‘Ambassador to fans’ on Tom Ricketts’ full Chicago Cubs plate
Even if you have special makeup like this Cubs fan, a Ricketts family member or a team rep will still want to talk to you. (Image via Wikipedia).
Well, first off, everyone working at Wrigley Field is going to eat better under the new Ricketts’ family ownership regime that had its coming-out party at the ballyard Friday morning.
Publicity 101: a well-fed media is more likely to write good things about you than one who has to repair to the nearest Italian beef stand and pay. Penurious former team president Andy MacPhail, who loved to make reporters sweat in a stifling, closet-sized interview room, would spin at 78 rpm in his Cubs afterlife as Orioles GM at the sight of the sumptuous post-press conference buffet in Wrigley Field’s Stadium Club. A carving table preceded heaping serving dishes of halibut, lobster macaroni, other fixins’ and a whole dessert bar. Sportswriters, who never met a free meal they’d refuse, hadn’t been fed like this around Cubs pressers since before MacPhail assumed office in 1994 and cut off the freebies. I really, really wished I could share this bounty with everyone who is hurting due to the economy today.
But even more important than the hot and sweet vittles were the nuggets served up by Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts’ sister, Laura, and brother, Pete, as they worked the room like the people persons they and family patriarch J. Joe Ricketts appear to be. Along with another brother, Todd, the Ricketts siblings — all former authentic bleacher fans — will comprise the Cubs’ brain trust on the board of directors.
This is a close-knit family that seem like just regular folks. They are self-made despite inheriting a family fortune. Not a syllable of Tom Ricketts’ talk was condescending. And they’re not full of themselves, possessing an easy sense of humor. When Laura Ricketts’ wireless microphone failed, she had no problem leaning into the clip-on mic on Tom’s label and talking into his chest. They introduced their parents. A beaming Joe Ricketts gave a wave to the crowd. Marlene Ricketts, his wife, was the big sports fan in the family back in Omaha, said Laura Ricketts. They will be unlike any owners the Cubs have ever had.
Before I touched a slice of halibut, I gabbed with Laura Ricketts about her days in the cheap seats and Pete’s all-night duties waiting in line for bleachers tickets to buy for the rest of the family. And in re-affirming Tom Ricketts’ vow to have the quartet circulate around Wrigley Field to keep in touch with their fellow fans — ownership doesn’t change that status — she said such efforts could be supplemented by an “ambassador to fans” the family is thinking of appointing. The Ricketts are serious about an interactive relationship with the people who will help them pay their players and other bills, including Wrigley Field renovations.
My gosh, what is going on? The spirit of populist owner Bill Veeck must’ve whispered in the Ricketts’ collective ears. Cubs ownership/management through the decades might as well have resided on Mars for all their accessibility and responsiveness to fans. Phil Wrigley was so shy he watched games on TV from his Lake Geneva, Wis., estate — when he wasn’t sneaking into the bleachers incognito, as former Cubs outfielder Pete LaCock, son of “Hollywood Squares” host Peter Marshall, said Wrigley once revealed to him. The various Tribune Co. viceroys were corporate wonks. Tall, silver-haired John Madigan, an investment banker by experience, fled to the safety of the front office when I approached him for an interview behind the batting cage in 1999. MacPhail used to sit in a suite out of the line of sight of fans. And you’d never find him in the cheap seats where he definitely was not welcome by the end of his presidential tenure in 2006.
During Veeck’s pair of White Sox ownership tenures from 1959 to 1961 and 1975 to 1980, he often circulated through old Comiskey Park. He scouted the regulars and their seat locations in the late summer of ‘59 so they would not be shut out of World Series tickets. Veeck had a listed home number in the South Side Hyde Park neighborhood. Tom Ricketts is advised to not to be that accessible at home, but in upcoming years if you can’t bump into him, his brothers and sister, or a designated team representative, at Wrigley Field you’re not trying hard enough.
When Tom Ricketts stated his list of priorities, he belied the ancient stereotype, furthered by envious White Sox rooters, that all Cubs fans cared about were Wrigley Field’s bread and circuses. The Ricketts, like any legit Cubs fan, wants to win down to his/hers very soul, and forget about babes and beer. The first thing out of Tom Ricketts’ mouth was the goal of winning the World Series and providing “world-class” facilities for Cubs players, who right now have the most antiquated, cramped locker room and training facilities in baseball. Only then did he state a second goal of improving Wrigley Field. And Ricketts will not tear down the grandstand to the foundation to rebuild from scratch. He will not have the Cubs playing at U.S. Cellular Field or another ballpark, a la the Yankees in Shea Stadium in 1974-75, while Wrigley is gutted. Revamping will be done in stages during successive off-seasons over the next few years.
But providing those “world-class” facilities will be an architectural challenge. To be sure, Ricketts has green-lighted the “Triangle Building” just west of the ballpark, into which team offices will move and other amenities, like a restaurant and maybe a Cubs Hall of Fame, will be installed. Timetable is groundbreaking next year, construction in earnest in 2011 and full operations the following year. One design plan has expanded trainers’ and weight rooms, along with an indoor batting cage, underneath the building. However, excavation is tricky on the Wrigley property. They have a water-table issue in the sandy muck just one-half mile from Lake Michigan. The water can be pumped out, but the project will not be a simple one as a result of the soggy ground.
Providing the right players to use improved facilities will be just as big of a challenge. Tom Ricketts’ stated goal is a productive farm system, which every incoming Cubs honcho has vowed since the beginning of time. But developing impact position players has been largely a mystery under different ownership regimes. This is where the Ricketts kids have to do their research more than anything else involved with the team. What aren’t the Cubs doing that seemingly came so easily to the likes of the Braves and Twins?
Tom Ricketts will add employees. He admitted the Cubs were understaffed as an organization — a money-saving trend started by Tribune Co. bean-counters in the late 1980s after winning-oriented GM Dallas Green was sacked, and enhanced by MacPhail, who did not mind being “one man too short” in staffing levels.
Best of all, the new boss said he does not believe in curses. Most intelligent fans are of like mind, ignoring smart-ass and lazy media accounts that leaned on the supernatural and nonsensical instead of looking at organizational shortcomings that Ricketts intends to fix.
I told Laura Ricketts that on the first Opening Day of Tribune Co. ownership in 1982, Sam Sianis’ mascot billy goat was invited on the field to break the curse his uncle, William Sianis, supposedly put on the Cubs in 1945. The goat made return trips in the 1984 playoffs and beyond. A lot good that farm animal has done, as the record shows.
This time, Sam Sianis will have to buy his tickets for humans only. I got the impression from Laura Ricketts, while the halibut got cold, that goat will never be served on the Wrigley Field promotional menu ever again.
Get used to the new era, Cubs fans. Your pain does not fall on deaf ears anymore.
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I feel good about these people, George, I really do. Then again, I felt good about the Trib and Dallas Green in ‘81 and Andy MacPhail in ‘94. But these guys have to be different, don’t they? They were fans, right? Can they really change the culture here? Please tell me they can.
No, you’re not dreaming, Big Mike. The key to making this work is the Ricketts family building up a baseball operation that runs itself, so there’s no temptation to meddle as in the case of Phil Wrigley and assorted TribCo. execs, who thought they were brilliant baseball minds.
In response to another comment. See in context »Pinch me, I must be dreaming! Are these people for real?? They’re a family of die-hard Cubs fans who actually have an intelligent, insightful plan? What, they want to win??? What, they care about the fans?? And revise the farm system?? And make long over-due renovations to that wonderful baseball shrine?? Perhaps, at long last, the collective prayers of Cubs fans everywhere are being heard!
And you’re not dreaming, either, Jan. The inmates are now running the asylum. Betcha the Ricketts set up a fans advisory council at some point. Wonder if they’ll stop scalping their own tickets? That was a TribCo. brainchild.
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t care what else he does; the Ricketts want to put up a Jumbotron at Wrigley Field and ruin it. That’s enough for me to stop going to Cubs games. I would like to have one baseball field left where you actually watch the game instead of watching TV.
Don’t sweat it, “Wax.” I don’t see a logical place to put in a Jumbotron inside the ballpark. The iconic scoreboard is not going to be replaced. I think they’ll look to a rooftop as the location — but that’s outside the ballpark.
In response to another comment. See in context »Woops, George. You’d been doing so well at appearing fair to your city’s two teams in your sentences, if not in the proportions of your coverage, until you bared your bloomers with this cheap shot:
“When Tom Ricketts stated his list of priorities, he belied the ancient stereotype, furthered by envious White Sox rooters, that all Cubs fans cared about were Wrigley Field’s bread and circuses”
There’s nothing about the Cubs that we envy. For Cub fans to say that we envy Cub fans is obviously and obscenely self-serving. We’ve got a good thing going on the South Side, a much better thing if you ask us, and I don’t know a single Sox fan who would trade it for any part of the mess that is the Cubs, and that includes the team, the stadium, the fans, the fawning media, and the “lobster macaroni.”
They said it was lobster macaroni and you believed them?
When we see the “Cubbie” scene up there it can be utterly mystifying to understand how anyone, other than a marketing expert, can think it’s anything but a grotesque embarrassment. And maybe that’s because we’re not inside it. We’re not in the club and we’re blind to its merits.
To say we envy it suggests you’re just as blind to what it’s like to be affiliated with the White Sox. Which would be fine if you were only a Cubs fan. But you’re a sportswriter too.
Jeff, we’ll do the Cliff Notes version of the age-old Cubs-Sox debate here.
No. 1, the biggest charge Sox supporters throw at Cubs fans is they’re not knowledgeable about baseball (as if Sox fans are purists and baseball scientists) and only care about having fun in the sun at Wrigley Field. It’s been repeated often enough (like the billy goat curse) that it’s perceived to be true. Cubs fans want to win just as badly as Sox fans, but the Wrigley party crowd gets most of the publicity. It’s a lot easier to cover drunks and curse-mongers than folks who know that the ‘84 team had the kind of balanced lineup needed to win at Clark and Addison.
No. 2, there is indeed Sox envy of the popularity, nationwide affection and media attention the Cubs get. And it’s not limited to the South Siders’ fans. Many in the team’s organization are simply obsessed with the Cubs, even though they only play them 6 times a year and do not compete with them for the AL pennant. Ozzie Guillen, a better Bench Jockey than this writer, has called me an “effin’ (the sanitized version) Cubs fan” on several occasions. That’s vintage Ozzie, but he ain’t gettin’ that out of the clear blue as my assignments have been Cubs-heavy (more work was generated out of Wrigley over the past 2 decades), surely raising eyebrows on 35th St from the shoot-first, ask-questions-later bunch. Plain and simple, the Sox simply can’t have what the Cubs have. They should be happy that they’re safe and secure in Chicago after nearly moving to another city at least three times between 1969 and 1988. It’s an apples-and-oranges situation.
No. 3, I checked carefully. It was not crabmeat or shrimp. It was lobster, amazing when Andy MacPhail — like Phil Wrigley a Sox fan’s best friend for holding back the use of all the Cubs’ resources — wouldn’t even pop for frozen fish sticks.
In response to another comment. See in context »I have a better idea. Let’s not do the Cliff’s Notes version of the age-old Sox-Cubs debate here. Nor any other version. The fact that the White Sox front office is concerned about media favoritism of the Cubs and the marketing successes that result might have something to do with the fact that they are competing businesses in the same market. That’s not the same as Sox fans envying the Cubs. We don’t.
I once attended a Sox-Cubs game that the Sox tragically lost. Afterward, Sox fans went into a chant that expressed the South Side’s eternal and ever-eloquent summation of the rivalry: “Cubs suck!” A nearby Cub fan could not understand how such a chant was appropriate because, she gestured to the scoreboard, the Cubs had just won the game. It’s not about the game, I tried to explain, it’s about the whole nauseating culture. But she couldn’t get that, because she was inside that nauseating culture. So she concluded it must be envy. uh-huh.
I have a friend who likes lobster macaroni. And he likes his red wine with ice cubes and a spritz (Cub fan).
In response to another comment. See in context »What is “nauseating” about the culture? That Cubs fans come out to games even if the team is losing. Then the Cardinals have a “nauseating” culture because those fans pack the ballpark, too.
If you think it’s macho to stay away when the team is losing, just remember 1968-69 when an empty Comiskey Park prompted Arthur Allyn to flirt with Bud Selig about a possible move to Milwaukee. And 1975, when John Allyn almost couldn’t make his payroll and Seattle hungrily eyed the Sox. Fans boycotting the Sox have not worked, period. Both Jerry Reinsdorf and Kenny Williams have said, “If you come, we will spend,” not the other way around.
Boycotting Wrigley Field has worked only once — the 2006 season. Thousands of no-shows, especially in the bleachers, shocked the post-Andy MacPhail management into the spending spree (including the monstrous Soriano contract) that uplifted the Cubs to two consecdtive postseason berths. Shock treatment it was.
Previously, Phil Wrigley was unmoved — other than hiring Leo Durocher — when Cubs attendance dipped close to the 600,000 mark in 1961-62 and 1965-66. There was no radical remaking of the organization for the good, only more eccentric behavior.
Bottom line for Sox fans and management: Keep your eyes on the Twins, Tigers and Yankees. They affect your well-being far more than the Cubs. Obsessing about the Cubs is a misdirection play akin to Lou Piniella saying, “Ask the pitching coach.”
And, yes, the Bards Room has served good fish for years. The Cubs have to play catch-up ball in the seafood department. But they beat the Sox to lobster macaroni.
In response to another comment. See in context »Thanks, George, that’s my point: not so much that Cubbie culture is nauseating, but that Sox fans see it that way and that Cub fans can’t, including Cub fans who work in the media. So they come up with this cheap “envy” claim. If you’ve ever seen a fungus consume a peach or a slice of bread, one can marvel at its proliferation, even remark upon it, without envying it.
I certainly didn’t say it was macho to stay away from games. I think there are many reasons for the attendance disparity, including the media bias that promotes Cubbie culture and portrays the South Side as a dangerous place-even though more crime occurs in the vicinity of Wrigley Field than in the vicinity of Sox Park–a different commercial atmosphere in the park and in the neighborhoods, as well as some common sense. I also wouldn’t trade the attendance figures: why would any fan want their ballpark to be sold out every day? It means you can’t get in. Like my buddy says, “You can have the attendance flag. We’ll take the World Series trophy.”
None of this means we envy you. We don’t.
In response to another comment. See in context »George, in the other two two-team cities (NY & LA) the teams pay a heckuva lot of attention to each other. There’s a battle between the Mets & Yanks and the Dodgers & Angels for the limited sports entertainment dollar in each city. Often, a team will make a move simply to grab headlines from the other team. Of course, you can go too far with this but when you share a city with another team, your competition is both on the field and at the box office. The White Sox are wise for crying about the unbalanced coverage — it’s like Phil Jackson always moaning about ref favoritism. These complaints might plant a seed in the mind of a sports editor or ref that he’s not even conscious of. All that said, I think Sox fans really are overly envious. Were I a dyed in the wool Sox fan, I wouldn’t even think twice about the Cubs. I’d still be high as a kite on my 2005 World Series championship. I’ve heard too many times the very weird sentiment from White Sox fans that they;d rather the Cubs lose than the Sox win. That’s bizarre.
In response to another comment. See in context »Only a few minutes after the Sox won the World Series at Minute Maid Park in 2005, Jerry Reinsdorf was on the infield celebrating. But he also appealed with the angle — why can’t we all just get along — Cubs fans and Sox fans? I was right there and heard it clearly. Apparently, our friend Jeff didn’t listen. Just the fact he’s making this a point of debate shows some “envy.”
The issues going forward are Ricketts building the Cubs into a Red Sox-quality organization and Reinsdorf-Kenny Williams making their farm system more productive while taking advantage of Jake Peavy’s presence. Committing to Peavy’s contract shows Reinsdorf wants to win even if it goes outside his financial comfort zone.
In response to another comment. See in context »In 2002, I saw Bill Adee, then sports editor of the Sun-Times, in the pressbox at The Cell. Adee is now the Trib’s on-line guru. I asked Bill why the Cubs got more media coverage than the Sox. “Because they have more fans,” Adee said. In the end, that’s the bottom line if you bring up the old Bill Veeck column-inches argument. But I think the coverage overall is even. Remember, the Cubs and the Sox exist in the only two-team market where one team plays the majority of its home games during the day, making extra coverage in any medium much more convenient. That’s a built-in problem the Sox cannot overcome.
So just keep your eyes on the Twins, Tigers and Yanks. Focus. Don’t “ask the pitching coach.”
That’s interesting, George, because before the Tribune owned the Cubs Wrigley Field often sat largely empty every day. It took some vigorous media bias to create the fan atmosphere that they now use to justify their media bias. And I’m not surprised you can’t see the bias since we’re right now discussing an example of it in your own writing.
I don’t make Veeck’s column inches argument, because the tone and content of that copy also matters. But I do think it’s interesting how much relative attention is paid to the two teams. Remember that repetition is a key marketing strategy. Using the Tribune’s own search engine, I looked at how many stories the Tribune published mentioning each team during the regular seasons in 2005, when the White Sox lead their division from day one to day 162 and then won the World Series, and in 2006, when the Sox were defending World Series champions. Here are the numbers:
2005 Regular Season
Cubs: 2,824 Tribune stories
White Sox: 2,047 Tribune stories
2006 Regular Season
Cubs: 2,556 Tribune stories
White Sox: 1,975 Tribune stories
In those two regular seasons, 1,400 more stories mentioning the Cubs than mentioning the Sox. Those weren’t all Sports stories of course. There was all the fluff in your beloved Tempo section, too. No bias? Give me a break.
In response to another comment. See in context »Bruce Levine of ESPN-1000 estimates the Cubs-Sox fan split in the Chicago area — not outside in the Midwest — at 60-40 in favor of the Cubs, with the 40 percent being pretty firm. I think it might be a tad higher in favor of the Cubs. If that’s the case, wouldn’t the media coverage reflect that?
Ozzie himself said the Sox would have to win five World Series in a row to take the town away from the Cubs.
Again, the Sox have established themselves as a Chicago success story in their own right, dominating their own niche. There’s no danger of moving as in the 1960s and 1970s. As you said, be happy about the 2005 World Series and zero in on getting back there by putting dead-aim at the Twins, Tigers and Yankees (lions, tigers and bears, it sounds like). I’ll repeat that and outlast you, Jeff. Don’t waste energy on the Cubs.
Bias? No, just 30 years experience in the business at work here and 15 more years previous to that as a fan. I’ve got an edge on you, Jeff, in perspective about how things came to be in this market. Did you ever hear Jerry Reinsdorf admit one of the worst things the Sox ever did was go off WGN-TV in 1968 for then little-watched UHF Channel 32?
Give me some legit Sox news and I’ll write about it. That’s my full intention. Except Milton Bradley, Soriano and the ownership change have been dominating headlines since mid-summer.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m not wasting energy on the Cubs, George. I’m dedicating energy to media bias and to misrepresentations of the White Sox and White Sox fans. In the interest of rectifying what is wrong.
Bruce Levine pulling a number out of his (hat) means nothing to me. In 2005 and 2006, the White Sox were the most popular team in Chicago. They were number one on television here. Unlike Bruce Levine’s opinion, that’s measurable. Using your own logic, wouldn’t the media coverage reflect that?
I don’t see how your experience gives you an edge on me when you just keep pulling these tired old fan arguments out of your hat, all of which are irrelevant to the point: White Sox fans do not envy the Cubs. Yes, I’ve heard the TV argument, the popularity argument, the attendance argument, and many more. Zzzz. Because far more poignant is the fact that here you are, a sportswriter/Cubs fan, telling me I need to provide you with your White Sox news. While out of the other side of your mouth, telling me there’s no bias. Haha.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] so that’s how the Ricketts family got so much good press last week. Good [...]
As a rabid Sox fan, you’re not reading what I wrote. When the Sox have news, I’ll report it or analyze it. I’m not asking you to provide me with the news.
This whole debate is not necessary, but it does indicate the obsession Sox fans have. And, Jeff, if you’ve ever read any of my nine published books — have you? — or any of my newspaper/broadcast coverage of the teams, I’ve been far more critical of the Cubs — at Wrigley, TribCo. execs, MacPhail — than the Sox. I even praised Kenny Williams’ trade of Carlos Lee for Scott Podsednik, the sacrifice of power for speed. It’s doubtful Kenny was even aware of that or cared.
Jeff, if you want Cubs fans to love the Sox, you have to be more welcoming than a blizzard of jibes that make them look ignorant, drunk or effete. It’s not even a love-us-or-leave-us deal — you don’t want more people in your exclusive club.
Weird pot-kettle response, George. Jibes like “envious”? And it’s obsessive if we respond to such jibes?
In response to another comment. See in context »