of the previously-expressed threat to push for a new stadium to be built at a suburban location? Is Ricketts really threatening to move the National League’s only charter member to play in its original city (the Braves were in Boston and Milwaukee before moving to Atlanta 46 years ago)?

Or is it just a load of hot air that means nothing?

Because when I listen to what Ricketts actually said, I don’t hear anything that’s new. Other than a would-be bully being upset that the other kids in the schoolyard are actually standing up to him!

PERHAPS THAT LINE is a bit harsh. Because I personally could care less what the Cubs do. Considering that I don’t really care much what they do on the field, why should I care where that “field” is located?

Yankee Stadium lost a lot of character ...

I just don’t hear any credible threat. If anything, we were a lot closer back in 1988 to losing the Chicago White Sox than we ever will be to losing the Cubs (we Chicagoans couldn’t be so lucky as to get rid of that “lovable loser” image the Cubs hang around our collective necks).

The day that the Cubs sign a lease to play in another city’s stadium (even if that “city” is just a dinky suburb like Schaumburg, and which the White Sox actually did with St. Petersburg, Fla.) is the day that the talk of moving should be countered seriously.

Until then, it just doesn’t mean much.

... when it was renovated, and even more when it was replaced

BECAUSE I SENSE that Ricketts and his siblings aren’t dumb enough to think they’d be better off playing anywhere else other than the humble abode of one Elwood J. Blues.

That century-old building is so much a part of the ball club’s character that they are the one team that ought to seriously disregard thoughts of playing anywhere else. No matter now unique or fine the new structure might turn out to be, there are too many people who go to see the one-time Cubs Park.

Just ask all those people who wear “Wrigley Field” jerseys to ballgames!

It’s like the New York Yankees, who had the sense in the early 1970s to not think of going to New Jersey and arranged for an overhaul of Yankee Stadium. Let’s only hope that the Cubs aren’t foolish enough to ruin the character of Wrigley in the same way that the Yankees did with their building that wound up servicing the team through 2008.

THAT’S THE REAL reason I’m skeptical of all the Wrigley renovation talk that focuses around giant video boards and the need for video advertising boards and a “Captain Morgan” club for people to spend more of their money in.

Just as much a part of Wrigley lore

Because at least the Yankees could still claim the playing field of the renovated park was the same place where the immortals like Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle played winning baseball for so many decades.

What could the Cubs claim if they turn Wrigley into a commercialized mess? A story about how a black cat once pranced on this field and freaked the Cubs out to the point where they lost.

Or maybe it will come back to Babe Ruth? Future Cubs fans will say, “On this field now surrounded by commercialized nonsense, Babe Ruth hit a home run that caused our Cubs to lose, yet again!”

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Cub-like delusions stretch on and on. Or, is Captain Morgan the Cubs' savior?

“The Cubs are coming out of hibernation!”

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I still remember that advertising jingle from the early 1980s.

Soon to have Captain Morgan (below) and other corporate images in abundance to bolster the building's profitability.

 

The Chicago Cubs had just been sold by the Wrigley family to the Tribune Co., and long-time baseball man Dallas Green (who had just won a World Series as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies) had been hired to be general manager and turn the Cubs into a “winning” organization.

TRUE ENOUGH, THE Cubs did win a pair of division titles in the 1980s. But the streak of seasons without a National League championship remains unbroken – let alone the streak of seasons without a World Series win.

You can’t win the series if you don’t even make it!

And that division title of 1984 also gave Chicago sports fans one of the ultimate Chicago Cub moments – the sight of that ground ball skipping through first baseman Leon Durham’s legs. Bill Buckner let the same thing happen to him two seasons later in the World Series while playing for the Boston Red Sox.

But it was probably his ex-Cub status, more than any Red Sox “curse,” that caused it to happen.

The Cubs' goat

I COULDN’T HELP but think of all of this when I learned of current Cubs owner Tom Ricketts (his family bought the ball club from the Tribune types just a few years ago) talking of the deal negotiated to permit a renovation of Wrigley Field that will allow for the addition of features meant to make the stadium a more profitable facility.

“If this plan is approved, we will win the World Series for our fans and our city,” Ricketts said. “We need this project in order to bring our fans a winner. The financial impact of this proposal will help us do that.”

That’s some pretty bold talk coming from the operator of a ball club that was one of the worst in the National League last season, and isn’t all that much better this year.

The Cubs goat in Boston

I know some are convinced that one-time Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein is destined to do some serious re-building apart from the renovations to take place at Clark and Addison streets. But we forget that the Boston and Chicago North Side situations are nowhere near comparable.

THE RED SOX just had to overcome the New York Yankees for a single season to dump their jinx. The Cubs have to overcome more than a century of ultimate failure that caused sportswriter George Castle to write a book labeling them, “The Million-to-One Team” (as in the odds the Cubs overcame in order to lose so consistently across generations).

Personally, I’m not convinced that this move will have anything to do with making the Cubs significantly better on-field.

Tribune Co. ran a profitable operation of a ball club by putting the emphasis on turning the ballpark experience into something so unique that people wouldn’t pay any attention to those pesky ballplayers in baby blue on the field bobbling all those ground balls.

So I have no doubt that all the proposed changes to Wrigley Field (including 35,000 square feet of advertising, construction of a new hotel across the street and a two-story restaurant and bar in the building carrying the “Captain Morgan Club” corporate name) will add to the financial bottom line of the Chicago National League Ball Club.

BUT THAT DOESN’T necessarily translate into more “W’s” in the standings. Ricketts’ comments WILL be long remembered amongst sports fans in Chicago – particularly if the on-field victory eventually comes so many decades in the future that there’s no way it can be tied to the upcoming renovations.

The ballpark in its original, pre-Wrigley Field, condition. Image provided by Chuckman Collection.

 

Whose real purpose is to ensure that the 99-year-old structure is sound enough to remain in use for those many more decades of play!

Not that it really matters much. In the end, Chicago baseball fans got to experience a World Series just a few seasons ago. We have had it in our time.

As for those Chicagoans who preferred not to get excited about the Ozzie & Co. production of ’05, that was their choice. I hope they enjoyed their ivy on the walls.

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