New Ownership for the Cubs?

Now, of course, being early April, I had to check the date this was posted, but given the April 2nd posting date, I assume this is legit. The Chicago Tribune has in their paper today that they intend to sell the Chicago Cubs.

The article itself reads a little unclearly, but it appears Chicago billionaire Sam Zell, who owns a minority stake in the White Sox, convinced the Tribune, where he also owns a stake, to sell off the Cubs so he wouldn't have to sell his White Sox share.

For the most part, this doesn't really matter to me, but there is one scary part of this: Mark Cuban.

I think Mark Cuban is one of the best owners in American sports today and if any of the teams I was a strong fan of was struggling, would love to see Cuban come in the door of the owner's box to save the day, but Mark, don't go to my hated Cubs! That would break my heart to have to see a guy I root for so hard own a team I root against so hard.

Anyway, on to the opening night commentary now.

It seems like, watching that game last night, there were several critical moments and that most of the critical moments came when the Cardinals were at bat. The Mets had several 2 out base hits and were able to push across 6 runs, 5 against Carpenter. However, these were not the critical plays.

These are:

1) The failed sac-squeeze. The game was 2-0 at the time, and Carpenter's bunt, had it been even 4 feet further up the first base line, probably would have scored Kennedy from third and given the Cardinals some momentum. Instead, the Cardinals failed to score that inning and in the following inning, the Mets put up 3 more runs to make it 5-0.

2) This one is from the Monday-morning quarterback files, but Oquendo choosing to send Eckstein home with 1 out on a base hit by Wilson with Pujols coming to the plate. Obviously, this is a conversation we wouldn't be having if the throw was up the line by 4-5 feet, but since it was damn near a perfect throw to the plate, we are having this discussion. Even with the 5 runs, if these two runs scored, we're talking a 5-2 game, and maybe some momentum would carry in another run.

3) The double play in the 8th that Scott Rolen hit into. It was fairly hard hit, bases loaded, and if it squeaks through, we're talking 2 runs in with either men on 1st and 2nd or depending on where the throw goes, maybe even 2nd and 3rd. Again, this would have been a huge shift in momentum too.

There's 4 runs that the Cardinals basically threw away. Carpenter wasn't his sharpest, and seemed to be overthrowing in that 4th inning, but that doesn't concern me. The concerns for this team are going to be the middle of the lineup after Pujols and the rotation, sans Carpenter. Izzy is a secondary concern for me, because if the rotation can't hold up, Izzy's worth declines quite a bit, healthy or not.

Anyway, it was still awesome to see the banner go up. I almost actually put down the cash to buy tickets on eBay, but I couldn't see myself swinging $100 a ticket(erm, I mean, face value for tickets, plus an additional $100 or so to buy a baseball card valued at $1.50 in the price guides). Maybe if we hadn't just bought a new car and put ourselves in a whole new batch of debt, I could have justified it to myself.