Joe Didn't Help Anything, But Tom Ricketts Has Screwed Himself

Joe Ricketts has had next to nothing to do with the Cubs since the Ricketts won the right to become the sole bidders on the team way back in 2009. He's the money guy. That's it. He has said as much publicly. He doesn't give a damn about the Cubs or baseball. He funded the purchase of the team because his son, Tom, sold him on the fact that the Cubs were a money-machine that sold every ticket "win or lose."

Since the sale was completed, Joe has sat in Nebraska (or wherever) and not done a damn thing with the Cubs. He leaves it all to Tom, Laura, and Todd (mostly Tom).

It is Tom that has been trying to figure out how to wrestle away a couple hundred million dollars from the city and/or state to fund his Wrigley renovations project. All the while, Joe has lurked back in the shadows doing what he does, which is, apparently, supporting Tea Party candidates and policies. He started his Taxpayers Against Earmarks PAC in 2010. It became the Ending Spending Super PAC in 2011. None of this was secret, but nobody cared other than a few people who linked or tweeted to links showing the hilarious irony that Joe Ricketts despised government earmarks while his son would seemingly cut off his own arm to get one. We laughed. It was funny. And nobody gave two shits.

So none of this is news. What IS news, and what has Rahm Emanuel so pissed off that he reportedly was not taking the Rickett's telephone calls is that part of the Super PAC's actions involved the proposal for an advertisement that makes the negative campaigning in the Republican Primaries look like Romper Room. It has everything. It basically wants to highlight every racially bigoted thing that they feel they can exploit to make people fear that Jeremiah Wright has programmed Obama to somehow declare war on all white people and we'll all be huddled around in caves feeding on each other's flesh by 2014, or something.

In the words of the plan itself:

Show the world how Barack Obama's opinions of America and the world were formed. And, why the influence of that misguided mentor and our president's formative years among left wing intellectuals has brought our country to its knees.

High-minded political debate it is not.

Now everybody is in damage control mode. Joe said he doesn't approve of the plan, he didn't write the plan, the plan is only one of many, many, many plans and how the hell is he supposed to keep track of every one of a billion plans to defeat the President that get slipped under his back door without his knowing about it in the middle of the night? Huh? How? Is that the Pope over there behind you? *runs away*

Tom went into Forrest Gump mode as he basically repeated his father's statement about not approving of divisive politics and then, essentially, "That's all I have to say about that." But then he did have more to say about that to the Sun-Times:

“I’m not really involved in what my father does on the political side, and he’s not involved in anything we do as a team. We talked. I didn’t yell. He was already in the process of putting out a statement that made it clear he rejected the proposal,” he said.

“He knows it’s very important for us to maintain the image of the Cubs at the highest level. He understands that would complicate some of our efforts on the funding side. But we didn’t spend time talking about it. It was more like, `These are the cards we’ve been dealt. Let’s address the issue.’”

Laura, a noted Obama supporter, mentioned how her whole family loves America and they love each other even though they all have different political beliefs. Then they shoved her out in front of the cameras during the Kerry Wood Extravaganza over the weekend, which I'm sure was not a coincidence.

But the story isn't going away anytime soon and it seems most people who look at the story can't seem to separate Tom from Joe.

This is the Cubs' biggest problem at the moment. The sweeping at the hands of the White Sox and Koyie Hill suddenly becoming the starting catcher again are infinitesimally small glitches when compared to the PR hits the Cubs are taking thanks to Joe Ricketts' Super PAC. And maybe they shouldn't be completely separated. After all, it is Joe's money. He will profit from the Cubs getting the renovation done through the use of tax breaks, there is no getting around it. But he is not the one making the plans and scheming to get the tax money. That is Tom, and it has been difficult to know where Tom is on the political spectrum since he doesn't talk much about politics. So what can we learn from his history of political donations?

As of January 2012, Tom has donated just under $80,000 and all of it has gone to the Republicans or Republicanish organizations. $50,000 of it went to John McCain in the last Presidential election. Here's where the rest went:

James Dold (R) – U.S. Congressman – Moderate, pro-choice, anti-gay marriage (but pro-gay civil unions) – $2,400 in 2010
Joel Barry Pollak (R) – 2010 Republican nominee for U.S. House of Representatives – Endorsed by Tea Party – $500 in 2010
Michael O. Johanns (R) – U.S. Senator – Promotes "fiscally responsible policies," wants to reform earmark process, against legislation based on "personal sexual preference" – $5,000 in 2007
Norm Coleman (R) – Former U.S. Senator – Fiscal centrist, pro-life, opposes gay marriage – $2,100 in 2006
Mark Kennedy (R) – Former U.S. Congressman – Pro-life, regularly co-sponsored bills with Democrats – $4,200 in 2005
Teresa Hall Bartels (R) – Dropped out of 2006 Republican Primary for U.S. Congress 8th District – Moderate – $1,000 in 2005
Pete Ricketts (R) – His brother and U.S. Senate candidate – fiscally conservative, anti-gay marriage, pro-life – $4,200 in 2005
Jack Ryan (R) – 2004 Republican nominee for Senate – pro tax cuts, tort reform, and sex clubs (apparently) – $250 in 2004
John Kasich (R) – Former U.S. Congressman and current Ohio Governor – Unsuccessful campaign for President in 2000, fiscal conservative – $250 in 1999

So, Tom is apparently a Republican. Their views range from centrist to the far right. Also, it would seem a common theme amongst the candidates he has supported over the years included support of fiscal responsibility, which one would think would include opposition to tax breaks for billionaire families who own baseball teams. It also shows someone who can't be THAT involved in politics. The amount of money he has donated in the thirteen years since being one of John Kasich's only donors is pitifully small for a man of his wealth. Hell, one could argue that the only reason he gave to any of these people is because they pinned him against a wall at a party or something and he got out his checkbook to make them go away, much as we do when we flip a quarter or two into a homeless person's cup when they stop us on the street. "Here you go Jack, try not to spend that whole $250 in one sex club, OK?"

So is Tom a hypocrite because he's donated money to people who mostly oppose the very thing he is looking for? Is he a hypocrite for being related to the man that is spending millions to stop wasteful spending? Is that inherently hypocritical? Is he a hypocrite for spending money on candidates that oppose his sister's lifestyle? I really don't know. Politics is weird and complicated and if we only supported those who agreed with us on every single issue, politicians wouldn't be nearly as rich as they are. We don't know what Tom's hot button issues are, so it's impossible to say for sure that he's a hypocrite. Not that it will stop the media looking for the biggest bang for the buck on this story. I'm looking at you, Steve Rosenbloom.

Tom's biggest mistake seems to be that he doesn't spread the wealth amongst the folks in the Democratic party that can help him in his quest. Check out Jerry Reinsdorf's contributions over the years. He's donated to both President Bushes, President Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden, Rick Santorum, and Joe Liebermann, among others on the national level. That's quite a spectrum. Locally, he's donated to Bobby Rush, Carol Mosely Braun, and Jesse Jackson Jr. on one side and Mark Kirk, Peter Fitzgerald, and Dennis Hastert on the other. It is clear that Jerry Reinsdorf has one core belief: know where to grease the wheels if you want to get anything done. Does that make Jerry Reinsdorf a hypocrite? It would if he cared about anything other than making his own life as a baseball owner easier. That is probably all Tom should care about if he wants to get anything done.

I've half-jokingly stated from the start that the Cubs need to start greasing the palms of local politicians, but I had assumed that they probably already were to some degree. Where's the donations to Rahm Emanuel? Where are the donations to Tom Tunney? What about Pat Quinn? Michael Madigan? Why should these people help the Cubs and Tom Ricketts if he's not going to help them? You know how this Joe Ricketts thing could have gone away almost instantly? If Tom could have pointed to a few donations to Democrats that shows he is, indeed, separate from his father. Who is giving Tom advice over there, anyway? Julian Green is either terrible at his new job, or they don't listen to him.

I think it was MB who said in the comments that a few donations to Rahm will clear all of this up and upon looking at it, I have to say I agree. I don't know what amount will do it, but the gesture will help and soon Rahm will forget all about how angry he is and start working to keep the Cubs in Chicago and making a boatload of cash for the city (and the Ricketts). As long as Tom is spreading the wealth around, nobody who matters will care what Joe does with his money. So if you do have a political agenda, Tom, put it on hold until you get what you want. Otherwise, you're going to have to move the team to Nebraska or somewhere where your dad has bought all the local politicians already.

We Are Shocked…SHOCKED!… To Learn Tom Tunney is in the Rooftop Owners' Pockets

In today's edition of Obviously Obvious Item of the Day, the Sun-Times has come right out and quantified what everybody familiar with the Cubs' relationship with Chicago's 44th Ward has known all along: Alderman Tom Tunney gets a tremendous amount of financial backing from the good people who own the rooftops across from Wrigley. It is also no secret that those rooftop owners vehemently oppose just about any and all changes to Wrigley Field, since their entire livelihood depends on it. So it follows naturally that Tom Tunney also vehemently opposes anything the Cubs try to do to actually, you know, be competitive and make Wrigley Field a viable location to play baseball in the modern era.

Nothing about this is surprising. We've known it all along. But now we have some numbers:

That makes at least $171,356.50 in all that Tunney has received from owners of the clubs, which offer fans a rooftop vantage to see Cubs games.

That’s nearly 10 percent of all the campaign money the North Side alderman has raised since he ran successfully for his first Chicago City Council term in 2003, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of campaign-finance records.

Rooftop club owners have given another $15,675 to Tunney’s Democratic organization in the 44th Ward, which includes Wrigley.

The Cubs have also contributed to Tunney:

The team and its executives also have contributed to Citizens for Tunney — a total of $16,750 — though they haven’t opened their checkbooks to him lately. The last time was in October 2010, when the team sent a $1,500 check.

So the Cubs are being outspent in the political clout arena by more than 10-1 margin and they wonder why they have to jump nine million bureaucratic hoops every time they want to replace a trough.

“I’ve been trying to be as fair and balanced as I can be,” Tunney says. “It’s my job to manage the relationship between Wrigley and the community.”

Uh huh. Let me get out my bullshit translator and see what we have here: "I'm more than willing to be fair and balanced, but since the cash is pretty lop-sided, it makes it pretty darn difficult to not be lop-sided in my positions towards the views of those who give me more money."

Tommy needs to take a lesson from his father, who clearly has no qualms at all about trying to rig elections or sway support in his favor by paying for it.

Already fueled by two high-profile endorsements, Republican Senate candidate Deb Fischer headed into the home stretch Saturday empowered by a weekend TV ad blitz engineered by mega-wealthy businessman Joe Ricketts.

Two new ads began airing in the critical Omaha and Lincoln markets, one attacking Attorney General Jon Bruning's ethics and the other boosting Fischer as "one of us."

The $180,000-plus buy immediately prompted the Bruning campaign to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging "a clear violation of federal election law," which forbids campaigns and outside groups to coordinate their communications.

Joe has gone so far that he's going to have the FEC on him for having his Super PAC coordinate with a campaign. Joe Ricketts has clearly embraced Super PACs and their political power. He's donated lot's of money to existing Super PACs to get try to get what he wants:

J. Joe Ricketts, an online-brokerage billionaire, gave $500,000 to the Campaign for Primary Accountability, which seeks to find fresh blood for politics.

He's also started his own Super PAC in 2010:

…called the Ending Spending Fund, which just put nearly $600,000 into the Nevada Senate race against Majority Leader Harry Reid (D). The "taxpayers" against earmarks is actually just one man named Joe Ricketts, founder of Ameritrade and owner of the Chicago Cubs, who is also the sole financier of the Ending Spending Fund.

I spent about 5 minutes on the Google machine and already have Joe Ricketts down for almost $1.3 million in campaign contributions to support his interests and I didn't even find the article I thought I remembered from a year or so ago that involved him flexing his wallet in a political race. He needs to school Tom on the finer points of getting shit done when the only real obstacle in the way is money. Tunney has said about as clearly as a politician can say without saying it that his support can be bought. He might as well have said he was waiting for his friend, Mr. Bribe McKickback, to show up at his door.

Tunney's loyaties lie where the money is. He has a terrible poker face. Everybody at the table knows when he's holding a full house. Lest we forget his big opposition to the Toyota sign as “not in keeping with the character of the neighborhood or the spirit of the landmarks designation," but he had no problem with this classy sign outside the ballpark:

The difference now is we know exactly how much it costs to buy Tunney's support.

Cubs Dynamic Pricing Probably Not As Dynamic As They’d Like

I've been keeping an eye on the Cubs' bleacher ticket prices for a little over a week now because I got curious about how their dynamic pricing model is actually working out for them.

Previously, I had hypothesized that overall revenues would not be taking so much of a hit, because the Cubs would be selling some high profile games at exceedingly inflated prices to make up for the unsold tickets to the crappier games. That assumed that there would be a number of high profile games that people are excited about and would be willing to spend $100+ on a single ticket. But what I didn't know at the time was how few games the public seems to consider "high profile" versus what the Cubs considered "high profile" when they designated them in their multi-tiered pricing system.

Out of the 81 home games this season, 13 of them are considered Marquee (the highest level), 9 are Platinum, 21 Gold, 27 Silver, and 11 Bronze.

Since they are using their dynamic pricing model, the Cubs do not publish the base ticket prices anywhere on their website that I can find, so I had to do a little deducing. With the help of intrepid commenter, Wennington's Gorilla Cock (WGC for those uncomfortable with the visual), I managed to determine the base prices are: $78 for Marquee, $52 for Platinum, $38 for Gold, $27 for Silver, and $17 for Bronze. If you bought a single ticket for every game of the year, it would cost you $3,196. If you bought a single season ticket for the bleachers, they charged $3,055, so the season ticket holders are saving a little less than $2 per ticket per game. I'm going to round to $2 exactly for simplicity's sake.

I only started tracking ticket costs on April 10th, so I have no idea what tickets went for during the opening Washington series and the first Milwaukee game. I do know that Opening Day itself did reach at least $100 per ticket, last I had checked, but I didn't document that anywhere. Those games averaged about 37,000 per game so I'm going to assume a good number of bleacher seats were sold and therefore moved the price off of it's baseline starting point. So I am conceding that the first four games of the season sold at least some tickets at above the starting face value, as, I'm sure, the Ricketts hoped they would.

So let's take a look and see how the tickets are moving.

Three of the 11 Bronze level games have sold tickets above $17. None of the Bronze games remaining on the schedule are currently selling for above $17. The high point I have seen was $35 for the Tuesday, April 10 game and Thursday, April 12 game against the Brewers. I have no idea why the tickets for Wednesday, April 11 topped out at $17, when the day before and the day after were double the price.

Six of the 27 Silver level games have sold tickets above the $27 base price. The high point was $50 for Friday, April 20th against the Reds, which seems to have now sold out. I find that odd, but you can not buy tickets for the bleachers at any price for that game. The Tuesday, April 24th game against the Cardinals was selling at $35 and suddenly disappeared as an option on April 14th. Did it sell out? How come the price never climbed up to the $50 level before selling out? Did somebody buy such a shit ton of tickets for that game that it bypassed at least 2 pricing levels? I don't know and the Cubs have not responded to any of my inquiries about it. So, for right now, it is just a curious incident. The highest remaining price in the Silver tier are tickets for Monday, April 23 against the Cardinals at $39 each.

Three of the 21 Gold level games have sold tickets above the $38 base price. The Thursday, June 14 game against the Tigers leads the pack at $70. None of these games have sold out.

None of the nine Platinum level games have sold any tickets above the $52 base price. These are supposed to be some pretty good games with some high demand for tickets, but that doesn't seem to be reflected in the actual ticket sales at this point.

Seven of the 13 Marquee level games have sold tickets above the $78 base price. Now we're getting somewhere. The entire Red Sox series has tickets selling for $140 each, which appears to be the absolute highest that the Cubs will charge. The Saturday Red Sox game was listed as sold out when I started charting the prices, but then some tickets became available and they have been since. For Friday's Red Sox game, you can buy as many as 12 tickets at a time (normal limit is 19 per game). For Saturday, you can only buy four at a time (yesterday it was limited to two, but it's back up to four today). For Sunday's game, you can buy eight at a time. So those tickets are clearly running low, but they aren't gone yet (which again makes me wonder why a weekday April game against the Reds is unavailable, when the highest demand game on the schedule has tickets remaining).

The Saturday game in May against the White Sox and the Saturday game against the Cardinals in July are selling for $110 each, with no special limits. In fact, no other game on the schedule besides the Red Sox series has a limit below the typical 19 tickets.

Since I have been tracking the prices, not a single price point has moved. The only things that have changed that would prevent me from simply copying and pasting the data from one day to the next are the two games that suddenly became unavailable, and a couple of changes in maximum tickets you can purchase for the Red Sox series. Otherwise, everything has been identical from day to day.

So what does that mean? Well, nothing definitive right now. As we are fond of pointing out when players' stats aren't what we think they should be, it is a small sample size. It's also an arbitrary starting point. Ideally, I should have started tracking these things when they first went on sale, but I didn't. So all we can do now is keep going forward and see what happens.

However, what we know so far does raise some questions. Have the Cubs mis-categorized some of these games? Saturday, June 30th against the Astros is a Marquee game? Really? I know it is a Saturday in the summer and those tickets have typically sold themselves, but it is the fucking Astros. I know I have better things to do with my $78 than spend a day in the bleachers watching two of the worst teams in baseball bumble around on the field. That sun is just as bright in a park or on the beach.

When I look at the Platinum level games, I'm equally unimpressed by most of them. Astros, Reds, Rockies, Diamondbacks… yay!

In addition, the Ricketts essentially stated that the dynamic pricing would really only go up. They said they would not sell tickets below what season ticket holders paid, so that means they could conceivably sell those Marquee games against the Astros at $76, but at that point, who gives a shit? In essence, the tickets are priced as low as they are ever going to get for 62 of the games left on the schedule. Unless something changes pretty quickly, that would seem to indicate that those prices are above what the market is willing to pay. So then what? Sit there and watch as unsold tickets pile up on each other, or break a promise to Alvin and have a sale? This is why I never would have told Alvin they would set the price floor. Because now he either leaves revenue on the table or he's a liar. Somewhere they will start talking about the cost of them being portrayed as liars on BCB versus the lost revenue of unsold tickets, if they haven't already.

Do they think that demand will pick up going forward? The team is pretty much doing what we expected and what most Cubs fans feared. Namely, being terrible. I'm interested to see if ticket prices move at all for the upcoming homestand. Maybe people are in a wait-and-see mode on the weather before dedicating dollars to these tickets. Maybe people are just waiting to purchase until they kow they won't be freezing their asses off. I know that's how I was when I decided I wanted to go see Samardzija pitch. I waited until the day before to make sure it wasn't going to be horrible. I doubt that is the case, but it's at least plausible. So we'll see.

And how did a game go from being sold at a slightly higher rate than its base price suddenly get sold out? Are the Ricketts giving away tickets and counting them as sold? Are they simply taking tickets off the market to create a false sense of high demand and low supply? If either of those are the case, then those gaudy attendance numbers to start the season are more of a farce than we had previously thought.

Like I said, I don't have many answers here. The Cubs don't talk about this stuff and my data is very sketchy at the moment, but I think it's worth keeping an eye on.

Looking Back on Opening Day

Yesterday was my 15th straight Opening Day, and if I recall correctly, the 15th straight year I have frozen my ass off at Wrigley Field for the first game of the year. To be fair, I'm sure there has been a somewhat warm Opening Day among those 15 years, but I sure as hell can't remember when they happened. Yesterday was even halfway decent if you happened to be in the sun and not in direct line with the 25 mph wind that was howling in off the lake, so it turns out it might have actually been worth it to sit in the centerfield bleachers at $100+ per ticket. But enough about my bitching about the weather, there is plenty left for me to bitch about.

Kris and I started our day by meeting up with her cousin and husband at Yak-zies. I have normally avoided Yak-zies ever since they accused me and my friends for not paying for a round of drinks, that we not only did pay for, but we paid for them and tipped the waitress on the full round even though she had forgotten two of our drinks when she originally brought them, but that's where they had set up camp so we headed into the lion's den.

By the time we got there a little before 11:00, it was already a clusterfuck in there with a line to get in. This is why the Ricketts want so desperatley to get some development going around the park that goes into their pockets. There was a line to get into fucking Yak-zies. People will literally go anywhere and pay anything to get their drink on for normal game days, and this was Opening Day, which is basically a holiday on the North Side.

We got in pretty quick (it is still Yak-zies afterall), and made our way over to meet our friends, who had made other friends by now. Everybody was very nice, but clearly already drunker than anyone should probably be at eleven in the morning. While we were there, I engaged in some small talk and tried to gauge what the fans were expecting out of the season. One guy who told me his name was Moe, was very optimistic. He bet me a dollar that Soriano would finish the season batting .300 or better. He also expected Samardzija to suck, so he wasn't just vomiting rainbows. Moe thinks they will win 76 games and he's going to owe me a dollar.

Another guy was happy to see "kids" like LaHair and Mather get chances on the team.

I heard another woman who was glad that Dempster would have a chance to be an ace without Zambrano "in the way."

There was lots of talk about how the Cubs could surprise a lot of people by being competitive in the division. Ah, drunk talk. Sweet Opening Day drunk talk.

We had a couple of drinks (and paid for them) and headed on out to get our hats for the year. We walked down Clark and as we went, you could practically smell the hope emanating throughout Wrigleyville. Hope, as it turns out, smells a bit like puke.

As we reached Clark and Addison, we saw The Noodle in its new spot in the McRickett's parking lot. It had a lot of brown crap all over it, and I thought it was there to keep people from sliding on it. It turns out the brown metal stuff nailed to the noodle is supposed to be bacon. I didn't think there was a way to make bacon sound unappetizing, but peppering metal representations of it onto a giant noodle that drunk people will be climbing all over managed to do the impossible.

Of course, that corner is also the new home of the Rickett's new souvenir shop that was hastily erected over the winter to draw in customers that normally would have shopped at SportsWorld, Wrigleyville Sports, or any of the other multiple souvenir shops scattered around Wrigley. Tell us again how you want to help your fellow Wrigleyville business owners by building more competition to all of their business, Tom.

Of course, I don't really care who gets my money as long as I get a good hat for the year so we went in and checked it out.

It turns out it is pretty nice in there. They had a wide variety of items and the staff was far friendlier than most of the staff that I've encountered in the actual ballpark. I found myself a fitted 1934 replica hat.

Kris found herself a gray-greenish hat with a pink C on the Clearance rack that she liked for $10. So we had our new hats for the year and the Ricketts now have more of our money. You're welcome, Tom.

So now we were ready to go into the ballpark. God help us.

The lines went smoothly, including the bag inspection for Kris (which is a welcome change from situations we have experienced in the past).

We headed on up and decided to partake of the ballpark's food offerings out on the sunny patio before settling into our freezing cold seats. I had boycotted paying for food or beverage in Wrigley almost two years ago when I decided the Ricketts weren't going to get any extra money of mine until they did something other than just follow the Tribune's playbook like nothing had ever changed, so this was actually a fairly momentous occasion for my fandom, though I doubt anybody reading this gives a shit.

I went with a hotdog and a brat, and they were pretty much exactly as I remembered them being. That's not a bad thing, but it isn't a good thing either. Wrigley food will probably never be anything that tantalizes taste buds, but they were hot enough and the buns weren't stale, so they met the minimum requirement I have for stadium food.

Now it was time for the introductions. We missed the Nationals getting introduced and I didn't hear any big crowd noise, so I'm not sure what other people have been talking about that DeRosa got a rousing ovation. He might have, but I didn't hear it so it was quiet enough that it didn't carry out to the upper deck patio area.

Then it was the Cubs' intro time. Most of the players got tepid polite applause. Kerry Wood probably got the biggest ovation. Garza, Dempster, and Castro were the next largest. Soriano actually got cheers, and I didn't hear more than a couple of knuckleheads boo anybody. I'm not sure if what surprised me more, the lack of booing for Soriano or the significantly rousing cheers saved for Jeff Samrdzija. I don't know what he has done to enamor himself with the people of Chicago, but there is a large group of people who really like him. Enjoy it while it lasts, buddy.

The highlight of the day came next as Bill Murray came out to toss the ceremonial first pitch and proceeded to "sprint" around the bases. As he came down the line towards home, Kerry Wood gestured wildly for him to slide, and bill awkwardly obliged. It's called dedication to a bit. He then proceeded to toss a one-hopper to the plate after going through the standard comedian-pretending-to-be-a-big-league-pitcher gesticulations and left the field without suffering a heart attack.

As the game started, I set the over/under on Cubs hits for the day off Strasburg at 1. Dempster proceeded to match that number on the first pitch as he gave up a leadoff single. Then we all started getting that sinking feeling as he walked the next batter and had Ryan Zimmerman smoke a ball to center that would have left the atmosphere if the wind hadn't been blowing in with all its might.

Strasburg made quick work of DeJesus and Barney before giving up a weak pop-up to the mound from Castro. The problem was that he didn't seem inclined to catch it himself and none of the other Nationals' fielders could get there in time once they realized he wasn't going to try to catch it. So there was the Cubs' first hit and Sandy Koufax's perfect game in September 1965 remains the last time the Cubs were no-hit for at least another couple of days.

After that, neither offense did much on their own accord. The Nationals loaded the bases on an error and two walks in the third, but Dempster wriggled out of it.

In the fourth, Soriano managed a one-out single and the Nationals helped out with a little creative defense when they messed up a force play on a squib by Ian Stewart. Unfortunately, the Cubs are hellbent and determined to add TOOTBLAN-apalooza to our vocabulary so Soriano was thrown out trying to steal third. Jeff Baker followed with a walk, and Marlon Byrd blooped in a hit to left to score a run and the CUBS HAD THE LEAD! HOLY SHIT!

It stayed that way for awhile. The hitters for both teams seemed like they just wanted to go and get warm, and I wholeheartedly on board with that decision. I was wearing a thermal and two fleece sweatshirts and it was getting pretty unpleasant the longer we stuck it out so we couldn't be more pleased with how the game was rolling along.

Somewhere along the way in about the 6th or 7th inning, Kris noticed the right field video board for the first time all day. Now, she is not one of those girls that goes to the games and doesn't pay attention. She was watching the whole game and had completely forgotten the video board even existed. So I think that should indicate how well the new patio fits in with the rest of the ballpark. Traditionalists can rest easy as it seems the old girl can still make whore's glitter look classy.

By the 8th inning, I was counting outs like it was a playoff game just because I was ready to leave the cold. Unfortunately the Cubs wanted to extend the day a little more. Jeff Baker treated an easily fieldable ball like it was radioactive, and Sveum went to the bullpen.

I can't say I disagreed with the move. Dempster was at 108 pitches and we all remember how well he would do last year when he would convince Quade to leave him in for one more batter. So Dempster got a nice standing ovation and Kerry Wood came in to get the last out of the 8th. This prompted Kris to ask how much of the standing ovation was for Dempster and how much was because Wood was coming in the game. I think most of it was for Dempster, but with Cubs fans, you never know for sure.

Wood proceeded to load the bases with two walks, but the crowd was still with him. He got Jayson Werth down 0-2 and the crowd was standing and chanting "Ker-ry, Ker-ry, Ker-ry!" It would have been a great moment, but Wood instead walked in the tying run. He finally retired the mighty DeRosa, but at that point, the crowd had been pretty well deflated. It's pretty depressing to see Kerry Wood being so damn ordinary. The crowd seemed to agree as a good portion started filing out.

The 8th didn't go well for the Cubs and then Marmol came in and surprsingly didn't walk anyone, but also didn't strike anyone out. He gave up two 2-out hits and suddenly the Cubs were losing. The crowd continued their mass exodus.

Kris and I watched Reed Johnson go down swinging on three strikes to Brad Lidge and decided to head for the exits ourselves. Stewart hit his shot off the wall just as we were reaching the rampand we decided we would still go downstairs, but we'd hang around to see what happened. If they tied it, we'd have a decision to make about hanging out in the cold for extra innings.

It turns out we needn't have worried as Joe Mather was gunned down easily at the plate on a grounder to third from Jeff Baker on the very next pitch. As we reached the bottom of the ramp, we entered the realm of angry Cubs fans. Nobody could understand why Mather had been running on contact. These people are going to have coronaries before the end of the season if they react like this every time the Cubs do something stupid on the bases. I just laughed. I couldn't help it. It was all just so Cub.

We continued down and watched Byrd take a called third strike that I called a strike before the umpire had a chance to and we quickly exited the park.

The fans that were leaving were cold, and they seemed to have the wind knocked out of them. It's hard to take a loss like that when you have actual expectations. That's the peril of having hope on Opening Day, but it happens every year. We never learn.

Maybe next year.

Daily Facepalm 3.1.12 – Expanded playoffs edition

Expanded playoffs have arrived

I thought this had already been decided, but the extra wild card has been approved. I'm kind of surprised that MLB would do this so close to the start of the season. Given the glacial pace at which MLB moved, I figured they had just decided that they were going to do it at some point, but whoa, whoa, let's not be all hasty here. As MB and I discussed yesterday, it doesn't really matter that much at this point if you add more teams. At 8 total teams the best team already has a very poor chance of winning everything, 2 more teams isn't going to make that much of a difference. And for the team that loses the wild-card play in game, I don't see how it's any more anticlimactic than say the 2008 Cubs postseason. 2 team playoff or GTFO, in my opinion.

Apparently most players are annoyed with the Braun situation too

A large majority of the players Buster Olney has spoken to are upset about the Braun decision. I agree with Calcaterra's take

Braun walking on this charge is no more of a threat to the drug testing system than a guy getting off on a burglary charge because the cops didn’t get a proper search warrant is a threat to the criminal justice system. You may hate the result, but the remedy is easy: get it right next time or change the rules to make what happened in that instance acceptable. It is not something that puts the entire regime in peril.

Finally, I’ll observe that these complaints all seem a little self-righteous to me. No one who ever wins on a procedural argument themselves ever seems to have a problem with it. And I suspect that the 80-90% of the players Olney spoke with here were under the gun themselves, they would not hesitate to make the same arguments Braun did if they or their legal advisors thought to do so.

Exactly. Be annoyed with the system that allowed this, not with the player('s lawyer) that shows how toothless it is.

Fireworks factory errata

The PBTNL have yet to be decided, but Hoyer said that the Red Sox will get the better PBTNL in the exchange. I don't think either of these guys will end up being worth anything – I fully expect both of the players moved to be organizational filler types.

Tom Ricketts to speak at SABR Analytics conference next month

Mind ——————> Blown

Cubs broadcasters ranked sixth in Fangraphs poll

Number 1 on the list is pretty obvious. As was number 31. It's too bad they didn't put any of the national broadcast teams in the mix (e.g. Buck/McCarver, Brennaman/whoever his stooge is, Miller/Morgan retro choice). I'd probably put all three of those teams just ahead of Hawk and the former Playgirl model.

The Cubs have a team psychologist in camp

Per Muskat. Did the Cubs have one around in the Hendry years? My memory is terrible. For some reason I think having around one might have come in handy over the past few years…

A.J. Burnett injured in his first week with the Pirates

It hasn't been a great offseason for him. He's out indefinitely with a fractured orbital bone after bunting a ball into his own face. This should put a big dent in the Pirates' dreams of passing the Cubs for 4th place in the NL Central this season.

Happy birthday, Harry

Cubs Want to Get PAID For the Rights to Televise Them Lose Games

I've been a bit distracted lately as I've been thinking about cats again, but as we all know (I'm assuming), Spring Training is here!

With the bunting tournament in full half-swing and Kerry Wood drilling Castro on the wrist today, we're starting to see news on a more regular basis coming from the beat reporters. I am, of course, using the term "news" as loosely as the English language will allow and including when Paul Sullivan tries really hard to get Dale Sveum to call Alfonso Soriano a horrible person because he sometimes gets caught staring at his long flyballs.

But in amongst the rabble-rousing and the infatuation with the bunting tournament, there is also some interesting news regarding the future of Cubs baseball broadcasts.

Of course, we all knew that the Ricketts are not thrilled with the existing TV contracts since the Trib set it up to benefit their broadcasting divisions of the corporation since the Cubs were showing good profits without major television revenue lining their pockets. Now Gordon Wittenmyer is reporting that the Cubs are getting ready to do something about it.

Sources say the Cubs expect to begin discussions with WGN at the end of this year on a contract set to expire after the 2014 season. Executives considered the deal below market value before the recent boom. The team’s contract with CSN, which broadcasts roughly half the games, runs through 2019.

So while the Cubs can start shopping around the services of the games currently on WGN, they might not be able to expect going from their current $45 million per year to something like the Rangers' new $150 million per year deal since the entire slate of games is not on the table.

Meanwhile, Gordo also seems concerned that Jerry Reinsdorf could somehow gum up the works:

It’s unclear how complicated the Cubs’ path to leveraging similar riches will be made by the White Sox’ agreements with WGN and CSN or Jerry Reinsdorf’s disproportionate influence at CSN through his dual stakes in the Sox and Bulls.

I'm not nearly as concerned considering that I doubt highly that Ricketts is even interested in negotiating with any of the existing entities beyond 2019.

If I had to guess, people should probably prepare themselves to eventually lose games on WGN altogether. Tom Ricketts and Crane Kenney have both stated before that the Cubs are very interested in starting their own network, so chances are pretty good that not only will they be discussing only the half of games that are on WGN, but they will also probably only be discussing the games through the 2019 season when the CSN contract is also up as I assume they will want to start a newtork with all of the games, instead of half of them.

So WGN may not want to pony up $150 million per year or even $75 million per year to show only half of the Cubs games per season for only five more additional seasons. Afterall, the next five years is probably going involve some pretty damn unwatchable baseball. Maybe if the Cubs were realistically going to be good enough to eventually get the kind of ratings that would pay off for the station in the long run, the price tag could be pushed up, but WGN and its rivals have to know that the long run payoff is getting lined up to go into the Ricketts pockets through the Cubs Network (or whatever they call it).

That opens up the possibility that some network like the NBC Sports Network (formerly known as Versus), might come in with some short-term bid that goes over what WGN is willing to pay to keep the Cubs for the short-term. If that scenario arises, I have very little doubt that the Ricketts will jump at it and tradition be damned.

We already know that he is going to have the Cubs leave WGN as soon as he possibly can to have his own network. So why accept less money in the short term, when that tradition is going to end anyway?

I'm sure there will be much gnashing of teeth and talk from the Gary Kartons of the world that the Cubs are ruining their essence or some stupid nonsense, but this is how the big boys play in the majors. When the San Diego Padres are taking home $75 million compared to the Cubs' $45 million, there is something horribly wrong with the Cubs' situation. To Tom Ricketts' credit, this has been something he has acknowledged as an issue since he took over, so I expect it will get dealt with.

The question is whether Crane Kenney is as good at "business" as Ricketts will have us believe because I have a feeling this process will show us a lot of what he's made of. God help us all.

Daily Facepalm Returns with a Fiery Vengeance

Cubs and Matt Garza Agree to Terms

It's no longterm contract extension, but the Cubs are tweeting that they've agreed to terms for 2012 with Matt Garza, thereby sticking it to the arbitor. Hurrah.

#Cubs and RHP Matt Garza have agreed to terms on a 2012 contract, thus avoiding salary arbitration.

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) February 3, 2012

Yet Another Cuban Not Named Mark

The Cubs signed the Cuban kid Gerardo Concepcion. You can read all about reading about him here.

Cubs' Blatant Neglect of Asia Continues

I don't know what the Cubs bother searching for talent anywhere but the Pacific Rim and Finland, but apparently there's some desire to recruit and foster talent in the Dominican Republic despite the shame Sammy Sosa brought us. Aisley says it makes him slightly less angry that Mark Cuban doesn't own the Cubs. I don't get it.

Video I Enjoyed Recently

I was told I remind someone of the honey badger. Okay.

UPDATE: Is There a Cubs Game Today?

No.

Cubs’ Training Facility in Dominican Republic Looks Freakin’ Sweet

Tom Ricketts keeps making it harder and harder to mock him. I mean, he pretty much shut us all up when he went out and hired away the top baseball executive available (and one of the top guys alive) to pull the team out of its nosedive into the ground. He's showing that he understands the concept of a sunk cost, which has helped Theo and the rest of the Superfriends provide the roster with a bit more flexibility to eventually add talent. He's doing his best to bring the ballpark into the modern era in both amenities and revenue potential.

Today, he's down in the Dominican Republic unveiling the plans for the Cubs training facility that should be up and running in about 18 months.

Based on some of the renderings on csnchicago.com, it looks pretty impressive.

It will have four baseball fields (including one turf field), four covered batting cages and eight bullpens. It will also house and educate the players as two locker rooms, a weight room, a cafeteria and kitchen, two meeting rooms, a large classroom and a theatre and video room are included.

Plus it will have an educational center where players can earn GEDs as they learn the Cubs Way, and a dormitory for up to 80 players and coaches.

Once this place and the new Spring Training facilities in Mesa are completed, players are going to wonder why they train in such great places only to actually play in such a shithole 81 times a year.

When Theo Met Carlos: A Cubs Story [Kindle Edition]

“We met today at his request,” Epstein said. “It went well. He expressed a strong desire to be a Cub (again) and an even stronger desire to have a strong 2012 season. He’s in great shape. He’s working out twice a day, pitching down in Venezuela. I told him that we’d let him earn his right back to being a Cub.

“We said he’d have to work hard and that we aren’t welcoming him back unconditionally. We said he’d have to earn his way back.” – ESPN

Last summer Tom Ricketts said that he couldn’t envision a scenario in which Carlos Zambrano returned to the Cubs, but Theo sees one. It’s possible, and maybe even quite likely that this is just posturing on the Cubs part. It does sound as if as Zambrano has to meet certain standards so at any point in the next few months we could learn he has not earned the right to return to the team.

“Most of the details will stay confidential,” Epstein said. “But there are steps he needs to take to earn his way back. If he does so, we will see him in spring training and welcome him back.”

Epstein said that Zambrano seemed sincere and contrite in the meeting, but he’s taking a wait-and-see approach.

“From what I understand, he’s seemed that way before,” Epstein said. “So this is a trust-but-verify situation.”

This could be one of those situations where you put on a game face and say you intend to keep the player so that teams aren’t expecting you to pay all of his salary. It could be genuine. Zambrano may meet all of the criteria necessary to return. He might still be traded. He might actually be a Cub next season.

Continue reading “When Theo Met Carlos: A Cubs Story [Kindle Edition]”

Theo Begins a New Era By Eating Lunch (gasp!)

The Age of Theo is upon us and the world of Cubdom is dancing about as much as someone can dance until you stop and remember that we haven’t won anything yet. But this is what we wanted when the Ricketts took over from the stodgy, crusty Tribune. We wanted a real sign that the team ownership wanted to win as much as those of us who spend ungodly sums of money every year rooting for the team. So we are willing to forgive the Rickettseses for being late to the party and instead rejoice in the fact that they showed up at all.

The hiring of Theo Epstein is not just big news, it has been judged worthy of being announced during the World Series, mostly because most of the country is actually more interested in what is next for the Cubs and Red Sox than in the current championship series between St. Louis and Texas. So Bud Selig stepped in and called it a done deal and allowed the official press conferences to be held even though compensation still has yet to be resolved, just so we would all stop obsessing over it.

But through all the giddiness, I still have a pang of wondering when the other shoe will drop. I want to toss away my Cubbie Facepalm hat and just go with a regular one I don’t have to be embarassed about, but I can’t bring myself to toss it just yet. I keep listening for that shoe… and so far, so good.

Theo arrived at Wrigley today and proceeded to go eat lunch with other team officials at a Wrigleyville establishment. It isn’t quite dinner, but these are the Cubs and it will take baby steps to get away from the long-running No Dinner Policy. Also, his arrival means he successfully flew from Boston without his plane crashing into Jed Hoyer’s plane as he arrived from San Diego. So the baseball gods missed that opportunity. So we keep listening for that second shoe.

Andy MacPhail did his best Debbie Downer impression as he told Melissa Isaacson that Theo has an even bigger task than he himself faced when he was the fresh baseball face to save the Cubs.

“When I got there, it was watching baseball in a cathedral-like environment where there was no advertising and the expectation of winning was not as high as the experience of going to Wrigley Field. I think that changed when the customer started plunking down good money. In addition to seeing Toyota and Under Armour ads, they expected to see a winning team.”

Of course, Andy never realized his goal and he gives a passing nod to why that may have been partially his fault:

“Do what you have to do but there’s so much pressure to take shortcuts. And if I had to give him any advice, it would be ‘Don’t look for shortcuts. Do what you have to do to get better and time will take care of itself.’ The inclination is to look for the quick fix and it just gets stronger. But it’s something you just have to resist. You just have to build your best chance of winning.”

He refuses to say the Tribune meddled in his affairs, and he never addresses that his whole goal was to win in a major market while acting like a small-to-mid-market team (which is probably why the Trib hired him in the first place). MacPhail was essentially brought in to be a baseball genius that knew the game and the players better than anyone and would make the best decisions with the crappy information that the Cubs collected about players. That was almost doomed to fail from the start knowing what we know now.

The difference here is that Theo (from what I understand about him) does not necessarily think of himself as having all of the answers, but rather as a champion of gathering as much information as possible so that his decisions can be more informed and less gut-instinct.

While Hendry always seemd like the guy splitting kings and hitting on 17 because he had seen it work once, Theo is like the guy counting cards who doubles down on a 7 because he knows the dealer is probably going to bust.

MacPhail did little to nothing to improve the structure of the team and then wondered how his inexperienced GM failed so miserably while trying to win on such a managed budget, and things only improved a little more when his successor was given a crapload of money. The process remained flawed.

More importantly, Tom Ricketts is starting to show signs that while he understands that money may not be the answer to all your ills as a club, it certainly helps make the ills go away easier. They can spend more on player development, they can spend more on gathering info on draft prospects, they can allocate more to signing the guys they draft. It really isn’t rocket science, but spending money in the background is somehow something that the Cubs have rarely done in my lifetime, and now they are probably going to spend a ton of money improving their data collection. It won’t be “Carmine,” but there will almost assuredly be something very much like it operating for the Cubs as soon as possible.

So while Bernie Miklasz and his readers get in one more dig at the Cubs while they play for a World Championship by characterizing the hiring as “desperate,” we all just laugh and pat them on the head knowing that this time is different. This time, the Cubs will begin to act like the major market team they are and start the ascent to the one who others “desperately” try to keep up with.

Right? RIGHT??! I keep listening for that second shoe. I still haven’t heard it.

It all becomes a reality tomorrow at 11 am Central. I’ve never looked forward to a press conference so much in my entire life.

Did you hear something? Neither did I. It’s still quiet and eerily positive.

This is weird.

Continue reading “Theo Begins a New Era By Eating Lunch (gasp!)”