NOT SO CUDDLY
After latest series of blunders, Cubs becoming less lovable
It’s getting harder and harder to remember when the Cubs were fun.
When adoring fans waited to mingle with golly-gee chairman Tom Ricketts. When you had to stifle the urge to bounce adorable Addison Russell on your knee. When a World Series title, after more than a century of waiting, pointed to more championships ahead.
When baseball was the only thing that mattered.
Remember those more innocent times?
You can be forgiven if your memory is getting a little fuzzy. Since the 2016 season and the World Series party that threatened to never end, real life has intruded in all its ugliness. The Cubs no longer are the organization that sows fun. They’re the organization that defends itself.
The latest reminder, one that arrived like a hammer to the head, is a batch of emails from Joe Ricketts, the father of Tom Ricketts and the billionaire who helped his children buy the Cubs in 2009. The emails leaked by the website Splinter revealed racist views.
“Muslims are naturally my (our) enemy,” Joe Ricketts wrote in one of them.
Since the emails were made public, Tom Ricketts has tried to distance himself from Old Man Wing Nut, saying Joe Ricketts has nothing to do with the team. But when your dad basically bought the club for you, it’s like a dollar bill trying to distance itself from George Washington.
If it were just that one episode, you might be inclined to call it an unfortunate and isolated incident. But the Cubs have had a string of unpleasantries, starting with their 2016 decision to trade for closer Aroldis Chapman, whom Major League Baseball had suspended earlier that season for domestic violence. There was an initial public outcry, but it went away about as fast as Chapman threw his first pitch at Wrigley Field. What’s one choked girlfriend when there’s a World Series title beckoning?
Then came the Cubs’ decision this offseason to stand by Russell, the shortstop who was accused by his ex-wife of physical and mental abuse. The progressive franchise didn’t look so progressive anymore, try as it might to sell the idea that it had a responsibility to keep Russell and help him deal with his issues.