So reports the Tribune:

Tribune Co. has asked bidders for the Chicago Cubs to submit new offers before Nov. 27, Thanksgiving day, according to two people involved in the negotiations.

The bids have to include details on how the prospective buyers will finance the purchase of the team. Chicago-based Tribune, which also owns the Chicago Tribune and other media properties, also is looking to sell Wrigley Field and a 25 percent stake in Comcast SportsNet, a regional sports network. Before the financial crisis gripped Wall Street, the package was once valued at more than $1 billion.

Sam Zell's Tribune is seeking a heavily leveraged deal to minimize the capital-gains tax for the company. The company bought the Cubs and the landmark stadium for $20.5 million from the Wrigley family in 1981.

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Quintessential Chicagoan Studs Terkel died today.  How sad to see him go.  I'm sure he's out in the bleachers now, enjoying the game on a sunny spring or summer day.  "Let's go the park at 2:00 ... Let's go to the bleachers... it was the spontanaity of it, watching experts, good skilled craftsmen ply their trade..."

You lived a good life, Studs, and you enriched ours immeasurably along the way.  Bon Voyage... and thanks.

p.s. would've made this a fan shot but couldn't figure out how...

As if this case couldn't get any more bizarre, Clemens trainer claims he found a stash of HGH receipts sent to Clemens home under a busted TV set.

"My TV broke and I said, 'Damn, I got to get it off the dresser,' Radomski said Wednesday. "And it was right there."

He goes on to say,

"The investigators knew from day one that I sent a package to Clemens' house," Radomski told ESPN.com. "They knew before the Mitchell report was released and before Brian went before Congress. So this is nothing new to them.

"I just couldn't find the receipt. And just by [accident] this weekend, I moved my TV and whatnot and I found the package, an envelope, and it had [Clemens'] receipt and about seven or eight other receipts."

He turned the information over to the Feds.  It'll be interesting to see what, if anything, they make of it.

The Business Section of the Tribune this morning offers the tantalizing possibility of an all Cubs cable channel.   The Tribune Co. included this proposal in its financial book sent recently to prospective buyers.  The Cubs market is huge. 

On Comcast SportsNet, the Cubs draw more viewers by a wide margin, the article says,  more than the other three sports teams shown on the network:  the White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks.

The WGN factor complicates matters and proves worrisome.  The article says, it's unclear whether Tribune Co... would obligate the new team owner to continue broadcasting games on the local station, which has a 60-year history with the Cubs.

It would be a shame to have a local all Cubs channel at the expense of nationally broadcast games.  Fortunately, for the near term -- or at least until 2019 when the CSN license expires -- we can breathe easy.