As the Chicago Cubs get back to the level of success we’ve recently come to expect, I have to reflect on how lucky we as Cubs fans are to have some of the best people in the sport working to improve and sustain the team we all love. Since the inception of this blog and community, we’ve always wondered when the Ricketts Family would fulfill their promise to invest in the team and take it to another level. It started with the baseball side, which I documented starting here, and which I’ve been extremely pleased to see how Theo Epstein and his front office full of supercomputers (both metaphorical and actual) have pretty much done everything I thought they should do, plus some more since they are, after all, smarter than I. It continued with the Ricketts Family pledging their own money to keep the Cubs in Wrigleyville and upgrade Wrigley Field in a way that not only made sense, but that I’ve come to appreciate with the new video boards and tweaks in amenities.
Even if some of us have issues with the Ricketts’ political philosophies, it is still lucky for us that they decided to invest in the team and the neighborhood as they did back when it didn’t really make sense to given all the issues plaguing this franchise. It is also lucky for us, especially those of us who still live in Chicago, that they decided to keep the team right where it was, instead of relocating (see: St. Louis Los Angeles Rams) or build a new stadium (see: Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers) even if the current one is a bad storm away from crumbling. I do like traveling to the park on game days and walking around the stadium before going in to enjoy the simple atmosphere within.
Friend of the blog Jared Wyllys wrote about how the Cubs are a top notch organization now before I had time to, so I’ll point you to his very good piece appreciating everything that Ricketts and Epstein and all have done, from the team itself to the exceptional Twitter account. He uses certain not-so-top notch examples like the Chicago Bulls, and I’m sure some Chicago sports fans think negatively about the Bears as well, as comparisons for how good the Cubs have become. When I thought about this topic, I actually was reading an article about how the Miami Marlins were suing their own season ticket holders because–get this!–the season ticket holders didn’t want to pay for a lesser package than they signed up for:
From the fan side of things, the New Times tells the story of Mickey Axelband, a local veterinarian who had been a Marlins season ticket holder since the ballclub debuted in 1993. When they opened Marlins Park in 2012, he agreed to pay the club $24,000 for his pair of prime season tickets. That was up from $13,000 the year before. He says the Marlins promised him a number of first-class amenities, such as bottom-level parking in the stadium garage, a private entrance into the stadium and a special lounge for season ticket holders with pre- and postgame buffets.
Axelband told the New Times that mid-way through the first season at Marlins Park, just like how the Marlins had shipped off some of their players, they had stopped with the special parking and special entrance. The fancy buffet? It was the same food every game.
Axelband says he felt like he wasn’t getting his money’s worth, so he wrote the Marlins a letter, asking them to give back the amenities they’d promised. The club said no. So after that season, Axelband decided he wouldn’t pay another $24,000 for the following year, even though he’d agreed to a two-year ticket contract. His thinking: The Marlins didn’t keep their end of the bargain, so he wasn’t going to either. That’s how his lawsuit came to be, and Axelband says he’ll fight the Marlins just on the principle that they didn’t deliver what they promised.
Now, in my brief conversations with Anno on the subject, the Cubs don’t seem capable right now of delivering all the broken promises that the Marlins gave to their season ticket holders due to the smaller facility at Wrigley Field, but he does get plenty of perks. These perks include getting promo items preferentially, a private tour and roam-around at Wrigley Field, and reserved meetings with ownership and players at the Cubs Convention. And as far as he knows, the Cubs have never treated him like dirt. So there’s that!
As has been written numerous times by multiple outlets, I think we can be justified in saying how glad we are that the Cubs are now in very good hands. Any team that convinced Dexter Fowler to come back on a discount can’t be too bad.
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