If the report in this morning’s Chicago Sun-Times is true, Mark Cuban won’t be buying the Chicago Cubs. Won’t be allowed to, in fact.
Says the story:
“'There's no way Bud (Selig) and the owners are going to let that happen,”' a Major League Baseball source said this week. “'Zero chance.”
At one time, not that long ago, actually, there was “zero chance” of a black becoming President of the United States. So never say never.
Cuban was believed to be the highest bidder ($1.3 billion) among the five finalists, but current Cubs owner Sam Zell has yet to shorten the field. The process has begun to drag: The storied franchise was on the market at the start of the 2007 baseball season and a source told the Sun-Times that a deal before Opening Day 2009 is unlikely.
But if I’m a Cubs’ fan today, I’m bummin’. And if I’m an MFFL, jacked!
Cuban recently told me the Mavs only consume 20 percent of his time. Fine, let’s keep it that way. Maybe buying the Cubs wouldn’t hurt the Mavs, but no way I could see how the transaction was going to help either.
If Cuban is intent on jumping into baseball, maybe he sets his sights a little lower – okay, a lot lower – on the rag-a-muffin outfit west of here. Seems there are 324 signatures on a petition to oust Tom Hicks, though some of them appear to be echoes down a dry well.
Which, come to think to it, would be an apprpriate Rangers' motto for 2009. – Richie Whitt
