You're kidding, right?

[the_archfiend]

Nothing warms the cockles of a Chicagoan's heart like the owner of a profitable professional sports franchise coming to the state during a debt crisis, hat in hand, asking for money.

Is Tom Ricketts cognizant of the fact that there's a whole load of people out there in need who don't have a gazillion dollars of cash to fall back on if programs they rely on don't get reimbursed by the state? And that the very idea of pulling this stunt during a time of financial crisis seems more than a bit clueless, if not outright callous?

Yeah, I'm aware that Reinsdorf and Co. pulled a similar stunt to get the new Comiskey Park built two decades ago. I didn't agree with that, either, and they didn't make their threat to move to St. Petersburg if they didn't get the money when the country was coming out of the worse recession it's had since 1929, either.

If somebody has a major brain fart and a deal like what Ricketts is proposing actually gets passed, I sincerely hope that the Cubs go another century without winning a World Series. They'll fully deserve it.

Comments

[yamamanama.livejournal.com]

He probably is, he just doesn't care, or thinks they deserve it because they should have had a gazillion dollars before they got sick or whatever.

[the-archfiend.livejournal.com]

Oh, but it gets better: this deal may ultimate end up trumping _other_ public financing deals for sports facilities here in Chicago. See my new post on the subject.