EXTRA: Can the Cubs really have a rivalry w/ a ball club called the ‘Nats?’

“We want to be the team knocking them out”
Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals outfielder

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Harper shot off his mouth, can he back it up

I suspect that at the Mesa, Ariz.-based spring training camp of the Chicago Cubs, somebody has tagged the newspaper clipping  (or maybe a computer printout) on a bulletin board of the Chicago Sun-Times’ story about the upcoming season for the Washington Nationals.

For while Cubs fans want to believe that last year's World Series victory was merely the beginning of a dynastic era that will rival the 1990s stretch of success experienced by the Chicago Bulls and could also top anything the New York Yankees have ever done, it seems that other National League teams want to think of the Cubs as one-and-done.

THAT VIEW EXPRESSED above was that of Nationals’ star Bryce Harper, who says his ball club is determined to be the one of success in coming years. The Cubs’ championship string will have to come to an end at one – or so says Harper.

Now I don’t know if that’s true. If anything, the Nationals of recent years have had contending teams that kept falling short. But if they do manage to contend, it would make that Aug. 4-6 series at Wrigley Field (when the Nationals make their one-and-only appearance in Chicago this season) all the more interesting.

Some Cubs fans already see '16 as greater

I’m sure the Cubs’ boo-birds will be sure to remember that particular line and try to use it against Harper when he plays in those ballgames. Particularly if he winds up having a sub-par season in 2017; it will definitely become a taunt that he’ll never live down at Wrigley Field.

Although it could make him a fan favorite on the city’s South Side, where Chicago White Sox fans would love it if his taunt takes on a taint of truth. It’s just a shame for Harper the Nationals aren’t scheduled for an inter-league game against the Sox this season.

OF COURSE, PART of Harper’s trash-talk against the Cubbies could be in reaction to the reports that it was the Cubs that employed a strategy last year when playing the Nationals that may have caused Harper to start off the season with a slump.

Dusty victory in '17 would ruin his Chicago rep

Specifically, they intentionally walked him so many times that he set a record for the most times getting on base without registering an official at-bat. Which allegedly threw him off his game.

All I know is that Washington is managed these days by Dusty Baker, who may have led the San Francisco Giants to a World Series appearance, but fell short during his time with the Cubs. Remember 2003?

I’m sure if Baker finally achieves a World Series managerial victory with the Nationals, thereby giving Washington, D.C., its first such victory by any team since 1924 and it is perceived at coming at the Cubs’ expense, it will be all the more reason for Chicago Cubs fans to despise the Nats and Dusty Baker far more than we ever will care about anything Donald J. Trump says or does!

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Should “We Are Family” now be the unofficial theme for our newspapers?

I’m not sure what Col. Robert McCormick, the long-time Chicago Tribune publisher famed for imposing his rigid thought process on the newspaper, would think of the latest actions regarding the management of his publication.

On the one hand, it seems that when the great Chicago newspaper war comes to an end in the future, it will be the Chicago Tribune as the “last man standing,” so to speak.

BUT THE TRIBUNE Publishing company that now controls the newspaper has a new majority shareholder – and it’s the guy whose management of the Chicago Sun-Times has turned that publication into the skimpy, scrawny sorry excuse of a newspaper that it has become.

Tribune officials announced Thursday that Michael Ferro will become the new nonexecutive chairman of Tribune Publishing’s governing board. His Merrick Media company now owns nearly 17 percent of Tribune Publishing, and Ferro himself will maintain an ownership share of Wrapports, Inc., the company that operates the Chicago Sun-Times.

Of course, some would argue that since the Tribune already is printing the physical copies of the Sun-Times, there is a tie between the two publications that makes them one.

How long will it become before the kind of copy-sharing that the Sun-Times brought to the suburban publications it used to own (and which it sold to the Tribune late in 2014) comes about between the two major metro dailies.

I REMEMBER THE Tribune’s efforts to create a tabloid format version of itself. Will we eventually get a Sun-Times consisting of Tribune copy, but put together in the smaller page format that always was a plus to people riding on commuter trails.

What would the colonel think?

At least until they figured out that those freebie papers the Tribune publishes cost less out of their pockets!

Now it should be acknowledged that such a merger is speculation on my part. Nobody is talking such talk right now. And Ferro did publicly say his purchase of the stock in Tribune publishing will cause him to cut back on the amount of control he exerts over the Sun-Times.

In theory, it’s not going to be one man running both newspapers. Which is what Col. McCormick himself would have done had he ever had circumstance to buy into the opposition newspaper.

ALTHOUGH IF YOU study your history, you’d realize the reason Marshall Field created the Chicago Sun (and later merged it with the Daily Times) was to create an alternative to the isolationist nonsense that was being spewed on a regular basis by McCormick’s Chicago Tribune.

How much times have changed. What with it now being routine for the idea of competing voices to be considered unnecessary in a city. And don’t give me the nonsense of the Internet creating all kinds of new journalism.

What it often does is merely reapportion the content that’s already out there. People who claim they “Never read a newspaper!” all too often are merely reading the stuff that was originally intended to be read on top of a girdle ad before it gets wrapped around fine china or other precious items before being stuffed into a box prior to Moving Day.

Perhaps we should hear it for Ferro – the guy whose many innovations meant to revive the Sun-Times have failed and has turned it into the shell of the newspaper I once actually used to fantasize about writing for someday.

How long will Tower be company focal point?

BECAUSE NOW HE could claim to be a part-owner of both of the daily newspapers that remain in the Second City proper. And also now has a say over the newspapers throughout the suburban areas that he sold off more than a year ago to come up with some cash to keep the Sun-Times alive for a while longer.

We’re definitely a long way away from the days when the newspapers hired thugs to harass the opposition’s newsboys and, on occasion, drive the competition’s delivery trucks into the Chicago River.

I don’t know how this all will shake out in the end between the two publications.

Although I must admit the thought of seeing the Tribune and Sun-Times turn into the equivalent of step-sisters was an outcome I wouldn’t have dreamed of back when I got into the newsgathering business in the days of Harold Washington.

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