Posted on 05/06/2013 5:37:42 PM PDT by rhema
A bad case of Tom Ricketts in Wrigley Field, Chicago.
Major League sports team owners we will always have with us. They are different from the rest of us.
Wake a normal person at three in the morning with a loud noise and he’ll yell, “Holy ****! What was that!?” Wake a major league team owner (any sport) at the same time with the same noise and he’ll explain, “We need a new ball-yard. And if you don’t buy us one with public money we’ll move the team to Keokuk.”
When The Mob does this it’s called extortion. When major league team owners do it, the local chamber of commerce and pliable politicians call it economic development. In either case it’s a bad deal for the marks. If major league franchises were the economic drivers their owners claim them to be, and that gullible or self-interested parties claim to believe them to be, the richest neighborhood in America would be the South Bronx, where the New York Yankees play. Have you been there lately?
Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts is running a variation of this hustle just now, and creating some unintentional comedy along the way. At first he went for taxpayer gold like other team owners. But flat broke Illinois and Chicago have told Ricketts that there’s no public money for the half billion dollars in “improvements” he says he wants to make to Wrigley Field, a baseball shrine most savvy baseball fans would be shocked to learn needs improving.
Of course the improvements Ricketts wants, including lots more signage, are things he believes would increase his revenue rather than anything that would improve the game-watching experience in Wrigley. Au the contraire, the item atop Rickett’s wish list, a 6,000-square-foot jumbotron that would loom over Wrigley’s left field bleachers,
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Agreed. Too many memories of Wrigley, and just about all good. Especially June 23, 1984. Best baseball game I will ever see. The bad was getting back to my friend’s place and discovering my Mustang Mach 1 had been stolen. I had to make a car theft report to some skeptical Chicago cops after an extra inning game at Wrigley.
Heaven is a warm, sandy beach. Across the road behind the beach is Wrigley Field. You can’t miss it; it’s right between the Indianapoplis Motor Speedway and IU’s Assembly Hall. Unfortunately, I suspect the Cubs lose in Heaven too.
The Cubs were one game away from winning the World Series in 1945 (they lost 4 games to 3 to Detroit). That’s the last time they played in the World Series, although they almost made it in 1984 (when they would have had a chance to lose to the Tigers again—San Diego lost 4 games to 1).
Miserable as it must be to wear that uniform, it doesn't help that the owner wants to put up a Jumbotron with the money. It tells me he thinks the team isn't good enough to bring in the crowds, he needs another medium for that.
I can watch TV at home, thank you.
The Cubs were one game away from winning the World Series in 1945 . . .. . . and the Texas Rangers twice were a strike away from winning the Series in 2011.
Close counts only in horseshoes, hand grenades, and (I think) atomic bombs . . . unfortunately.
So...whatcher tellin’ me is that the M’s have to win two World Series in order to catch up to the Cubbies. Oh, thanks a lot. Let me just go shoot myself now...
So...whatcher tellin’ me is that the M’s have to win two World Series in order to catch up to the Cubbies. Oh, thanks a lot. Let me just go shoot myself now...If my New York Mess (er, Mets) and my Boston Red Sox could do it in my lifetime (do not ask my Class A drug bill in October 1986!!!), anything can happen.
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