Really no place for Ricketts family to go

As Tom Ricketts tries to figure out what to do with Wrigley Field, a good question is why his family bought the Cubs in the first place.

Naiveté comes to mind.

My sense all along was that sports-savvy men such as Mark Cuban and Jerry Colangelo dropped out of the bidding because $845 million for the team, ballpark and stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago was too much.

The belief seemed to be that Wrigley was a money pit that somebody would have to pay dearly to renovate. Apparently the Ricketts family figured it would be us.

Ballpark revenue streams weren't what, say, even Comiskey Park's are. Naming rights and other ads would be met with resistance. Ticket prices already are exorbitant.

The first window into any new Cubs owners had to be their view of the ballpark. Tom Ricketts' view, as expressed to four members of the Daily Herald's staff in October 2009, was sort of oh-golly-gee romantic.

“We think we can maintain competitiveness of the team without a Jumbotron and huge in-stadium signage,” Ricketts said.

So the Ricketts folks barged ahead, insistent at the time they closed on the deal that they intended to stay in Wrigley Field for the next 50 years.

Now they might have to whether or not they want to.

If the state, county and city want to play hardball which more ruthless businessmen than Ricketts learned they can improvements in the ballpark will have to be funded privately.

This could change, of course. This is Chicago, Cook County and Illinois. If the right people benefit financially, any mountain can be moved.

In the meantime, however, the Ricketts will be stuck.

There's no place to run, no place to hide. Cities that can support a major-league baseball team pretty much dwindled down to nothing. MLB discovered that while trying to find a home for the Expos.

Las Vegas was one of the prominent communities mentioned, but a high-level baseball executive told me at the time that Vegas didn't really qualify because there wouldn't be enough corporate support there.

So the Ricketts family can't do what White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf did back in the 1980s threaten to move his club to St. Petersburg.

Imagine what a disaster that would have been for Reinsdorf, considering the expansion Rays' problems down there now. And the Expos became the Nationals in Washington, a serial failed city in big-league baseball history.

There is no place left to even threaten to go, much less actually be dumb enough to leave Chicago for.

Even sharing our area with the White Sox, everyone knows, is preferable to anyplace else in the country.

There isn't a better market. There isn't a better bond between team and fans. There isn't a better opportunity to be profitable.

The only thing that might be better is a new ballpark here, there or anywhere, and the Ricketts family couldn't leave Wrigley now even if it wanted to.

So with no place to threaten to move, for now no public money to be had and no inclination to use family money to fix Wrigley Field …

Ricketts said in October 2009, “We do want to increase revenues, but only in the context of stadium improvements in the value of the experience of the game for the fans.”

That sounds like a romantic talking when he should have been pragmatic.

mimrem@dailyherald.com