Cubs statement on Joe Ricketts’ emails

Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts had the media in stitches three years ago when he was asked to respond to a provocative tweet by then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.

“It’s a little surreal when Donald Trump threatens your mom,” Ricketts cracked.

It was spring training in 2016, back when few believed Trump would become president or the Cubs could end their championship drought.

What had drawn Trump’s ire was a $3 million donation to an anti-trump group from Marlene Ricketts, the wife of family patriarch Joe Ricketts.

“I hear the Rickets (sic) family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $’s against me,” Trump tweeted. “They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!”

So what in the world did the Rickettses have to hide?

Tom told the curious media contingent at Sloan Park in Mesa, Ariz., he had no idea what Trump’s tweet implied, and insisted his mom, dad, sister and brothers were “pretty much an open book” with their beliefs.

“We stand up for what we believe in,” Tom said. “We support the causes that we think are important. That’s what America should be. That’s who we are.”

No problem. Everyone has the right to express his or her beliefs, and eventually Trump and some of the Rickettses made amends. After his election, Trump appointed Todd Ricketts to his cabinet as deputy secretary of com-

merce.

But on Monday we discovered some of the things Joe Ricketts believes in are undeniably racist after disturbing emails he wrote, responded to or shared were published online by Splinter News.

That’s not what America should be, but that’s apparently who he is.

While Joe Ricketts apologized in one statement and Tom Ricketts reminded Cubs fans his father “is not involved in the operation of the Chicago Cubs” in another, the damage was done. Now what? It’s going to be impossible for the Cubs to spin their way out of this nightmare. Tom Ricketts can’t totally disassociate the organization from the disturbing beliefs of the man whose fortune helped him and his three siblings – Pete (the governor

The Chicago Tribune / TNS Joe Ricketts, with wife Marlene, before the start of Game 5 of the World Series, between the Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians on Oct. 30, 2016 at Wrigley Field in Chicago.