Cubs, Yanks still worlds apart
The Yankees wear jerseys with pinstripes.
The Cubs wear T-shirts with goats.
And together the two teams have combined to win 27 World Series titles in the last century.
That pretty much sum it up?
Yes, according to Cubs owner Tom Ricketts, who insists that all is well in the world of Cubs baseball.
At least, that's what he says publicly, having given a vote of confidence to Crane Kenney, Jim Hendry, Mike Quade, every coach and player, the beer vendors and ticket takers.
Nothing to see here. Please move along.
In fairness to Ricketts, he had to say something. He chose to say he believes in all his guys because he's stuck with them, not to mention a payroll filled with bad players and even worse contracts.
Ricketts can't fire Hendry without firing Quade and a half dozen key front office employees.
Not only is there significant money tied up in all those men, but that's also their entire scouting system, which is what Ricketts believes will save the Cubs from insolvency and the world from communism.
So he says nice things and drives fans away in the process because he believes he has no choice.
Perhaps he doesn't. Even if he intends to fire everyone after the season — which I seriously doubt is the case — he can't very well say it now so he expresses confidence and generally sidesteps most questions.
Understandable. But Ricketts crosses the line into amateur hour with a strong helping of nonsense when he claims he doesn't need a baseball man as team president.
“I've never bought into the (idea) that I should have a baseball guy to watch my baseball guy and his baseball guys,” Ricketts said Wednesday night. “Then what do you get, a baseball guy to watch the baseball guy who's watching your baseball guys?”
That's a flippant oversimplification. It's insulting to Cubs fans and a different explanation than the one he gave on Opening Day, when he said the purchase of the team was so complicated that he hadn't had time during the years of waiting to consider cleaning house prior to ownership.
But no one ever suggested Ricketts get a baseball guy to watch the baseball guy who's watching his baseball guys.
Ricketts is right. That's complete baseball ignorance.
The reason you get a “baseball guy,'' Mr. Ricketts, is to run your “baseball team.”
For review now, that's a baseball guy for a baseball team.
The team president runs the operation and hires a GM, who builds a farm system and hires scouts, then hires a manager who hires a coaching staff, and so on and so forth.
If Ricketts really didn't have time while buying the team, in three seconds I would have gladly given him a few names, starting with Pat Gillick, Paul Beeston and John Schuerholz.
Instead, Kenney is in charge and does what he pleases, while Hendry answers to a guy with zero baseball knowledge, yet has input on baseball decisions.
Whether you like Hendry or not, that's just plain nuts and a recipe for disaster.
Cubs fans have been through generations of bad ownership, and the hope was that this would be different.
Eventually, maybe it will be.
But for the time being you're reduced to watching a minor-league team, as Carlos Zambrano called it, with a manager whose postgame news conferences are something right out of SCTV.
So either Ricketts has gone round the bend — and really believes he doesn't need a baseball guy to run his baseball team — or he thinks Cubs fans are dim enough to believe this gibberish.
So there's your Chicago Cubs, with their Des Moines-level team and Des Moines-style manager, 12 games under .500 with the second-worst record in the National League.
Meanwhile, the Yankees are the Yankees, 11 games over with the second best record in the American League, and a World Series-winning manager in Joe Girardi.
This weekend's series is cute and will garner much attention because it brings together two teams that have been playing baseball for a very long time.
But for all the commotion this will cause, the reality is that's about all they have in common.
brozner@dailyherald.com
Ÿ Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's “Hit and Run” show at WSCR 670-AM.