BOOS AND DON’TS
Ricketts got jeered because of Cubs’ inaction
If the attitude of Cubs ownership could be summed up in a sentence, it would be: After all we’ve done for you, this is the thanks we get.
You could feel it Friday in chairman Tom Ricketts’ comments to fans about the team’s controversial new TV network.
“Our promise for the next 10 years is to continue to have the best relationship with our fans of any professional sports team in the world,’’ he said at the Cubs Convention. “And that starts with the Marquee network.’’
That’s when boos started raining on the owner in earnest.
“What do you have against the Marquee network?’’ Ricketts said. “Believe me, you won’t be booing about that in a year.’’
Of course, “boo’’ is in the ear of the hearer. Ricketts said in an interview with The Score the next day that “I’m not sure I was being booed.’’ He said fans were voicing their displeasure that no deal had been reached with Comcast to carry the team’s new Marquee Sports Network.
Well, partly. But they’re also mad about Ricketts’ super-glued checkbook. They’re upset a team that didn’t make the playoffs last season has added no one of note through trade or free agency. They’re upset that the Cubs are willing to send third baseman Kris Bryant, the 2016 National League MVP, to the highest bidder. Perhaps some are upset that first baseman Anthony Rizzo, the Cubs’ most consistently excellent player, can’t get a contract extension. They’re definitely upset that the fantastically rich Cubs don’t want to go over the luxury tax for a second consecutive year.
They’re upset about a number of things that have nothing to do with paying to watch Cubs games on TV.
Ricketts brought a World Series title to the North Side, something that hadn’t been done in 108 years, and that accomplishment is the unstated message in everything he has done (and not done) in the last three years. When the Cubs won the title in 2016, the team’s business department rubbed its collective hands together and said, “Now it’s our turn.’’ Anything that had space for a price tag got one. Anything that already had a price tag got a new one. When the money grab reached a feverish pace, ownership viewed the grumbling from fans as the height of ingratitude.
After all we’ve done for you, this is how you treat us.
This is what a disconnect from reality looks like.
Winning a championship isn’t a lifetime free pass, even if it was the formerly woeful Cubs doing the winning. Just because fans had their hearts ripped out 100 times before their love was finally requited doesn’t mean they’ve lost the ability to discern.
That’s how Friday happened. To fully appreciate the unpleasant reception Ricketts received, to truly feel fans’ anger, you have to understand the sugar content of the typical Cubs Convention. If you’re ever in search of happy people, if you feel that a goodly amount of uplifting will improve your attitude while potentially lowering your bad cholesterol level, you can’t do better than the convention.
In one area of the Sheraton Grand Chicago, fans lined up Friday to get their tickets for a meet and greet with new Cubs manager David Ross and three players of their choosing. Each ticket cost $300. That’s a lot of love.
So this wasn’t exactly an atmosphere ripe for revolt. You would have had to do something — or a few somethings — to tick off this fun-loving, Javy Baez-seeking crowd. The Cubs did.
And Ricketts took the stage. He calls himself the most accessible owner in sports, which means, by his narrow definition, that he walks around Wrigley Field before games, signing autographs for those fans who get faint at the slightest whiff of celebrity. But accessibility, as it pertains to professional sports, means making yourself available to reporters who might ask questions you don’t want to answer. In that regard, Ricketts is about as accessible as a private polo club.
You’ll get what the Cubs give you. No, check that. You’ll get what the Cubs gave you in 2016. And you’ll pay to like it.