CHICAGO - Tom Ricketts peeks outside his second-story office window on Clark Street and gazes up on the snow flurries, wind gusting in from Lake Michigan, hard hats rushing in and out of Gate D, construction crews working around the clock inside Wrigley Field and dust everywhere.
He’s never seen such a beautiful sight.
This is hardly what Ricketts envisioned when he and his brother lived in an apartment above the Sports Corner, a tavern just a few feet beyond Wrigley’s right field, in 1990, talking baseball, scouring though Bill James’ baseball abstracts and owning two fantasy teams.
Then again, it was impossible to visualize owning a Chicago Cubs powerhouse favored to win the World Series, either.
The Cubs, who have won five of their first six games, take the field Monday for perhaps their most anticipated home opener in generations. The Cubs, for the first time, will be dressing in what they’re calling the nicest clubhouse in baseball, with a new six-story office building, 172-room hotel, plaza, restaurants, ice rink and lucrative TV deal on the way.
This, the Cubs think, could be the beginning of their greatest reign in a century.
Ricketts won’t deny it stung when he looked at his phone Friday and saw the message from Cubs President Theo Epstein: Torn knee ligament. Kyle Schwarber out for the season.
Still, Ricketts showed no signs of panic after losing his young power hitter, knowing the team’s depth. A night later, his No. 5 starter, Kyle Hendricks, outpitched $207 million Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Zack Greinke in the desert.
“We finished so strong in 2015, people have high expectations. And they should,” Ricketts told USA TODAY Sports. “We haven’t been there for a while, so it’s hard not to be excited.”
The Cubs’ hot start had Ricketts trying to figure out the last time the team had even been better than its hated rivals, the
St. Louis Cardinals. The Cubs have finished ahead of the Cardinals only three times since 1998. Since the Cubs last won the National League pennant in 1945, the Cardinals have won 11 pennants and six World Series.
The Cubs’ last title, everyone in Chicago knows, came in 1908, two weeks after the first Model-T rolled onto America’s streets.
“I know the NFL makes more money and gets higher ratings, but your baseball team is a sense of more local pride,” Ricketts said. “It’s a source of civic pride. They close schools. They allow the kids to come out to the parade. You don’t know when it will happen again.
“I remember last year when we beat the Cardinals in the division series, I walk onto the field, everybody is holding up the
‘W’ flags, and all I can think of is, ‘No one who is here today will ever forget this.’ It was such a great feeling, an emotional feeling. It was just the first step, but a critical first step into building toward that championship.”
Ricketts, 52, was 21 before the Cubs earned a playoff berth in his lifetime. He quickly notes the Cubs finished third in the NL Central last season. Yet he has a confession to make.
A year ago, he made plans with his wife, Cecelia, to travel to Buenos Aires to catch Cubs loyalist Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam. The itinerary was set months in advance for the Rickettses and another couple to leave Chicago on Nov. 1 — the day of World Series Game 5.
“When we booked our vacation, I didn’t even look at the schedule,” Tom Ricketts said. “I figured it would be all over in October. Then, as it got closer, I’m thinking, ‘Wow, I may have to cancel this trip.’”
The Cubs earned their first postseason berth since 2008, got their first playoff win since 2003 and beat the Cardinals in the division series before falling to the New York Mets in the NL Championship Series. The Cubs were denied, but a vacation was saved.
There is no vacation date set this year, and Vedder has made sure not to tour during October.
This November, the more pressing concern might be the election cycle. The presidential race will be decided a year after Ricketts’ brother, Pete, was elected governor of Nebraska and nine months after Donald Trump sent out a tweet that read: “I hear the Rickets family, who own the Chicago Cubs, are secretly spending $’s against me. They better be careful, they have a lot to hide!”
Well, the Ricketts family isn’t keeping its anti-Trump views a secret. Tom Ricketts’ parents, Joe and Marlene, contributed $3 million to Our Principles PAC, which opposes Trump.
“I stay away from the politics stuff, but my family has always been very open about its politics,” Tom Ricketts said. “This cycle is a little more interesting because of the whole Trump thing. It’s a little surreal to have a presidential candidate go after your mother.”
And perhaps more surreal to see the Cubs conducting business like World Series favorites.
This is a ballclub that spent $272 million in free agency, had a franchise-record $154.6 million opening-day payroll and looks nothing like the team that lost 101 games four years ago.
“This whole quest is about paying back fans who were patient and believed in us,” Ricketts said. “In 2010, walking around the ballpark, the biggest question was, ‘What’s the plan? We got a plan here?’ Now, they see it.”
The Cubs’ putrid seasons vaulted them to top of the draft, bringing in 2015 NL rookie of the year Kris Bryant, Schwarber, Albert Almora and Javier Baez. They traded away veterans to land All-Star first baseman Anthony Rizzo and shortstop Addison Russell. And the money saved has been used for starting pitchers Jon Lester and John Lackey, outfielder Jason Heyward and second baseman Ben Zobrist.
“We told everyone it was going to take some time,” Ricketts said. “Our fans watched the story build the last few years, and by telling the story as we went along, and seeing the whole movie, we’re now getting into the good parts.”
Sure, there will be precautions. The Cubs don’t want to spend a quarter of a billion dollars each year in free agency. Their TV contract expires after the 2019 season, and they want to ensure it doesn’t become like the Los Angeles Dodgers’ disaster in which $8.35 billion doesn’t guarantee any games will be on local TV.
Still, the future has never looked brighter.
Their famous marquee, now remodeled, is back up, with fans able to look at the back of the marquee from inside Wrigley.
The statues of Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo and Harry Caray have been reinstalled.
The 30,000-square-foot clubhouse, the second largest in MLB behind the New York Yankees’, complete with a conditioning center, lounge and all the finest amenities known to an athlete, is ready to go.
In the next few years, every piece of steel and the electrical system will be replaced inside the ballpark, with new windows and iron and tile patterns on the outside, along with 40% more bathrooms, concession stands, expanded suites and a press box.
“We’re restoring it to its original beauty to look like it did in 1935,” Ricketts said. “The most important thing is doing it right this time, as opposed to a century of deferred maintenance. ... We want people hanging around because it’s just cool to be there. We think Wrigley will not only be an emotional place people can relate to again, but will be beautiful again. People will just want to be near it.”
The Cubs, who spent decades fighting the rooftop owners, have even taken care of that battle by purchasing 10 of the 14 rooftops surrounding Wrigley, hoping to have all of them one day. They are back on good terms with Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office. The Cubs, after hearing complaints from their neighbors to the southwest, even removed the speakers from atop their scoreboard, and one day they’ll have a new sound system.
The Cubs even vow to remodel the cramped visitors clubhouse next year, which perhaps will stop opponents’ complaints.
“Um, we’re going to maintain the historical integrity of it,” Ricketts said, laughing at the notion it will be remotely luxurious. “This is where Babe Ruth got dressed. Come on, it’s not good enough?
“Maybe we’ll even give them hot water, well, at least to the American League teams.”
And, for the first time in the 102-year history of Wrigley, will there actually be the need for hot water in November for a World Series game?
“I’d love to find out,” Ricketts said.
