The Tribune's priority isn't winning baseball games. It's maximizing shareholder value via increasing share prices and healthy dividends payouts. Winning a World Series isn't anywhere in the corporation's mission statement or strategic goals. They're a media conglomerate, and anything that helps them gain market share and increase profits in their core competency is what'll be important to them, not winning a World Series. Right now all that matters is that the Cubs have set attendance records the past three seasons. If not for a rainout the last weekend of 2003, they'd have had three straight seasons of three million people walking through the turnstiles. All of that has occurred on Baker's watch. To the Trib, the wins and losses don't count; they've never counted. As long as people show up for the games or watch them on WGN, the Cubs are making money and represent a neat black line on the Tribune's income statement. Sure, the Cubs got a bigger payroll the past couple of seasons, but cripes, the gate receipts alone amount to $90-$100 million annually. That doesn't count concessions, licensing revenues, or TV revenue. So we spent $90 million instead of $75 million on payroll. Big whoop. It's my fear we're never going to see a World Series title on the North Side until this baseball team starts being run by baseball people, instead of Wall Street people.