Sam Zell is fast-tracking the Cubs sale from Tribune:
Mr. Zell expects to select a finalist from the five remaining bidding groups and submit the deal for Major League Baseball's approval sometime in December, a person familiar with the sale says.
He is fast-tracking the sale — despite a credit crunch that seemed to put his year-end deadline in doubt — as pressure mounts to raise as much as $1 billion to chip away at the mountain of debt from his 2007 buyout of Tribune. With cash flow plummeting from weak advertising sales at Tribune's newspapers, selling half the team probably wouldn't raise the cash he needs. He has other assets to unload, but it would be difficult to do so quickly in a tough credit market.
...
The five bidders believed to still be in the game include Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban; Chicago bond salesman Thomas Ricketts; Chicago real estate mogul Hersh Klaff; New York investor Marc Utay, and Houston businessman Jim Crane. ...
Difficulty unloading the Cubs for top dollar would spell trouble for Tribune. When Mr. Zell engineered his $8-billion buyout last December, he agreed to keep Tribune's debt to less than nine times cash flow. But as the economy slowed and ad sales dropped this year, cash flow sank, down 45% last quarter, Mr. Courtney estimates. That forced Mr. Zell to accelerate his debt repayments and to sell Newsday this year for $650 million to pay off loans.
The one good spot in all this: at least the Cubs never got spanked 37-3 by cheeseheads. Sheesh. Why can't we sell the Bears instead?
I hope every Cub who failed to get a hit in the series gets fired.
I also hope TBS disappears in a puff of finance.
I am not happy at all, and my dog, who doesn't understand what 100 minutes looks like let alone 100 years, does not understand why I am yelling at my TV.
The best team in the NL just got swept by a team that didn't even have enough wins to make the wild card. Why? Who knows. Who cares. Fire the lot of them.
My only consolation is, we may have crappy sports teams, but the next President will be a Chicagoan.
I'm forced to watch TBS while the Cubs are in the playoffs—at least until I'm forced to watch (shudder) Fox—so I'm seeing TV ads ("commercials" in the vernacular) as if anew.
Aside from the NLDS being brought to us by erections, I'm trying to wrap my mind around Gillette running ads in favor of their new 5-blade razor by trashing their existing 3-blade razor. I happen to use their 3-blade razor. I think I could probably make do with two blades, or even one; but seriously, five? And why trash your own product to sell your new product? (By the way, I hate all-Flash sites. I want steak, not sizzle, which I think makes me un-Mercun.)
And if I have to see one 60-something dude waggling his eyebrows at his wife again while another 60-something dude extols the virtues of hard-ons...that doesn't bollocks. That's almost enough to want the NLDS to end already.
How is it that the team with the most wins in the league faces a team that ended four games over .500 and then falls apart? It's just sad. You'd think in a hundred years someone would figure out why the Cubs can't win the pennant.
Why? Because both the Cubs and the White Sox are still playing baseball. Chicago's minor-league team on the South Side won a 1-run game against Minnesota to clinch the American League Central Division last night to the total underwhelm of those of us who live north of Roosevelt Road. They now get to play the Tampa Bay Rays, starting tomorrow afternoon.
I have to concede there is some history here. The last time both teams played in the post-season, the Cubs beat the White Sox in the World Series—the 1906 World Series.
Tonight: Game 1 of the National Leage Division Series at Wrigley Field, 5:30 pm CDT. Eamus Catuli!
The Cubs lost to Milwaukee today, giving Milwaukee the wild-card and the Cubs home-field advantage on Wednesday against the Dodgers. I'll miss a good hunk of the second game, as it's against the Vice-Presidential debate Thursday (unless they schedule a day game). I sincerely hope that the Dodgers play no better than they did all season (4 games above .500 at this writing; their final game is in progress), but of course the Cubs winning the division series at home on Tuesday wouldn't be too awful.
At the first Cubs game I went to the season, the very first pitch wound up on Waveland Avenue. The Brewers won that game 8-2, and we Cubs fans figured that was a foretaste of the entire season.
Well, the Brewers lost last night, and the Cubs' magic number fell to 1 (against the Brewers). Except that yesterday, the Cubs hosted St. Louis, who got a grand slam in the 1st which pretty much set the stage for the game. Final scoreboard:
Let's look at that close-up:
Well, it's likely they'll clinch the division today. They can't possibly lose two in a row against St. Louis, can they?
'Nuff said. That it went to extra innings disturbs me only a little. I'll be at the game against St. Louis tomorrow afternoon, but I won't see them clinch; the earliest that can come is at the end of Milwaukee's game at Cincinnati tomorrow night.
Also, the 2009 schedules are up. The Cubs open in Houston on April 6th. No word yet on when tickets go on sale.
Update: The Trib has the story of today's game.
This evening the Cubs chose (B), against Milwaukee, so the magic number remains 4.