Curse, schmurse: New Cubs owner vows to win series

CHICAGO (AP)—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 without hesitation Friday at a Wrigley Field news conference. “The fact is, there is enough talent coming back to this team next season.”

Cubs fan have heard that before, of course. 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—by a man who was ejected from a game with his pet goat.

“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.”

There were plenty of smiles and a few jokes from the new owners on a rainy day in Chicago, and 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, whoise 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 on 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. Expectations were very high and they weren’t met,” Ricketts said. “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. So I think he has a track record that affords giving him the chance to take us into next season.”

Ricketts wouldn’t comment on the future of outfielder Milton Bradley(notes), who was suspended for the final two weeks of the season for criticizing the atmosphere surrounding the Cubs. Bradley, who struggled mightily in his first season in Chicago, has two years left on his contract for $21 million.

“It’s Jim’s decision, it’s his responsibility to put the best team on the field next year and that will be his decision on what to do with all the players,” 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 game. 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 an interview with The Associated Press. “And I don’t know any fans who wouldn’t want to end up in the situation we’re in today. The good news is that even though it’s a dream job, it’s still a business.”

Ricketts and his siblings Laura, Todd and Pete—all Cubs fans who have spent plenty of weekends in the Wrigley Field bleachers—will be on the board of directors that Tom will head as chairman.

Tom Ricketts, who met his wife in those bleachers and once lived across the street from the venerable 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.

A long-term plan will be devised to make improvements to Wrigley Field, the second-oldest ballpark in the majors that was built in 1914. Smaller upgrades will be implemented by next season.

Ricketts said there would be a small bump in the team’s payroll—one that was around $135 million last season—and a slight increase in ticket prices. There has been no discussion of a naming rights deal for Wrigley. And the Cubs are exploring new spring training options after years in Mesa, Ariz.

“You got to watch your expenses, you got to be careful with your payroll, you’ve got to look for ways to improve, improve your relationship with the fans and to keep growing the business,” he said.

He said his management style will be to hire qualified people, let them do their jobs and yet hold them accountable.

“You’re not going to see me or anyone else in this family calling the dugout during the game,” he said, though you will probably will the owners at games. “We’re going to walk around and see folks and be in the stands.”

Tribune announced on Opening Day in 2007 that the Cubs and Wrigley Field would be sold at the end of that season. But the process took much longer, slowed by the recession and Tribune’s 2008 bankruptcy filing.

Ricketts, a market maker at the Chicago Board Options Exchange and a finance executive before starting investment bank Incapital LLC in 1999, said he never negotiated directly with Tribune CEO Sam Zell.

“Just with people from his organization and they were fine. They are hard bargainers, I suppose, but it was just a complicated negotiation,” he said.

Did Ricketts ever have second thoughts?

“I would say it was a little more difficult than we imagined and certainly the environment that existed when the transaction began was not the environment that we had when the transaction closed,” he said.

Ricketts called the work ahead “daunting,” particularly the work on Wrigley. Any changes, Ricketts said, will not tread on the atmosphere that makes Wrigley Field unique.

“We can’t mess with that special feeling,” Ricketts said.