RedIvyCub

Because Hamilton is incredibly talented and turned his life around and he would like to see Bradley do the same. Granted Hamilton's issues were substance issues and Bradley's as far as we know are not. MB was taunting fans at the ballpark the past two night in KC...pulled himself out of the game and took his time doing so with an out or two left on Tuesday night...jumped around like a crazy man after driving in runs on Tuesday. He just needs to chill out.

Woah, hold the phone here. I know as a fact that Tribune never approached Mariotti to join them as their principal columnist. Why...because I used to work in the Tribune Sports department. The story is the other way around. Jay sent enough resumes to paper a small apartment because he wanted to work for Tribune so desparately. My coworkers all used to laugh at his Tribune bashing columns because they knew what fueled the tirades. Funniest was when Bill Adee (ST sports editor) jumped ship and came to the Tribune. At that time, there was an opening for a sports columnist and Jay thought he had it in the bag. Tribune hired Downey instead. :lol: Now that the Tribune is sinking as fast as the Sun Times, he has changed his schtick. You notice, the Tribune bashing columns are few and far between these days.

Surprised not to see a topic started on Teddy G's column in today's Tribune about Mariotti and his new issues with his coworkers at the Sun Times since he threw them under the bus last week. Seems he and Telander had to be separated and two of Telander's columns taking a swipe back at Jay were pulled. Makes me wonder what Jay is going to do for quotes in his columns when his fellow writers quite providing them to him since he won't go into a clubhouse. The latter being silly because Albert Belle has been gone for years.

Only if they work for those entities I suppose do they care. Maybe sports fans care about WGN TV and radio.

Well, he can't. I do know the rules and he is not allowed to have an ownership interest in more than one club.

So it seems that Zell wants to own an interest in the Cubs after he sells the team. Guess Tribune still needs a place to entertain clients for free. Not sure as I haven't heard anything, but has Zell sold his interest in the Sox so this can happen? Zell has just given Selig the leverage he needs for the Canning group to purchase the team...which I am okay with Canning owning the club. http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-wed-rosenthal-4jun04,0,7130008.column

Doubt it, he works in the mail room. I know you are being a smartass but I also know that Roast will know exactly who I am talking about. Cause he works at Wrigley. I know that from his posts. He is obviously a seasonal stadium employee. Only knew the supervisors (since they are full timers) and a handful of the older ushers who work behind home plate. Too many seasonal stadium employees and turnover for any of us to get to know them.

Doubt it, he works in the mail room. I know you are being a smartass but I also know that Roast will know exactly who I am talking about.

http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-080527-alfonso-soriano-defense-chicago-cubs,1,204570.story The criticism was warranted; the cheap shot was not. His point was well-made without the sophmoric "dart" comment. With respect to his running, I have noticed that he is loafing-it around the bases (at least relative to what he looks like at full strength). But are we really criticizing him for being hurt? It cracks me up that the fans are allowing the media to make an issue out of something that is nothing. Fans feed into everything the media writes when all they are trying to do is sell papers. Cracks me up even further that there is such a problem among fans when Steve Stone said far worse things on a regular basis in 04 and many of you defended him and continue to do so until this day.

Yeah, I can see Mike getting pretty steamed about that but for some reason I suspect it was Carl who blew his fuse.

McMichael was the only stretch singer I can think of that caused the ballclub to be fined by MLB.

The guy who is the head of "Way Out in Leftfield" is married to a Cub front office employee actually. Go ahead...go to Cubs.com and click on the front office link under roster.

Does it count that we had dinner with him mom to celebrate her birthday when the Cards were in Chicago five years ago? No, not kidding. Bottom line, you cannot rely on what the beat writers say because try as they might, they cannot separate their personal feelings from it all no more than anyone else can. Plus their time in the clubhouse is limited and the players try to watch their "Ps & Qs" more when there are eyes and ears around in the clubhouse. They base their opinions sometimes on how willing the guy is to give an interview and how that guy treats the media. There was a player who played at one time for both the Sox and the Cubs. When he was with the Sox, he was grumpy and mean and would only give you the time of day if you had a TV camera. When he was with the Cubs, he was a joy to be around and accomdated any interview request. A friend of mine who is a writer told me this story...just really disliked this player as a Sox but really got to like the guy as a Cub.

he has to be somewhat popular, otherwise why would the owners sit back and watch him completely destroy two baseball franchises? In 2003, they beat the uberexpensive Yankees in the series with a small-market payroll. He gave all of the other cheapass owners out there an alibi. I think they like him. I know what I know. As I said, they were planning on contraction and the Expos were one of the teams until Henry sold to Loria...then the plan was for the Marlins to be contracted along with the Twins because Pohlad was willing to give up the franchise. Contracting the team Loria owned was the way to get rid of him. They don't like him. He is not respected.

You are way off base. Loria is far from popular in the "good old boys" network.

In the last 15 years, Loria has more World Series titles than any other owner besides Steinbrenner. Wrong. Loria has owned the Marlins since 2002. Prior to that, he owned the Expos for 2 years, in 2000 and 2001. So in 8 years of owning MLB teams, Loria sports a 620-676 record, 1 playoff appearance, and 1 WS title. Not a very difficult resume to top at all. Yeah, just ask Larry Lucchino and John Henry. :grin:

In the last 15 years, Loria has more World Series titles than any other owner besides Steinbrenner. Wrong. Loria has owned the Marlins since 2002. Prior to that, he owned the Expos for 2 years, in 2000 and 2001. So in 8 years of owning MLB teams, Loria sports a 620-676 record, 1 playoff appearance, and 1 WS title. Not a very difficult resume to top at all. Yeah, just ask Larry Lucchino and John Henry. :grin:

No. That's why they're short on office space. More to it than that, trust me.

But they don't pay for the space at Wrigley. Tribune outright owns the ballpark so they don't pay rent for office space...they own it. Another reason, Cubs aren't making money hand over fist as everyone here believes.

Trust me...it's true. Remember the old donut shop? That became media relations in 2005 because there was no place to put them when they expanded another department. Now Media Relations is in a trailer in the parking lot. One very small department has people in four different areas because there is not a space to accomodate them all. It's an old ballpark and there is no more room to add office space. So if they redo the grandstand, I think the current employees might be quite happy. It was why everyone was looking forward to the triangle building on the corner of Clark and Waveland as it would have included office space. How hard would it be to rent some office space somewhere? It makes no sense that they allow the space in Wrigley to constrict them. Maybe this might prove to the masses that the Cubs don't print money under the grandstands????

Is it even true that they have fewer front office types than most teams? They have about a half dozen special assistants to the GM. They've got 15 names in the baseball ops section. I'm sure teams like the Mets and White Sox, with a bunch of people actually considered part of the ownership group, probably have more names. And the Yankees seemingly have 2 front offices, in the Bronx and in Tampa. But I've never heard anything about the Cubs lacking bodies in the front office. I think I remember reading something that said the Cubs have the fewest full-time employees (employees working all year round) than any other team in baseball. Sounds more like back office types than what I consider front office. Front office are your heads of baseball operations and whatnot. Marketing and ticket sales people are more like support staff, especially for a team like the Cubs that doesn't need help selling tickets. No everyone at Wrigley who works in the office in considered front office. And those department heads you mention, don't have very many employees which report to them. Front office means all non uniformed full time employees. At least that is the terminology throughout MLB. Ticket sales people are not part of the front office. They are part time unionized employees. There are people who work the ticket office year round (the ones who handle group and season tickets) and I don't envy them. Fans give them a verbal beating on a regular basis. Is Frank Mahoney still in charge RIV? Frank Maloney is the Director of Ticket Operations.

Is it even true that they have fewer front office types than most teams? They have about a half dozen special assistants to the GM. They've got 15 names in the baseball ops section. I'm sure teams like the Mets and White Sox, with a bunch of people actually considered part of the ownership group, probably have more names. And the Yankees seemingly have 2 front offices, in the Bronx and in Tampa. But I've never heard anything about the Cubs lacking bodies in the front office. I think I remember reading something that said the Cubs have the fewest full-time employees (employees working all year round) than any other team in baseball. Sounds more like back office types than what I consider front office. Front office are your heads of baseball operations and whatnot. Marketing and ticket sales people are more like support staff, especially for a team like the Cubs that doesn't need help selling tickets. No everyone at Wrigley who works in the office in considered front office. And those department heads you mention, don't have very many employees which report to them. Front office means all non uniformed full time employees. At least that is the terminology throughout MLB. Ticket sales people are not part of the front office. They are part time unionized employees. There are people who work the ticket office year round (the ones who handle group and season tickets) and I don't envy them. Fans give them a verbal beating on a regular basis.

Is it even true that they have fewer front office types than most teams? They have about a half dozen special assistants to the GM. They've got 15 names in the baseball ops section. I'm sure teams like the Mets and White Sox, with a bunch of people actually considered part of the ownership group, probably have more names. And the Yankees seemingly have 2 front offices, in the Bronx and in Tampa. But I've never heard anything about the Cubs lacking bodies in the front office. Not one of those special assistants has an office at Wrigley and everyone scrambles to find a space for them when they visit. Usually the take over a conference room. Even the scouting director does not have an office at Wrigley Field. Didn't necessarily say they were lacking but it is the smallest front office in baseball because they don't have the space to accomodate all of those people.

Trust me...it's true. Remember the old donut shop? That became media relations in 2005 because there was no place to put them when they expanded another department. Now Media Relations is in a trailer in the parking lot. One very small department has people in four different areas because there is not a space to accomodate them all. It's an old ballpark and there is no more room to add office space. So if they redo the grandstand, I think the current employees might be quite happy. It was why everyone was looking forward to the triangle building on the corner of Clark and Waveland as it would have included office space.

Incorrect...every member of the Cubs front office works at Wrigley Field (outside of scouts of course). Not sure where you were getting that the luxury seating would be at the expense of the team offices which desperately need a major overhaul. There is a reason that the Cubs front office is the smallest by far in baseball and that is because they lack the space to expand the staff as part of the reason. The team offices face the outside of the park (hence all the windows above the main entrance to the park) with portions under the main ramps in the back of the seating areas of the grandstand so those would have to be some awfully darn big luxury seats. He got it from this article, that was linked to above. http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/cs-080508-wrigley-field-more-taxes-chicago-cubs,1,7811302.story And if it's true that the office space is constricting the front office, that is ridiculous. Yes, I saw the article so I just wondered where they got that idea considering that most of the writers are there every day and have to know the setup. And the front office space in constricting. In some areas, people have very little personal space to do their work.