Cubs Sale: the Tribune’s stewardship of the Cubs
As Cub fans, it is our instinct to look ahead. So with Tom Ricketts and his family taking control of the club, it is easy to look ahead to what we hope will be better days for the Northsiders. The reality is none of us have a crystal ball, so that is nothing but hope. I actually want to pause for a minute and take a look back at the Tribune’s ownership of the Chicago Cubs.
In 1981, when the Tribune Company took control of the Chicago Cubs, I was 9 years old. Growing up in a family of Northside fans I could sense the excitement in both my grandfather and father as they discussed the deal. “The Cubs were just a hobby to the Wrigley’s,” I remember hearing them say. Things were going to be different under Tribune ownership! That they were.
Through the years I have spoken to different people about the excitement that surrounded the Cubs when the sale to the Tribune Company was completed. I have come to realize that my family was not alone with our ‘big expectations’ for Trib ownership of the Cubs. As a corporation they would have more money at their disposal to compete for free agents. All star pitchers like Bruce Sutter who had left after 1980, to go to the hated Cardinals of all teams, would have stayed if the Trib had been in control. Right? Those were the feelings and emotions that we had at that time.
Before the 1982 season, Dallas Green came to the organization and immediately cut ties with most of the Cubs past including several members of the famed 1969 Cub teams. The Cubs even came up with a catching slogan under Green: “Building a New Tradition”. The franchise Green took over was in a sad state. Green scrapped the whole thing and started over from scratch(something I will always admire). Green built up probably the best baseball operation this franchise had under Tribune ownership. Daily Herald sports columnist Barry Rozner described the Green era back in an April 2007 column:
Dallas Green was the right man for the job when he was hired to rebuild a decrepit organization in 1982.
Oh yeah. Let’s not forget that the previous owner, the Wrigley family, had run the franchise into the ground.
The Tribune Co. picked it up and hired Green, who was rebuilding the Cubs from the ground up, while unearthing a division title in 1984.
To this day, Green is the only president or GM in 25 years who was willing to rip it apart and start over, but he also had an owner willing to allow it.
Green’s work with scouting director Gordy Goldsberry put the Cubs back on the map, and led to another division crown in 1989, though Green wasn’t around to see it.
The Green era saw a bunch of trades early on. One that Cub fans will always remember is the Ivan Dejesus deal that brought the Cubs SS Larry Bowa and a minor league infielder named Ryne Sandberg. Sandberg would turn out to be the player that the Cubs were built and marketed around for the next 15 seasons. Sandberg would be the Cubs most identifiable player since Ernie Banks, Ron Santo and Billy Williams. To a generation of fans now in in their 30’s and 40’s Sandberg is the most celebrated Cubs player of their youth.
Under Green the Cubs would have the team that brought the most hope to Cub fans since 1969. The 1984 Chicago Cubs would be the first Cub team to win any sort of title since 1945.
The ‘84 club was led by NL MVP Ryne Sandberg and a mid season trade brought the Cubs Cy Young Award Winner Rick Sutcliffe. The Cubs were the darlings of the baseball world. Sandberg would have his coming out party on the NBC Saturday afternoon game of the week hitting two game tying homeruns off Cardinal closer Bruce Sutter. It was a summer of love like no others on the northside.
Come September, Chicago was looking for a party. WGN even brought back Jack Brickhouse to cover the lockerroom celebration in Pittsburgh. the Cubs clinched in Pittsburgh and the best was surely to come in the NLCS and the World Series.
The 1984 Cubs were a team that was destined to go down in the history books. Unfortunately it would be for blowing a 2-0 NLCS series lead to the San Diego Padres.
In 1985 the Cubs fell to a wrath of injuries. By 1986, much of the 1984 team was aging and no longer contributing. Green had a minor league system that would turn out to be just a few seasons away. He added Andre Dawson who won the MVP in 1987, but the team finished 18-1/2 games out of first. That’s when all hell broke loose. Barry Rozner describes:
After 1987, Green had decided to manage the team himself, but Tribune boss John Madigan said Green could only do that if he gave up his other titles and went to work for new president Don Grenesko.
Green decided it better to stay as president/GM, and hire as manager John Vukovich, who flew in for a meeting with Madigan.
That went well, so a press conference was called and media informed.
But Madigan suddenly showed up at Wrigley Field, told Green his only choice was to manage or be fired, and Green chose the latter.
To an extent, you can blame Tribune Co. interference, but only to the extent that Madigan was in charge of the team.
He was the decision-maker making a bad decision. Doesn’t matter if he owned the team himself (like George Steinbrenner), with a group (like Jerry Reinsdorf) or in a corporate setting (like the Tribune Co).
They all are capable of good or bad decisions. In this case, Madigan was in charge and he made a bad call, after making some good ones.
It would be seven years before that single act could be corrected, though the Cubs never truly recovered after Oct. 29, 1987.
To this day I wonder how things might have been different if the Cubs had been able to keep Green atop the organization. I remember listening to that news conference on WGN radio. If Green had this good young minor league system in place why was he leaving? As a kid I didn’t understand the politics of corporate structure (honestly I still don’t today). Looking back on that day now I really think the Tribsters decided they would not allow a baseball figure with Green’s ego run the club ever again on their watch. Green was not a corporate guy. In a corporation like the Tribune that’s what you needed to be.
Don Grenesko, Jim Frey and Don Zimmer would be the beneficiaries of Green’s minor league system. In 1988 you could see the young Cubs, with the names of Maddux, Moyer, Palmeiro and Grace, were going to be special. Mix these guys in with veterans Dawson, Sandberg, Dunston, and Sutcliffe. Something special was about to take place. What happened was 1989. Jim Frey turned Moyer and Palmeiro into Mitch Williams, Paul Kilgus and Curt Wilkerson in a deal that I still think was crazy…but in 1989 that deal won the Cubs the NL East.1989 is my fondest memory of the Tribune years. A scrappy team playing under a manager nicknamed Popeye. These guys probably got more out of less than any Cub team I remember. “Baseball magic” was flowing on the Northside in 1989. Unlike 2003 and 1984 I don’t look back on 1989 with “shoulda, woulda, and coulda’s” I believe the 1989 Cubs got as far as they possibly could (losing the NLCS in 5 to the SF Giants).After 1989 it was a fall back downhill for the Cubs. Barry Rozner details the fallout between Grenesko, Frey and Zimmer in 1991:
In early May 1991, I wrote a story wondering when Zimmer would get a new contract for the following year, quoting Grenesko as saying Zimmer would be evaluated at the end of the season.
Zimmer responded by telling Grenesko _ in so many words _ that he could stick his evaluation. Zimmer insisted he be evaluated by June 1 or he would manage the rest of the season and never return.A few days later, Grenesko fired Zimmer. One decision-maker making a bad decision, not a corporate decision.Grenesko had done some things well, but this was a baseball decision and he should have left those to Frey.It set off a devastating chain reaction.
At the end of the season, Jim Essian, who replaced Zimmer, was fired, along with Frey and Grenesko, who was kicked back upstairs.
Only Zimmer ever again worked a meaningful job in baseball, though his managing days were over.
Careers were ruined and lives eternally altered.
I was fortunate enough to be in college by this point. So my life was being altered by things besides baseball. Due to the fact that the early 90’s were my “Madison years” I don’t recall really how bad the Larry Himes era actually was. I do remember he traded George Bell for a skinny White Sox outfielder that had a bunch of speed. That may have been the only good move he ever made for the Cubs. Himes botched the negotiations with Greg Maddux, who left for Atlanta. He also allowed popular aging players Rick Sutcliffe and Andre Dawson move onto other clubs. But the real kick to the groin of all Cub fans during the Himes era would come in 1994 when Ryne Sandberg retired mid-season.
The low point of the 1994 season came in June, when perennial All-Star second baseman Ryne Sandberg, now a member of the Hall of Fame, abruptly announced his retirement. Sandberg had slumped the first two months of 1994, and days after announcing his retirement, his wife filed for divorce. Still, Sandberg cited Himes’ draconian clubhouse rules and management style as one of
the reasons for his departure in his autobiography ‘Second to Home,’ co-authored
by Barry Rozner.
I’m glad I missed most of the Himes years. As Rozner says:
The Cubs had hit rock bottom — again.
What happened next by all accounts was the Tribune trying to go out and get a “Baseball Man” to run the team as they had done with Dallas Green. The Tribsters brought in Andy MacPhail who had the track record–two World Series Championships in Minnesota (1987 & 1991)–and the lineage–grandfather Larry MacPhail and father Lee MacPhail. Still with all of that, MacPhail could not find the success for the Cubs that we expected.
Andy MacPhail’s first move with the Cubs would be to let Himes go scout. He put up-and-coming baseball executive and former Cub Ed Lynch in the General Managers role. Lynch would hire Padres skipper Jim Riggleman to run the club. Finally, the Cubs seemed to be past the Himes era and moving in a positive direction. In 1995 the Cubs stayed in the wild card race until the last weekend of the season. They wouldn’t have enough to capture the wild card, but the fans were energized and so were the players. The Cubs were poised to get better. Ryne Sandberg felt the energy and he returned for the 1996 season. It wouldn’t matter. The Cubs wouldn’t contend again until after Sandberg had retired for good following 1997.
The start of the 1997 season may have been the low point of the Cubs under Tribune ownership. The team started the season 0-14. They were essentially out of the race two weeks into the seas
on.
The end of 1997 would see the last games played by Sandberg and the last game broadcast by Harry Caray. Both had come to the Cubs in 1982. Before Harry and Ryno the Cubs had never drawn 2 million people. During the seasons they were with the club the Cubs would draw 2 million — 11 times (and since they both left attendance has not looked back.) Much of the credit for this has to go to marketing genius John McDonough. It was McDonough who realized he couldn’t control the outcomes on the field. He began marketing the Wrigley experience. There was no better pitchman than Caray.Harry sold beautiful Wrigley Field to fans all over the country on superstation WGN.
The 1998 season would be a memorable one for Cubs fans. A 20 year old pitching phenom from Texas showed up and in his sixth big league start he turned baseball on it’s ear, fanning 20, tying the major league record for K’s in a ballgame. On the offensive side of things Sammy Sosa was all juiced up and enjoyed an offensive season the Cubs had not seen since the days of Hack Wilson. The Wrigley Field atmosphere was electric. It was never more magical than game 163 when Jim Riggleman’s ballclub behind Steve Trachsel and Rod Beck beat Dusty Baker’s Giants to send the Cubs to the NLDS against the Braves. The Cubs were swept out of the tournament by the Atlanta Braves. The Cubs were now 0 for 3 in the playoffs under the Tribsters.
By the end of 1999 it was time for another change. Jim Riggleman was canned and Don Baylor brought in to be a hard ass in the Cubs clubhouse. Baylor’s team struggled in 2000. They looked to have things turned around in 2001. With Sammy Sosa en route to another monumental season, the team collapsed down the stretch they ended up finishing third. By mid-2002 Baylor was gone and Bruce Kimm was named the interim skipper. By the end of the season Ed Lynch was also out as GM. He would be replaced by Andy MacPhail for the remainder of the season. At the end of 2002 Andy would turn the reigns over to Jim Hendry. Hendry, who had managed at Creighton had oversaw the development of the Cubs minor league system into one that was highly touted by Baseball America, would be the final general manager under Tribune management.
The 2002 season would end with the Cubs in fifth place.
As Cub fans we had no idea what 2003 would be. The Cubs had a new skipper, Dusty Baker who had just led the Giants to there first NL Pennant since 1989. Dusty brought an arrogance to the Cubs that had been missing. It helped that he had pitchers Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Matt Clement, and a young Carlos Zambrano. This would be the pitching staff that would be to the NL what the Braves were in the 1990’s. More on those plans later. The 2003 Cubs would take the fans on a journey that would have you thinking 1984 all over again. Behind Prior and Wood the Cubs knocked the vaunted Atlanta Braves out of the first round and they had taken a 3-1 lead on the Wildcard Florida Marlins in the NLCS.
Just like 1984, the Cubs were beaten three straight times. What was even more crushing is the final two games were at Wrigley Field with Prior and Wood on the mound. Game 6 of that series was the most crushing. Five outs aways from the series, a foul ball down the leftfield line bounded off the hands of an innocent Cub fan reaching for the ball. Mo Alou and Prior responded with anger. The Marlins “made the kid famous”, putting up an 8 spot that inning. The next night the outcome seemed to be decided before a pitch was thrown. The Cubs blew another playoff series and Cub fandom had changed forever.
2004 promised to be just as much fun if not more than 2003. The Cubs were gonna get the job done. They had added Derrek Lee and Michael Barrett to their offense. On the eve of spring training the old RHP Greg Maddux signed a three year deal with the club to be the teams fifth starter behind Wood, Prior, Zambrano and Clement. The team had five aces! Unfortunately the stress that Dusty Baker had put on the arms of Wood and Prior caught up to him in 2004. Combined Wood and Prior would only win 14 games in 2004. But the Cubs actually won 89 games that season (Maddux and Z leading the way with 16 each). The last week of the season everything came to a head the Cubs blew their NL Wildcard lead losing games to the Mets in New York and the lowly Cincinnati Reds. By the last weekend of the season the bigger story was off the fielder where television analyst Steve Stone was in a feud with several Cub players and Dusty Baker. When the dust settled the Cubs had blown the NL Wildcard and the popular Steve Stone along with play-by-play mand Chip Caray were out as broadcasters. Dusty had survived, but his reign was now in question.
Over the next two seasons the call for Baker’s head became deafening. The Cubs played very poorly in 2005 and 2006. They were not helped at all by the continuous line of injuries to Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. The Wrigley Field faithful began to get restless. I said earlier that 2003 changed Cub fans and I really believe that. Gone were the ‘lovable losers’. Now fans paid big bucks for tickets to the game, including to a Cubs owned ticket broker Premium Tickets, they expected more from the club. Thus players began to here more boo birds than they ever had before. Dusty Baker began to here them every time he would take the field. By the end of 2006 the no-shows had started to pile up. Cub fans were becoming indifferent to the franchise. On the last day of the year a big change was made. Andy MacPhail was out as team President. MacPhail was immediately replaced by Cub marketing guru John McDonough.
McDonough told the fans the time to win the World Series was now. General Manager Jim Hendry went on a spending spree for the ages spending $300 million + most of the money backloaded on free agents Ted Lilly, Jason Marquis, Mark DeRosa, Alfonso Soriano, and hiring manager Lou Piniella.
NOTE: This is where the story is supposed to end, but selling the Cubs proved to be just as difficult for the Tribune as putting a champion on the field.Originally Zell had planned to sell the Cubs in the 07-08 offseason, but that didn’t happen.
2008 marked the 100th anniversary of the last time the Cubs won it all. From the start of the season to the end of the regular season the Chicago Cubs were the class of the National League. The offense led by Lee, Ramirez, Soto, DeRosa and Soriano was one of the best in the league. The pitching staff was great to led by Ryan Dempster, Ted Lilly and Carlos Zambrano. Zambrano would cast his name in Cubs lore in September when he pitched a no-hitter in Milwaukee against the Houston Astros. The playoffs again were a failure. The Cubs would be out in the NLDS, losing three straight to Dodgers.
2009 would be the Tribune’s final season owning the Cubs. By most accounts at this point many of the problems surrounding Tribune Company and Zell had caused the Tribune to be an absentee baseball owner. The sale of the team to the Ricketts family was supposed to be completed before the season, then during the season and finally after the season. On the field things didn’t go as well for Lou Piniella and the boys as they finished in second place behind the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cubs did finish with a winning record though (83-78), it marked the first time and only time a Cubs team would have three consecutive winnings seasons under Tribune ownership.
I think Barry Rozner summed up the Trib’s ownership best earlier this year when he wrote:
To say that the Tribune Co. was a bad owner would be at best an oversimplification, and at worst, simply wrong.
For the most part, the people involved were excellent caretakers.
Mother Tribune – as it was known in baseball circles – spent millions upon millions each year to keep Wrigley Field from falling down, and the ownership was a major upgrade from the Wrigley family stewardship.
That is probably fair, the legacy of Tribune owning the Cubs will be that they kept the Cubs in Wrigley Field and kept them available to fans on WGN radio and WGN tv. The Cubs popularity exploded under Tribune ownership thanks to Caray, Sandberg, Sosa, Dawson, Wood, 6 playoff appearances, and John McDonough’s brilliant marketing of the Wrigley Field experience.
Ironically on the field, the best stretch ends up being the last few years of Tribune ownership. At least for me, that’s kind of hard to swallow. When the clock started ticking on the sale of the club they spent like mad and tried to get it done, the club just came up short. It makes me wonder what might have been had the Tribsters owned this club with the same urgency they had in 2007 and 2008 throughout their stewardship of the franchise.
wpbc
jackfsu
jeremyt32
[...] Cubs Sale: the Tribune’s stewardship of the Cubs … [...]
Chicago Cubs All News
October 27, 2009 at 1:09 pm
A sense of urgency is a dangerous thing for a baseball team. Urgency is what led to signing Soriano to one of the worst contracts in baseball. Urgency is what led to a desperate need to get “more left-handed” instead of just finely tuning a 97 win ballclub.
Urgency leads to decisions that almost always come back to bite you in the ass in the end. Measured patience and a willingness to take a FEW risks to put a team over the top when the opportunity presents itself is the way I would prefer to see my team run, and the way I hope the Ricketts’ decide topreside over the Cubs.
Building steadily from within and supplementing a strong system with a couple hired guns from the outside that we can afford with revenues through the roof. Spendin’ Jim Hendry tried to build a team of mercenaries, and when he made some errors, it was too costly to correct and now the window is about to close, but the wallet will be paying for the next couple of years.
There’s nothing for us to do but watch and hope and pray that they don’t continue down the mercenary road.
Aisle 424
October 27, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Measured patience for some reason makes me think of Andy MacPhail. LOL.
Urgency is dangerous as you outline above. Still it seemed to be the best the Tribsters were as owners when they knew the clock was ticking. I still take the results of Hendry’s efforts 424. I think the Cubs were a really really good team in 2008. Best team in the NL. I know the playoffs pissed everybody off, but they took a real good shot.
Now that window is closing and we’ll probably pay for 07 and 08 for a few more years. I’m actually okay with that. The Cubs will have a chance to continue to build their system as you outline above.
The system has replenished a bit over the past season. Castro, Vitters, Gaub, Carpenter, Cashner, Jackson. There is more talent in the system than a few years ago. Now do the Cubs wait for that talent to hit Clark and Addison or do they use it to make trades to change the current team. That’s up to the baseball folks.
wpbc
October 27, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Urgency is not dangerous. Desperation is. Desperation is what signed Soriano. Urgency is what signed Greg Maddux and traded for Derrek Lee.
Nice work, CCD. Did you start writing this back in 2007?
Chuck
October 27, 2009 at 3:39 pm
I wish I had time to discuss, but I’ll leave it at this: very nice post, CCD. Thanks for pulling this together.
Uncle Dave
October 27, 2009 at 3:39 pm
LOL. I did. For a now defunct site.
If a link or two doesn’t work and if it’s not formatted right in spots that is why.
wpbc
October 27, 2009 at 4:23 pm
424, the Cubs did take just a few risks. The Soriano contract was a risk. It paid off in 2007 and 2008. The club knew it would be ugly in the latter years, but they were trying to improve a 66-win team.
Getting more left-handed isn’t a risk. It’s what all teams try to do. the fact the 2008 Cubs were one of the most imbalanced teams in playoff history is proof of that. The fact that few teams as right-handed as that 2008 team even make the playoffs is the reason why teams try to get balanced. That wasn’t a risk. That was common sense in my opinion and it’s a problem this team is going to have going forward since they are so intent on trading one of their best players for pennies on the dollar. Balance is why teams have LOOGY’s. It’s why teams have left-handed and right-handed bench players or use platoon players.
There was no risk taken here. It was merely an attempt to improve a ballclub that needed more balance. Jim Hendry actually did improve the team, which was really impressive. Last offseason was the best offseason he’s ever had and I only hope he continues to be as methodical as he was last year. it didn’t work out and that’s proof it failed to some, but that’s crazy talk. The 2009 team that took the field on Opening Day was the most talented Cubs team any of us have ever seen.
Unfortunately it appears after taking a giant step forward that those who run this organization are primed to take 2 steps back. That’s too bad. Teams as talented as the Cubs are or can be at this moment take a long to rebuild after teams take steps back. That’s what we’ll see if Hendry and Lou think 2009’s performance was more valuable than it was. It was a matter of luck and that’s hard for fans to accept, but a true 81-win team will win between 65 and 97 games just by luck alone.
Jim Hendry needs to do exactly what he did last offseason, but he knows that he’ll lose his job if he does that. That’s really too bad for the Cubs and their fans. I guess the only good thing about all of this is that the fanbase won’t be so angry now that the team has fewer good players. For some reason Cubs fans just don’t like good players. This is a team that will have to find ways to win with Ryan Theriot’s and Mike Fontenot’s or the fanbase becomes intolerable.
What really sucks is that Hendry or Ricketts is letting the fans run this team. They’re letting the fans decide who goes and who stays. 2 steps back? it’s more like 25. I have no doubt that this organization is fucked for a very long time. Ramirez, Lee and Lilly are all gone after 2010. It’s sad, but 2010 may be the last time for a decade that the Cubs have a chance to finish .500 or above.
MB21
October 27, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I’ll agree that desperation is probably a better word to use, but they took risks all over the place. Every long-term major free agent signing is a major risk. Zambrano, Lee, Ramirez, Dempster, Lilly, Soriano – practically the entire team – were signed based on past performance and a huge risk that future performance would follow and/or improve.
You bottle up money and roster flexibility on hired guns. When something goes bad, it gets to the point where there are no resources left to fix it.
The Cubs could have been in on the Halladay and/or Holliday trade talk. Even if they don’t land him, they might scare the Cardinals away from depleting their farm system on a rental. The Cards pulled the trigger because they KNEW the Cubs couldn’t counter with their own deal, like they countered Milwaukee trading for Sabathia by acquiring Harden.
The team has no flexibility at all. You can’t send a guy to the minors, you can’t trade them because of the no-trades, and you have no money to make an acquisition. The entire team was built on risk, and when it all came apart, there was nothing anyone could do but watch it collapse and try to make the best out of what is left.
Aisle 424
October 28, 2009 at 11:58 am
424, most good teams take risks in signing players to long-term deals. Good players command long-term deals so if you want good players you have to give them out. The only contract worthy of much scorn that Hendry has given out in his time has been Soriano. That was a bad contract and we knew it at the time, but Hendry went after the best player available that offseason and got him. Zambrano was paid in line with what his projected performance over this 5 years would be. Same with Dempster, Lilly, Lee, Ramirez and all the other ones. If long-term contracts worth a lot of money are risky, then why does everybody want the Cubs to operate more like the Yankees? Money wins in this game. Hendry has given out good contracts in his tenure as GM and has often gotten players to return for slightly less than they’d have gotten on the free agent market.
Having no money is an excuse. The Cubs have the money. Don’t buy into the crap the organization is selling about being short on cash. They aren’t. Neither is Ricketts. If they want to spend money they can. Having a large payroll and then “being forced” to keep it the same would be the same for every team that had to keep their payroll the same unless the team had a lot of players entering free agency. This isn’t unusual.
The cubs couldn’t have been in on the Halladay talks because they didn’t have the prospects to get him (same with Holliday). I think you’re complaining about a lot of things that aren’t very reasonable to complain about.
Do you want the Cubs to be like the Florida Marlins and have a low payroll (low risk) or do you want them to be as much like the Yankees as they can be?
The Cubs are in the position they are in only because ownership is forcing it on Hendry. There’s no reason whatsoever to not spend money this offseason with the money coming off the books at the end of 2010 and 2011. Not spending money right now is a clear sign that Ricketts has little or no interest in winning baseball games and primarily cares (at least for the next 30 years) about making money.
I don’t care how anybody tries to color this. That’s what is going on here. You could increase payroll $25 million and be the easy favorites in the NL and then blow the team up if you actually have to save money. Why isn’t Ricketts doing that? Because he wants people to buy tickets every year and he doesn’t care about winning. It could not be simpler than that.
This is the exact same thing as the Tribune with the added bonus of a bunch of stupid-ass shenanigans going on with the media that makes the Cubs organization look more worthless than it has in 100 years. Cubs fans should be fucking pissed off right now. Unfortunately very few of them are. I read a bunch of articles in the MSM yesterday about how brighter times are ahead. These people are only trying to convince themselves (no disrespect, ccd).
It’s simple. Increase payroll or lose for at least a decade. it appears Ricketts has chosen option b. Fuck him.
MB21
October 28, 2009 at 4:57 pm