I am not a "protester" or anything & tend to just take things as they come. Basically what choice do we have in the end.

Why is it then that I feel the Cubs fans are just getting bent over with this whole Zell scenario & the state buying wrigley, 30 year FORCED lease for new owners, possibly not selling the team until 09, Selig & his cronies, and more.

I'm just not getting a "warm & fuzzy" over any of it. That said, I'll just sit back & see what happens. @$%^&*

I can only guess that they figured the sale of the stadium would help the Tribune books in 2008 and the sale of the team will help in 2009. No sense getting the bump both in one year for the coffers.

I guess we can say that the one thing that is certain is that this is all MONEY driven. Now mix in a little back-handed, glad-handing Chicago politics and there we have it. Nothing is ever done easy in Chicago.

They will await the results of this season. A deep run in the playoffs could significantly raise the sale value of this team. They run in the black, so there is not much risk in waiting until after 08 to sell.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Forget my sports interest here. The State is a Not for Profit and until they get the rest of their shit together, they should not own any stadiums, especially the ones that don't need any help.

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"Woof Woof"

this is gonna hurt the cubs. the pending sale this winter handcuffed hendry from making many moves. it this is still going on next offseason youve just lost another offseason improving the club because for some reason this sale is taking far too long.

What moves did it hurt Hendry from making? They got their top free agent target (Fukudome). Do you think they would have went after Johan Santana? I don't even know if the Twinkies have anyone the Cubs have to make that trade happen. Who else would they have gone after?

thats what im talking about. and when more good FAs are out there next year his hands are tied cause the sale will still not be done.

Cubs winning the Word Series deflates the value

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"Woof Woof"

there werent really all that many free agents i was drooling over, fukudome was clearly the target and was secured. it seems the orioles are shopping bedard around, and the cubs have been talking so much about brian roberts, id rather see them work something out for bedard if possible (which i realize isnt likely). if this team doesnt win, i tend to think it will be due to starting pitching, not the lineup as i see it now. i hate soriano as leadoff, but i dont see any glaring holes that didnt get filled.

sorry my last post was a bit off-topic. regarding the sale, i dont really care much one way or the other, as long as it doesnt affect the cubs efforts to secure good players and develop new ones. who buys the cubs is so totally out of the hands of the fans anyway, i dont even worry about it. i just hope it is someone with deep pockets, and more importantly, a desire to win (both of those things together would be ideal).

The Cubs need corporate dollars to refurb that piece of crap. They should just shut Wrigley down, make it a museum, and build a new stadium in the burbs somewhere. Because in within the next few years its either that, or the Cubs are gonna have to play 'home' games in Milwaukee or The Cell while Wrigley is totally redone-- just like the Bears in Champaign for the '02 season.

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i love the cubs and wrigley, but after attending a brewers game up in milwaukee last year, i am all aboard with building a new stadium. miller park is the nicest facility i have ever been in to watch a game, comfortable, wide concourses, lots of restrooms. i like the idea of tearing down the old wrigley, playing elsewhere for a couple years, and opening a new, up-to-date wrigley field on the same site. keep the ivy, keep the rooftops, keep the scoreboard. i know that doesnt solve a thing parking-wise, but that is a know disadvantage in that area, and people have been dealing with it a long time, and still go to the games.

I made my first trip to cubs mecca last summer, and was excited as hell to go to wrigley.

Then we got there.

After 4 train rides, 2 hours waiting in the damn sun, and 50 bucks of hats/baubles later, we got to our seats along the 3rd base line. My heart sunk.

Wrigley is a dump.

The bathrooms were shitty as hell, the general quality of the stadium was maybe 70%. I wasn't pleased at all.

I'd sooner go to see the cubs play at the sweet new park in St. Louis or up in Milwaukee. The Cubs fans can bitch all they want about the legacy of Wrigley, but if they were to build a new modern-yet-classic field somewhere outside of the heart and guts of the city with better parking, upgraded facilities, and modern accommodations, I think cubs fans would maybe let go of a lot of the historical teat and realize it's pretty goddamn swell to have a new park.

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I'm not even talking about accomodations for the fans, but moreso for the team.

A stadium in the burbs would allow for more night games and better player facilities. Players cannot access the batting cages once the game starts because they are under the bleachers. As if pinch hitting werent tough enough, at wrigley you cant even take a swing until you get to the on deck circle. Not to mention that you have to step outside of the clubhouse to change your mind, let alone your shoes or shirt

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I got to go on one of those Wrigley Field tours last summer. The players accommodations are what you might call quaint if you were being generous.
If they want to call it a shrine, make it one. Call it the Wrigley Museum, use it for the Old Farts game or some big promotional games, like the Cubs/Sox or Cubs/Cards series, but build the WrigleyDome already. Give the players some decent facilities. Improve the experience for the fan.
Wrigley is literally falling in on itself. Who wants to sit under a net designed to stop falling chunks of concrete?
I'm a Cubs fan, not a Wrigley Field fan.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

I'm a fan of both. The Cubs are Wrigley, Wrigley is the Cubs, and if they moved, I'd just become a Minnesota Twins fan.

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No way the Cubs move to the suburbs. It's in the city's interest to keep the Cubs in the city limits. (Think of the excise tax on all that booze; hotel room taxes; property tax on the expensive condos; etc.) So the city won't hesitate to throw some Park District money at it.

Plus, there's only a couple neighborhood ballparks left around the country. For good or for bad, the neighborhood is a big part of the gameday experience.

Yeah, parking's a joke, and it's tough to get down there even on the train. But it's better than a sterile stadium surrounded by acres of parking in some suburb where the closest thing to a sports bar is the strip mall Chili's.

Having said all that, they gotta do something about Wrigley before it falls down. Looks to me like all the recent renovation money went into the dozens of merchandise booths rather than, say, decent bathrooms.

i agree, there is NO way this team moves to the burbs. anything they do will be done on the existing site, and i am fine with that. people who don't take public transportation to wrigley and drive around looking for parking spots need to have thier heads examined.