FanHouse Tribune Sale

Around the sports blogosphere the past few days, one of the main topics of discussion (it's been a slow week, after all) has been whether Mark Cuban will buy the Cubs, whether the baseball establishment wants him to buy the Cubs, and whether or not he'd be a good owner.

At least two of those three seem certain: for all his faults, no one can accuse Cuban of not doing everything in his power -- including taking a loss on his investment -- to make the Mavericks a winner. And, of course, the stodgy baseball powers-that-be are unlikely to welcome Cuban with open arms.

But how do the people feel? Not just us bloggers, but those at home, the ones logging on to their local town's newspaper web site every morning, wide-eyed and innocent? Well, the results are in:

Do you want Mark Cuban to be the next owner of the Cubs?

74.3%
Yes (13774 responses)

25.7%
No (4760 responses)

18534 total responses
(Poll results not scientific)

And Cuban it is! Close the books, end the application window, and get the lawyers a'drafting. When Chicago sports fans bare their collective desire, it never, ever, ever, goes ignored. Right?

In a deal that would make them the costliest franchise ever bought and sold, the Chicago Cubs, according to this story, are set to cost $1 billion dollars to whoever is lucky enough to inherit the storied club.

Muahahaha! Ah, the Tribune Company and Dr. Evil ... rich, dastardly, inept to the point of comedy. And now this. Will the similarities ever end?

The bidding will begin this summer and will probably stretch beyond the fall's World Series. The Tribune Co. has hired J.P. Morgan Chase (Charts, Fortune 500) to advise on the sale, and the key for the investment bankers is finding a potential owner who can pay top dollar yet pass muster with Major League Baseball.

[Leading candidate, friend of Bud Selig John] Canning is said to be working with New York investment bank Allen & Co. and its managing director Steve Greenberg, who coincidentally is the son of Hall of Famer "Hammerin' Hank" Greenberg. Steve has an impressive baseball résumé himself, having played in the minor leagues for the Washington Senators after graduating from Yale. He also served as a deputy commissioner of MLB.

Of course, along with all the tradition and history and Old Style comes a literally crumbing ballpark in Wrigley Field and a team with a bloated, back-loaded payroll that hasn't won a World Series since just after the Spanish-American War. But hey, it's Wrigley baby! Wooooo!

Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal thinks so.

The deal, which Zambrano originally set a strict deadline for, and which later looked close to completion, is now almost completely kaput, and Rosenthal blames the delay on the Tribune sale's effect on the front office's bottom line:

Three weeks later, the pending transactions are holding up the completion of Zambrano's $80 million agreement, and the talks are a week or so away from being tabled until the end of the season, major-league sources tell FOXSports.com.

Not good news for the Cubs.

Zambrano, who turns 26 on June 1, wants to remain with the team, but the closer he gets to free agency, the more difficult and expensive it will be for the Cubs to keep him - and the greater the potential for distraction.

The solution is for Tribune to approve the deal as soon as possible. The Cubs' failure to sign Zambrano would raise disturbing questions about the team's ability to add payroll at the July 31 non-waiver deadline and even next offseason, when the sale of Tribune still might not be complete.

Hmm. While I don't doubt Rosenthal's assertion here, I would also argue that Zambrano's disappointing play might be causing a bit of a panic among the suits in the Cubs front office. Big Z's an elite pitcher, but he hasn't been playing like one, and if that's driven the price down even slightly, it is less and less likely this deal is going to get done soon, if ever.