Anyone ever notice the overwhelming presence of unique first names on the cubs. I know some of these could be argued "aren't THAT rare" but they still are unique compared to the rest of baseball. As far as I know some of these are the only namesakes in baseball history.

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I don't know how trustworthy this source is but I play baseball with a kid whose dad is an attorney for the Ricketts family and is working on the sale. I mentioned Halladay jokingly and he said that the Ricketts family is pretty mad at the Tribune for signing all these aggresious contracts and then asking too much for the franchise. He said that the family told the Cubs to not take on any more contracts or increase payroll at all. Thus, he said don't expect any big trades unless its salary dump or an even trade. So it should be a quiet trade deadline for the Cubs unless Hendry gets creative.

Edited July 22, 2009 at 3:24 am ET:

Alright, since a lot of you are skeptical of my source or even intentions of this post, I'm going to clear it up a little bit and give you some more info to placate.

 

I was simply relaying the message, everything I posted is 100% true of what I heard. Unless the guy's dad lied to him and he lied to me (no reason to lie in either case), its true. But you are probably reading too much into Ricketts being mad. He's mad because the Cubs value was overestimated by the Tribune company and that the payroll had ballooned during negotiations. The payroll is way too high in his opinion and that along with the Cubs being overpriced put a minor snag in the sale. I wasn't saying the family isn't going to buy the Cubs because of this, just that payroll definitely won't be increased and thus no big trades coming up soon.

 

As for the source, I play college baseball and play on a summer team apart of the Mountain Collegiate Baseball League. The "kid" in the post is 20 years old. And being the only Cubs fans on the team we talk a lot.

If you want more info on the actual conversation that went down...my teammate told me this because he had called his dad asking about the supposed trade which was completely made up by the media. He said his dad started getting a bunch of emails and phone calls congratulating him on the sale. He had told me at the time (this was about a week and a half ago) that they still expected to have the deal in a couple days, and that the big thing holding it up at the moment was that the Tribune had over priced the Cubs especially with the insane contracts. Thats when he said Ricketts was, as he put it, pissed and that he wouldn’t allow for any more payroll and not to expect any trades unless they drop salary or are an even trade.

I hope this clears somethings up.

By Tim Dierkes [December 1 at 7:55pm CST]

According to MLB.com's Carrie Muskat, the Cubs declined to offer arbitration to Type A free agents Kerry Wood and Bob Howry.  The Cubs decided they could not take on the financial risk of Wood accepting, as they're tight on payroll.  Trading him might've been difficult, as he would've been a 10-and-5 player.  It seems that payroll forced the Cubs to make the questionable baseball decision to pass on a one-year deal for Wood. 

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You hear that question and without hesitation you say "OF COURSE YOU F&^#ing IDIOT!" We all cannot wait for that day when the Cubs walk off the field as World Champions. It will be absolutely glorious.

But the identity of all Cubs fans is based on the constant pursuit. We take pride in our loyalty and even in our failure. We smile when Steve Goodman sings about waiting for the Cubs "year after year.... after year after year after year". Will we feel something lost when we wake up and realize that pursuit is over?

Obviously this happened to the Red Sox. They waited 86 years that were as trying as our 101. When they won, it was awesome, they went crazy. But now what is their identity? Sure its been eased by their success, but the truth is they're just another team now. The excitement of the coming spring cannot match what it was before they won it all.

Obviously in the end, we all want the Cubs to win it all. We dream of it, we pray for it. I just wonder how we'll feel about losing part of our identity.

Obviously this has been brought up before....I don't live in Chicago and haven't been there in a while but you always hear about how great Cubs fans are but there is definitely a mentality of somehow this team is expected to win and we shouldn't be cheering passionately this. Hell, the streets looked nothing like 2003. The atmosphere seemed better today but ended in a hurry and shifted to doomsday in an game that was still winnable.

Remember that Chasing October movie set in 2003? Remember how positive Matt Liston was about everything and led a "Believe" army into the playoffs?Has anyone heard from Matt? That is the kind of approach Cubs fans need to have if we make it back to Chicago for a game 5, which is very doable.