By ANDREW SELIGMAN
AP Sports Writer
CHICAGO (AP) -- A billionaire family of Chicago Cubs fans - including one who first met his wife in the bleachers at Wrigley Field - is set to purchase the team and ballpark from Tribune Co.
The sale would include Wrigley Field and a 25 percent interest in a regional sports network, said Dennis Culloton, a spokesman for group head Tom Ricketts. Culloton said the deal was worth about $900 million.
"My family and I are Cubs fans," Ricketts said in a statement Thursday night. "We share the goal of Cubs fans everywhere to win a World Series and build the consistent championship tradition that the fans deserve."
The family, whose bid was picked from among three finalists, also said in the statement that it's looking forward to working with the Tribune and Major League Baseball to close the transaction promptly. Tribune Co. spokesman Gary Weitman declined comment.
The selection of Tom Ricketts, a member of the founding family of TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., and chief executive of InCapital LLC, was first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times' Web site.
Tribune Co. picks billionaire Ricketts to buy Cubs....
CHICAGO -- The Cubs can't make up for 100 years without a world championship just by winning the National League Central, but it's a start.
Alfonso Soriano drove in two runs and Ted Lilly executed a perfect suicide squeeze to lead the Cubs to a 5-4 victory Saturday over the St. Louis Cardinals and clinch the division for the second consecutive year. It was time to party in Wrigleyville.
Saturday's sunshine-splashed crowd of 41,597 pushed the season home total to a club record 3,259,649. And that's just a fraction of the championship-starved Cubs fans Lou Piniella has encountered in his second season in Chicago. He's tried to harness the expectations. Yes, this is the longest drought in professional sports, but Piniella wants the 2008 Cubs to be judged on what they've done this year, not carry the burden of what they haven't done in the last century.
Lilly (16-9) set a personal high for wins, giving up four runs, six hits, and two walks over seven innings. Carlos Marmol pitched the eighth, and Wood handled the ninth for his 32nd save.
The Cubs loaded the bases with one out in the second, ignited by Jim Edmonds' leadoff double, and one out later, Soriano hit a single off Joel Pineiro (6-7) that left fielder Brian Barton overran for an error, allowing all three runs to score.
Geovany Soto reached on an error by third baseman Troy Glaus in the fourth and scored on Mark DeRosa's double off the left-field wall to make it 4-0. DeRosa advanced on a groundout and scored on a suicide squeeze by Lilly.
But the Cardinals rallied with a four-run sixth, highlighted by Glaus' three-run homer, his 25th.
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Think of it: Mark Cuban as the Chicago Cubs’ owner, bonding with the Bleacher Bums at Wrigley Field, splurging for rounds of Old Style beer and screaming at umpires. The concept is almost Veeckian, as if Bill Veeck, the populist former owner of the Browns, the Indians and the White Sox, had had zillions of dollars.
Buying the Cubs is the latest project for Cuban, the owner of the N.B.A.’s Dallas Mavericks, but he is not alone in the expensive quest. Four other individuals and groups have given the debt-laden Tribune Company nonbinding offers of at least $1 billion for the team, its stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago, and 92-year-old Wrigley Field.
Cuban is reported to be the top bidder, at nearly $1.3 billion, but the auction will begin soon, after the applicants and their bankers delve further into the assets books.
Cuban Wants Cubs, but Will Baseball Want Him?....
Chicago, IL (Sports Network) - Nick Markakis and Luke Scott drove in two runs each for Baltimore, as the Orioles bested the Chicago Cubs, 7-5, in the opener of a three-game interleague set at Wrigley Field.
Markakis was 2-for-5 with a run scored and Scott added a triple, single and a run scored. Brian Roberts was 3-for-5 with two runs scored and a run batted in for Baltimore, which halted a two-game slide. George Sherrill got out of a bases-loaded jam with nobody out in the ninth with three straight strikeouts to earn his 26th save.
Jeremy Guthrie (4-7) tossed six effective innings, surrendering four runs on seven hits and a walk. Guthrie was mainly hurt by a three-run homer in the seventh and pitched well otherwise to earn the win. The hard-luck righthander has surrendered two earned runs or fewer in seven of his last 11 starts with only four wins to show for it.
Jim Edmonds connected for a three-run homer and Kosuke Fukudome was 2-for-5 with a home run and two runs scored. Aramis Ramirez added two hits, an RBI and a scored a run for Chicago, which ended both a three-game winning streak and the Cubs' 14-game winning streak at Wrigley Field, their longest such streak since June 4-July 10, 1936.
"These guys basically are ready to go," Cubs manager Lou Pinella said while addressing a letdown following the Cubs sweep of the White Sox. "The White Sox had nothing to do with this. Absolutely nothing. Baltimore came in here and played a good ballgame. Give them credit."
O's end Cubbies' 14-game home winning streak....
Mercury News Wire Services
Carlos Zambrano could not avoid the disabled list, even though he dodged a major injury. The Chicago Cubs placed their star pitcher on the 15-day D.L. because of a minor right-shoulder strain Saturday and expect him to miss two starts.
"There's nothing wrong," Zambrano said. "We just have to be careful, take some time, give it a rest, come back stronger."
Zambrano left Wednesday's game at Tampa Bay because of discomfort in the shoulder. He underwent an MRI arthrogram that revealed no major structural damage. Left-hander Sean Marshall is expected to be recalled before Tuesday's game against Baltimore to start in Zambrano's place.
Shoulder ache lands Zambrano on the D.L....
Cooperstown, NY (Sports Network) - Driving rain and thunderstorms at Doubleday Field forced the final Hall of Fame Game to be canceled on Monday, putting a melancholy end to a tradition more than 60 years old.
The Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres were scheduled to take part in the annual exhibition event, but the rains were too heavy and weather too severe to play.
It was slated to be the final Hall of Fame Game, as scheduling problems became more difficult in recent years.
MORE....
By Carrie Muskat / MLB.com
CHICAGO -- Wrigley Field is back on the market.
The Tribune Co. has rejected a no-tax proposal to purchase Wrigley Field by the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority (ISFA) -- which owns and operates the Chicago White Sox's home ballpark, U.S. Cellular Field -- according to former Illinois Gov. James Thompson.
Thompson, the ISFA's lead negotiator and chairman, said in a statement that the Tribune Co. believes the sale "requires either the transfer of future sales and amusement tax revenue from transactions at Wrigley Field for the next 30 years, or the imposition of new taxes, or the transfer of existing ISFA funds now pledged to projects at U.S. Cellular Field."
Thompson said that the ISFA could not agree to that, adding, "In our judgment, there are no votes in the City Council or in the Illinois General Assembly for transferred or new taxes for Wrigley Field."
FULL ARTICLE....
