Friday, June 7, 2019

Ricketts not first owner to go to bat for Republicans




     So baseball fans are grumbling because Todd Ricketts, Cubs co-owner and finance chair of the Trump Victory Committee, is dandling GOP fundraisers at a party Saturday night in a little property of his called Wrigley Field.
     Reaction was swift and predictable. ”BOYCOTT THE CUBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Jim McDonald demanded on Facebook. “Anyone who goes to Cubs games and spends money is actually supporting Trump. Who do you love more The Cubs or the future of the USA?”
     Oh please.   

     First off, the Ricketts family assumed controlling interest in the Cubs (it was too complicated a financial shell game to call it a “purchase”) in 2009. So the hefty profit off all those $10 beers have been funneling to right-wing causes for a decade. Odd that some notice only now, even claiming to shift their allegiance to the Sox, as if such a thing were possible.
     And remember from whom the Ricketts bought the Cubs: The Tribune Company. Not exactly Ben & Jerry’s. More like Fox News before the American Pravda was a gleam in Rupert Murdoch’s eye. Whether sneering at immigrants or urging isolation, the Trib was a foghorn of right-wing nuttery for decades, stretching back to the days when its owner, Col. Robert McCormick, began each morning licking the boots of Hitler.
     Yet fans still cheered Ryne Sandberg.

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8 comments:

  1. I like sounding like a broken record. All in all, I would rather have a Guaranteed Rate than have a portion of my favorite baseball team's ticket revenue be donated to the Trump for President campaign. With the Cubs winning the World Series, then days later Trump winning the Presidency, their fates are inexorably linked together.

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  2. Well, I've changed as I've gotten older and politics are a lot more important to me now. I haven't been to Wrigley since the Ricketts family bought the team, and in fact I have turned down major freebies. To each his own.

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  3. Leave it to Neil to dig up a fascinating story about Warren Harding pitching for the Cubs. Love it. Wonder if Phillip Wrigley ever thought of putting Ronald Reagan on the hill.

    john

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  4. Love baseball!
    Former Cubs fan . Gave up . After 69 and 84 where I sat in the front row of the left field bleachers for Sutcliffe's big win against the Padres.paid a hundred bucks for what was then a $10.00 ticket. After the 89 loss to the Giants I took the cure and headed south to comisky. Raised 2 baseball loving cub tolerant Sox fans who waited less than 10 years of their short lives for a championship.
    We all celebrated Chicago's north side championship with Grace.
    We're Chicagoans and we love baseball no reason to hate the other side of town other than ignorance. A tradition worse than the curse.
    Headed to guaranteed rate with a group of 20 on Father's day. Decent upper Deck seats 10 bucks a piece. The only time I go to Wrigley is when I'm offered a free ticket couple times a year.
    Politics never enter into it. It's baseball and I love it.

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  5. Baseball is one of my escapes from politics, all I want to do is enjoy the beauty of the sport. As a lifelong, die-hard Cubs fan, I've learned to look at them through rose colored lenses. I'm not letting Trump ruin the Cubs for me.

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  6. Die-Hard Cub Fan since 1960...experienced the awful pre-Durocher years with weekday "crowds" of 6,000 (upper deck was usually closed) and then the original Bleacher Bums--and eventually was an eyewitness to Opening Night in '88. I can't imagine what it would take for me to give them up, especially after surviving '69, '84, and '03.

    Baseball has changed so much since my kid days. Players come and go in a heartbeat. The times of the same infield for a decade or more (14-18-11-and-10) are long gone. Today I merely root for the logo and cheer for the uniforms, rather than the men inside them. I've been around long enough that even owners seem to come and go...the Wrigleys, Tribune Company, and now what has followed. Am I happy that a right-leaning family now owns the Cubs and helps fund the campaigns of the idiot in the Oval Orifice? Of course not! But I get too much pleasure (and pain) from the Cubs to let it bother me a lot.

    Yes, I know they support Rump...but they have also funneled gazillions into the Cub organization and brought us a championship, something my father never saw in his 82 years. To this geezerly die-hard, every franchise owner is merely another caretaker, and their stewardship is just a temporary situation, like the owner of a fine and historic old house.

    To be honest, I'm more concerned with the changes they've brought to the House That Juicy Fruit Built. The bells and whistles and jumbo scoreboards and pinball-machine atmosphere are the permanent legacy of the Ricketts family. Look what they've done to my park, Ma! That bothers me even more than the owners of the Cubs being Trumpistas. I suspect most early Boomer Cub fans feel the same way. We've bled Cubbie Blue too long to ever change our pinstripes...no matter what. I know I'll stay both Cubbie Blue (and Democrat Blue) until I die. And I pray daily that Dolt 45 will be history before I am.

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  7. I think its called cutting off your nose to spite your face.

    Tom

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  8. With corporate dollars driving professional sports your ball park expenditures are certainly rewarding the political right if all moneys are included. I would be surprised if Republicans don't easily dominate the ownership ranks.

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