Pick a Side

            Forced to choose between millionaire ballplayers and billionaire owners along with their lackeys, fans can’t help but to side with the players.  What choice do we have?

 

            Take owner Tom Ricketts of the Cubs (please).  Over the past few months, the Cubs’ chairman has shown himself to be deaf—he claims he couldn’t hear boos directed his way at last month’s fans convention—and dumb in ever so many ways, as when he said in December, “We probably missed our [Wrigley Field renovation] budget by around one-hundred percent.”  A less-than-positive response had Ricketts claiming he was “kind of” kidding.

 

            And in case anyone out there hasn’t gotten sick of Ricketts doing his poormouth routine, he was at it again yesterday talking to reporters in Arizona.  “The fact is, it’s not really about how much you spend,” Ricketts was quoted in today’s Tribune.  “It’s about where you spend it and getting the right guys on board.”  Along those lines, maybe Ricketts would like to explain why bleacherreport.com ranks the Cubs’ minor-league system 26^th out of 30 and whether Daniel Descalso or Brandon Morrow or Tyler Chatwood fits into that “right guys” category.    

 

            And in case anyone out there wants an update on negotiations between Comcast and the Cubs’ new Marquee network, chill.  “I think that in the end everyone will do what’s right for the actual customers,” Ricketts said in today’s Sun-Times.  Gosh, I wonder if I qualify as an actual customer.  I mean, I have Comcast and don’t want to be stuck paying for Marquee.  What do I do, Tom?

 

            There must be an owner or two free of jerk tendencies. I just can’t name them, and I definitely wouldn’t put Ricketts in that category.  He’s just a rich guy forever thinking rich-guy ideas.  Put all those rich guys in a room, and you end up with them voting for Rob Manfred as commissioner.  If only one of the rich guys could be bothered to tell their lackey to shut up.

 

            Manfred added yet another tone-deaf remark in defense of his handling of the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal.  The commissioner doesn’t intend to strip Houston of its title.  “The idea of an asterisk or asking for a piece of metal back seems like a futile act,” Manfred was quoted in an AP story today.

 

            Let’s see.  If the World’s Series trophy is a piece of metal, then World Series ratings are just numbers on a piece of paper, right, and merchandising agreements so many words spread on yet more paper, yes?  If there’s a difference, I don’t see it.

           

            In that same AP story, Dodgers’ third baseman Justin Turner said the “only thing devaluing that trophy is that it says ‘commissioner’ on it.”  Amen, brother.