So long Tribune Company, hello Ricketts family
By PAUL SULLIVAN
Chicago Tribune
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| Arizona Diamondbacks' catcher Miguel Montero, left, tags out Chicago Cubs' Sam Fuld during a rundown between home plate and third base in the third inning of a baseball game at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009. Arizona won 5-2. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty) |
CHICAGO – The Tribune Co. era ended as it began Sunday – with the Cubs falling well short of their goal of ending their title drought.
After 28 seasons, five division titles, six postseason appearances and no World Series, the keys will be handed to the Ricketts family in hopes that fresh blood can re-energize a staid franchise.
Before the Cubs lost 5-2 to the Diamondbacks on Sunday to finish 7 1/2 games behind the Cardinals in the NL Central with an 83-78 record, general manager Jim Hendry called the season “disappointing, but not disastrous.”
That’s debatable. From Opening Day to Carlos Zambrano’s antics to Milton Bradley’s suspension to the firing of hitting coach Von Joshua after Sunday’s game, the Cubs were a roller coaster of controversy.
“What’s been a little bit different is a club of this magnitude being for sale for 2 1/2 years through a couple of different transitions,” Hendry said. “The old Tribune selling out to Sam Zell and, obviously, the latest transaction taking a long, long time.
“We don’t make excuses around here. We had a very high payroll for a couple of years, but the last eight, nine months has been a little different than the first couple of years. It was obviously in total transition, and then we went through the company having their bankruptcy issues that probably did affect the way the sale was done. We’re just glad to have finally an end to it.”
The mantra repeated by Lou Piniella over the last month has been that injuries crippled the Cubs’ chances of making the postseason for a third straight season.
While injuries were a big part of the reason the Cubs failed to live up to expectations, several other factors contributed, including a collective lack of clutch hitting, poor fundamentals, a closer who served up home runs like gum balls and bad personnel decisions.
“There’s no excuses,” Derrek Lee said. “Other teams had injuries. Overall we just didn’t play up to our standards.”
Neither Hendry nor Piniella had a particularly good year. Acquisitions such as Bradley, Kevin Gregg and Aaron Miles didn’t work, while Piniella’s reluctance to move Alfonso Soriano down in the lineup or remove Gregg from the closer’s role proved costly.
Hendry said he feels no added pressure to turn things around quickly, while Piniella called 2010 an “important” year.
“Next year we need to re-establish ourselves,” Piniella said. “The injuries we’ve had here this year, for the amount of time we’ve had them to the key people (who have) had them, I’ll tell you, finishing second with an above-.500 record is not anything to really be embarrassed about.
“A lot of expectations coming out of spring training, and they just didn’t materialize. This thing here could have been a lot worse than where it’s at, believe me.”
