Meet the new boss

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Tom Ricketts talks about his family's new ownership of the Chicago Cubs baseball club during a news conference at Wrigley Field, on Friday, Oct. 30, 2009, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Jim Prisching)

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CHICAGO – Tom Ricketts and his family took ownership of the Chicago Cubs and wasted no time making a promise to the team’s long-suffering fans: They will bring a World Series title to a team that has gone 101 years without one.

“I’ll be honest. I think we have a team that can do it next year,” Tom Ricketts said Friday at a Wrigley Field news conference.

Cubs fan have heard that before. For the record, Ricketts doesn’t buy the talk of a curse that was put on the team at the 1945 World Series – the Cubs’ last appearance.

“There is no curse. There is no curse,” Ricketts said. “If anybody on our team thinks he’s cursed, we will move him to a lesser-cursed team.”

Ricketts said no shakeups were planned for a team that failed to make the playoffs for the first time in three years.

General manager Jim Hendry, whose contract runs through 2012, has earned the chance to lead the team into next season, Ricketts said. Crane Kenney, who was the team’s chairman, will stay as team president and be responsible for the business of the team.

And the new owner said he wants manager Lou Piniella to return next season, the final year of his four-year deal.

“Everyone was disappointed with the performance of the team in 2009,” Ricketts said. “Expectations were very high and they weren’t met. In the big picture, Jim has taken us to the playoffs three times in the past seven years after a team that only went three times in the previous 57 years.”

Ricketts wouldn’t comment on the future of outfielder Milton Bradley, who was suspended for the final two weeks of the season. Bradley has two years left on his contract for $21 million.

“It’s Jim’s decision,” Ricketts said.

The family of billionaire Joe Ricketts, the founder of Omaha, Neb.-based TD Ameritrade, this week closed the $845 million deal to buy a 95 percent controlling interest in the Cubs, Wrigley Field and 25 percent of Comcast SportsNet, which broadcasts a number of Cubs games. The Tribune Co. retains a 5 percent stake.

“It is a dream situation, a dream job. It’s the best franchise in sports,” Tom Ricketts said. “The good news is that even though it’s a dream job, it’s still a business.”

Ricketts, who met his wife in the Wrigley bleachers and once lived across the street from the ballpark, now runs the team he has cheered for since the 1980s.

“Everyone needs to know we are here for the long term and we are here to win,” Ricketts said.

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