Sweaty, mouthbreathing Ed Sherman apparently has learned what a blog is, and has somehow convinced the once wise people at Crain’s Chicago Business to pay him to write one.  He got an idea to write one about the financial state of the Cubs, and so who does he talk to?

White Sox announcer Steve Stone.  Well hey, Stone played for the Cubs (1974-1976) and spent at least two stints (who could count after a while) as a Cubs’ announcer.

So yes, you might as well have asked Ronny Cedeno these questions.  His answers would have been shorter, but probably just as wrong.

What are your feelings about an individual owning the Cubs as opposed to a company like the Tribune?

Mr. Stone: Let’s take emotion out of it. With the exception of the Angels in 2002, who still were owned by Disney, every team who has won the World Series for as far back as you want to go, you’ll see there’s been a face or a couple of faces (as owners). You have Larry Lucchino and John Henry with the Red Sox, Jerry Colangelo with Arizona, Jerry Reinsdorf with the White Sox, Bill DeWitt with the Cardinals. You can say all you want about George Steinbrenner, but there’s no question he wants to win. All those championship teams had faces attached to them.

It says to me that there’s a leader who pulls it all together. That’s why I think it’s imperative for Tom Ricketts to own the Cubs as soon as possible. He’s going to be the best thing to happen to that team. He loves the Cubs and he loves baseball. That team deserves an owner that loves the team.

This is true, but so is the fact that the overwhelming majority of teams are owned by “one or two faces,” which means that one corporation winning a World Series since 2002 seems about right.  Arguing that it’s better for the Chicago Tribune, or Fox, or AOL-Time Warner or Nintendo to own a team than one or two rich guys is pretty hard to do.  But I’ll bet if Nintendo had put the crazy bastards who invented the Wii in charge of the Mariners that they’d have won a World Series or six.  You ever see how easy it is to hit a baseball on the Wii?

So then are you saying that the Cubs haven’t won the World Series because of the Tribune Co.?

It’s fashionable to attack the Tribune. But let’s look at what happened under their stewardship of the team. Under Tribune Co., Harry Caray came to the Cubs. They won on satellite and wrested the mantel of America’s team away from the Braves. They won the division in 1984, 1989, 2003, 2007 and 2008. They went from not drawing many fans to selling out every game. So Tribune Co. did some good things.

Yet having said that and going with my premise that corporations don’t win championships, they made some terrible personnel decisions. They made some bad baseball decisions. They made some bad decisions in a number of different areas and it impacted the team.

It takes quite a man to argue both sides of this.  Five division championships and a wild card in almost thirty years of ownership is nothing to be all that excited about, especially when two of those titles came after the owner put the team up for sale and started spending money they were never willing to spend before.  The Cubs should be positioned better than any other team in baseball.  They play in a division where they are the only large market team, they can outspend every other team in the division by $30-60 million every year if they so choose.  The fact that they couldn’t even string together winning seasons for 30 years, and that more than half of those came under Tribune ownership is one of the biggest embarrassments in the history of North American professional sports.  Seriously.

And yes, they made a lot of bad decisions because for the most part they were run by penny pinching dopes.

You have voiced concerns about contract commitments the new Cubs owner will inherit. What impact will that have?

From 2003, Jim Hendry has the Cubs paying close to a billion dollars in salary or deferred salary. There are some big backloaded contracts. Alfonso Soriano is owed $106 million in the next six years. I thought the Milton Bradley contract (three years, $30 million) was excessive. That will make it tough on the new ownership.

These long-term obligations are coming at a time when we know sponsors are cutting back. Who then is going to pay the freight? We know it’s going to be the fans. What I fear for the Cubs fan is that there will be a tipping point where a mother and father will no longer be able to afford to take their family to Wrigley Field. When that day comes — and it will come — it’s going to be a difficult thing to deal with.

OK, here’s where Steve’s argument becomes dubious.  He throws out the idea that in the past six years Jim Hendry has handed out a billion dollars in player contracts.  If those contracts had covered just those seven years it would have given the Cubs an average yearly payroll of $142 million.  This year is their biggest payroll ever and it’s $134 million.  That does not seem an unsupportable number for this club.  But it’s not just a billion dollars over seven it’s over far more years than that.  And that’s where Stone’s point about deferred contracts (another favorite saw for Al Yellon) comes in.

The Cubs currently have ten players on their roster with guaranteed contracts that go through next season.  That doesn’t include guys like Carlos Marmol, Ryan Theriot or Geovany Soto who are stuck in their pre-arbitration limbo.

Of those ten players, only six have guaranteed money as far as 2011, and one of those is Milton Bradley and his money is a vesting option based on numbers of games played.

It seems to me that a large market team that has five players with long-term contracts, 20 percent of their roster, isn’t exactly setting money on fire.

Those five players are Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Zambrano, E-ramis Ramirez, Kosuke Fukudome and Ryan Dempster.  They are owed a combined $77.5 million in 2011, $66 million in 2012, $37.3 million in 2013 and $18 million in 2014.

Ooh, it’s so reckless!  Somebody make Hendry lick a fluish pig before he strikes again!

How much do you think the Yankees have committed in guaranteed contracts in 2011?  It’s only $129 million to eight players (that includes Jorge Posada’s $13 million when he’ll be 39, and it doesn’t include Derek Jeter because his current deal ends in 2010, and if you think they’re letting him leave you’re crazy, no matter how much sense it would make.

The Mets already had $96 million committed for 2011, and includes money for Luis Castillo!

And it’s not just the large market teams.  The Cardinals already have $42 million committed for 2011 and that includes Albert Pujols scheduled to make $16 million in the final year of his current deal.  You can probably double that (if you think I’m kidding, A-Rod is going to make $31 million in 2011), in any deal they’ll have to work out next year to keep him around for the long haul.  Oh, and $15 million is committed to Chris Carpenter for 2011.  Nice job.

You can piss and moan about the Cubs paying Alfonso Soriano $18 million per year from next through 2014, or the fact that Ryan Dempster could make $14 million in 2012, but it’s the cost of doing business, and the Cubs, no matter the owner are positioned far better financially to handle those expenditures than anybody else in their division and with the exception of the Mets and maybe the Dodgers, anybody in the league.

And as for Stone talking about how the Cubs will be charging the fans to “pay the freight,” I’ve got news for you Stevie, every team does, every year.  The Cubs charge what they can (highest average ticket price in the NL) because they can.  They have figured out a way to get dopes to pay $50 to sit in the bleachers, tickets that cost $8 to $15 in other parks.

That’s not even mentioning that the Tribune company has been able to hide earnings through a clever little shell game where the company brings in big bucks through TV and radio because the company owns the team and the TV and radio stations.  That revenue won’t go down when the Ricketts own the team, you’ll just have a better idea how much it is.  And it will be a lot.

What are your feelings about what the new owner will have to do with Wrigley Field?

Every day Sam Zell holds on to that ballpark, you’re one day closer to having to make a major renovation. All you need is one piece of concrete to drop on somebody’s head, and you won’t need to worry about keeping the name of Wrigley Field. It will be Smith Field or Roberts Field, or the name of whoever got hurt.

Nobody’s talking about the $400 million to $500 million it will cost to renovate Wrigley Field. If they have to play somewhere else, you’re probably talking about losing $100 million per year. The fans who come to Wrigley Field every day might not want to come to U.S. Cellular or go to Milwaukee. You could do the renovation in sections so you can continue to play in the ballpark. But realistically, if you want to do it right, you need to shut it down.

So now you have a team that you bought for $850 million, and throw in the renovation, and you have $1.4 billion in the deal. Tell me how you’re going to get that back without the fans paying a tremendous part of that.

This is just dumb.  Steve’s just pulling numbers out of his ass.  It is inevitable that the Cubs will have to leave Wrigley for a season at some point while the grandstand and “bowels” are rebuilt.  It’s also inevitable that unless the team sucks ass that year, that they’ll draw sizable crowds no matter where they play.  They will have to share revenue with either the Brewers or the Sox (or the state, in that case), but if you don’t think the dismantling of Wrigley, and the selling off of seats, signage, piss troughs, etc. won’t bring in big money, and especially the increased revenue the rebuilt stadium will offer, you’re just dumb.  No wonder Stone could never get a bid together to buy the hapless A’s.  A year in Wisconsin or northern Indiana (wait, is Comiskey in Illinois, I thought it was in Gary?) is a small and temporary price to pay for a renovated Wrigley.  If you thought the place is a cash cow now, just wait.

Are there any other potential revenue sources?

The one thing I’ve shared with people who have been in pursuit of this team is that you’re going to have to bring in people who are phenomenally creative in generating revenue outside the walls (of the ballpark). The Red Sox have been terrific at generating profits outside the wall. They own a Nascar team and are involved in a PGA Tour event.

You’re only limited by your imagination here. (Going outside the walls) is going to be essential if you want to keep ticket prices within reason.

Seriously?  The Red Sox ownership of a NASCAR team and sponsoring a PGA event in a time when NASCAR teams and non-major PGA events are hemorrhaging cash is just a great example to give, Steve.  The Red Sox biggest cash cows are Fenway Park and NESN which they own the vast majority of.  Just like the Yankees make huge cash off of the YES Network.  With a new owner not beholden to trying to provide non CW programming for WGN, the long rumored Cubs TV Network (which they wouldn’t own just part of like they do Comcast with the Sox, Hawks and Bulls) would provide the same thing for the Cubs.  In fact, like YES airs Nets games and regional college sports, you could see the Cubs and John McDonough work out an arrangement to air Blackhawks games all winter.  The timing would be perfect, as the NHL should be in a far better position when they negotiate their next deal with Versus (or heaven forbid, ESPN) and NBC to get the “national rights” loosened up so teams like the Blackhawks can have a national cable-satellite deal on their own on nights not guaranteed to Versus.  That’s the reason Hawks games on WGN-TV can’t be shown beyond Chicagoland, currently.  No NHL team can be on a “superstation” on any night because of the exclusivity for Versus.  Hey, at the time, the NHL didn’t think anybody would ever offer them that chance.  They very nearly had to pay to find a national cable carrier.

The Cubs are expected to ask the city (and we know how the city loves the Cubs) to allow them to shut down at least two streets (preferably for them Sheffield and Waveland) hours before and after home games to “create better pedestrian access” to the park, but the real effect would be, like the Red Sox have done with Lansdowne Street, a chance to get fans out of the Wrigleyville Bars earlier and into places (like the Captain Morgan thing) where the money goes to them.  Why Sheffield and Waveland?  Fewer non-Cubs owned places to drink on those two.

You paint a grim picture for ticket buyers for Cubs games. Is it really going to be that bad?

I had a caller on WSCR berate me for talking about the backloaded contracts. He said, “The only thing we care about is winning the World Series.” I said, “That’s great and you should care about that.” But I said to him, “Give me a call in 10 years. If you have children or grandchildren, and you have to tell them how beautiful the ivy was, and what it was like to watch a Cubs game at Wrigley Field on a summer day. And you have to tell them about it because you can’t afford to go there anymore. When that day comes, call me back and tell me those backloaded contracts didn’t mean anything.”

The players come and go. The owners even come and go. It’s the fans’ game. It’s the fans you have to protect.

Those backloaded contracts do mean something, but not that much.  Especially not in ten years when the contracts Steve seems to fear so much will have been off the books for half that long.  The fact remains that in every instance, especially E-ramis, Zambrano and Kosuke, there were teams lined up to pay as much, or more for those players.  As much as people complain about Soriano’s contract the Angels were only finally knocked out of the bidding when it went to an eighth year, they were in it through seven.  And even Dempster’s deal wasn’t out of whack with what starting pitchers got this offseason, when other than a closer and a first baseman they got all the money.  Stone would be the first to have mocked the Cubs for being cheap if they had failed to sign any of these five guys.

Finally, what is this horseshit about “it’s the fans you have to protect”?  Whatever.  Every sports franchise charges what it can for tickets and concessions.  People bitch, but until they bitch and stop coming, you just let them bitch.  After years of overcharging and providing shitty baseball and still selling out, the Cubs are now overcharging and fielding competent teams.  The Yankees are publicly taking it in the shorts because of the ludicrous seat prices they’ve charged, but you want to know the reality?  They sold most of them, during the worst economic downturn in 70 years.  Some of those richies are hiding out and not using those seats right now to avoid being seen, but as soon as they think the coast is clear, they’ll be back.  And the Yankees aren’t losing any revenue by them not showing up, because those highest priced seats included food and beverages in the ticket price.

All of this hue and cry about the backloaded contracts is nonsense.  Yellon used the Aaron Miles contract as an example of the madness of Hendry backloading contracts.  Oh, it’s backloaded all right.  He gets $2 million this year and $2.7 next.  I’m sure that $700K will probably bankrupt the franchise.

Stick to what you actually know, Steve.  Though the more we listen to you these last few years, the less we know what that is.

But wait, that’s not all for today.

Yesterday, Phil Rogers used Carlos Zambrano’s strained hamstring as an excuse to call for the designated hitter in the National League.

Look, we all know Phil is dumb, and it’s so cute that he feels the need to remind us so often.  But he can’t even make a half-assed argument for his point.  Not that he ever really can.

I’m not going to pick apart the whole thing, basically because we’d be here all day.  Let’s just hit the lowlights.

Most baseball fans disagree, especially those who follow National League teams, but here in the home office of Common Sense Central it’s time to make my recurring plea: Let’s add the designated hitter rule to the NL, giving Major League Baseball the standard set of rules that exists in the NFL, NBA and NHL.

First off, if you have to plea recurringly, nobody is listening to you, because they don’t give a shit.  But please, write on.

Secondly, I had no idea that the NFL, NBA and NHL all have a “standard set of rules”, so where’s the three second lane on a hockey rink?  Can you make two line passes in football?  Can Derrick Rose get called for pass interference?

I’ve written this before, and I’ll write it again: Pitchers in the highest level of the sport have no business swinging a bat or running the bases, no matter whether they are as capable as Zambrano (.240, 17 career homers) or as incapable as Washington’s Daniel Cabrera (.000 career, 19 strikeouts in 21 at-bats).

Once again, you acknowledge no one cares what you’re writing, but you forge ahead.  Nice work if you can get it, I guess.

But you know what, Phil.  I think you’ve convinced me.  Daniel Cabrera is a terrible hitter, so I think pitchers shouldn’t hit!  You did it.  Oh, and I also think that you are a terrible writer and that the Tribune should be forced to close its doors forever.  Ah!  See what I did there?

Carlos Zambrano hit .337 last year.  Two weeks ago in Arizona, the night he almost hit for the cycle, the Cubs started a lineup in which only two players (Soriano and Bradley) had more career homers than he did.  And that’s not the point.  You don’t need to hit .337 to justify pitcher’s batting.

Greg Maddux hit .171 for his career, he seemed to know how to help his teams when he batted even if it didn’t mean he got a lot of hits.  You’re supposed to be a baseball expert, why is it that you are so vapid about the actual game you supposedly cover?

Every time a pitcher takes the field, he’s an accident waiting to happen. The risks inherent in pitching are huge. It’s silly to increase those risks to increase the ones that hitters and baserunners face, especially when so much of a team’s payroll and its hope for success is tied into the arms of those pitchers.

You just made a point, but not your point.  Every time any player takes the field they could get hurt.  Zambrano could have just as easily gotten hurt trying to field a bunt as trying to beat one out.  Yovani Gallardo missed almost the entire season last year because he got hurt covering first base.  Why didn’t you write about how many backyard games use ‘pitcher’s hand is out’ and ask for the NL to implement that rule so they’d never have to run to the bag?  Bryce Florie caught a line drive with his face, and you didn’t petition to have the batting practice screen put up for the games.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RT45ioDlCU]

Zambrano, for example, is in the second year of a five-year, $91.5-million deal. He’ll earn $17.75 million this season – more than $500,000 per start. It’s crazy that Lou Piniella used him in three consecutive games as a pinch hitter, no matter how much he loves to hit or how much Wrigley Field fans love to watch him hit.

Yeah, it’s crazy to use one of your baseball players to help you win a baseball game.  You’re just the kind of jerkoff who thinks it’s cute when Doug Dascenzo or Augie Ojeda get to pitch in a blowout, but you feign offense when a higher paid player tries to get a hit in a game when it is close.

Zambrano is paid to pitch, and in this era of specialization that’s all he should do. You can’t blame him for wanting to show off his hitting skills, which are vastly superior to other pitchers (many of whom have been in DH leagues most of their careers, limiting their development as hitters).

Who are you to be lecturing people on all they should do?  As far as I can tell you get paid to write informative, entertaining baseball columns and instead you give us this slop.  You couldn’t find a blog, or your ass with both hands, until the Tribune company slashed the sports desk to shreds and you started to worry about your job.  You know when you should have been worried about it?  Back when people still read your shit.  Which, as far as I can tell was around the time Maude got cancelled.  (Heh, and you thought there’d be no Bea Arthur references in this one.)  More people will read people ripping your shitty writing than will read it to begin with.  You should be upset that FireJoeMorgan.com went away, that was probably your biggest source of readers.

National League fans argue that the old fashioned game is a better one, that there’s beauty in the art of the sacrifice bunt and that the DH rule eliminates much of “the chess game’’ between managers. I’ve got nothing against a bunt, not when it’s being used by somebody who can hit, but the average NL pitcher batted .128 a year ago. The strategic considerations caused by sending men to the plate who can’t hit are consistently overestimated.

Most decisions managers make are automatic – walk the No. 8 hitter to get to the pitcher; pinch hit for the pitcher if you’re behind and have a rally going. The play is dictated by the situation.

There’s just so much wrong with these two paragraphs.  First off, in a paragraph where you extoll the virtues of the sac bunt, the only stat you give us is one that treats the sac bunt as though nothing happened, as batting average doesn’t count it as a plate appearance.  Secondly, you claim that the decision to automatically walk the eight hitter to get to the pitcher is so simple, and you do it on the day when the Cubs first run was scored by a typically helpless pitcher, Sean Marshall, hitting a single to center to drive in a run.  The biggest benefit of having the pitcher bat isn’t because they’re all Babe Ruth (who by the way led the American League in homers in 1918 and won 13 games as a pitcher that same season), but because it creates more strategy at the end of games.

Do you pinch hit for a pitcher who is doing well but the team is tied or behind?  Who do you pinch hit?  When do you double switch?  Baseball is a game of decisions and outcomes, where in most American League games the manager writes out a lineup and sits and watches the game, using his bench rarely, and usually because a player has been hurt or has a crazy platoon split.  You would think that a baseball writer, of all people, would be worried that using the DH in both leagues would hurt the game.  But then again, you’re a dumbass.

Still reading? If so, and if you’ve grown up watching NL ball, I apologize for the annoyance. I know this is fingers-on-chalkboard material. Feel free to disagree. But know that the price of your disagreement is to continue watching the American League be superior.

You know it’s a fine article if the writer has to wonder if anyone is reading it.  But you finally got to the point you’ve been trying to make for several paragraphs now.  That the American League is superior to the National League and that the NL needs the DH to catch up.

Because they’re so far behind.

They can’t compete with the AL.  They can’t win an All-Star Game!  They get hammered in Interleague Play!

But the last time I checked, baseball seasons were played to determine the winner of the World Series.  As Cubs fans we know this all too well.  No season has ended satisfactorially since 1908.  And yet, you seem to think that the other stuff is more important.  Well, you have to have meant that, because:

In this decade there have been nine World Series and five have been won by the American League and four have been won by the National League.  Wow, look at that imbalance!

In the 35 years since Ron Blomberg served as the first DH in big league history, there have been 20 World Series won by the American League and 15 won by the National League.  Six of those were won by the Yankees who managed to win 20 of them before they had a DH, so that’s probably not why they won them.

For one thing, AL general managers are forced to develop or acquire one more quality hitter than their NL rivals. They can use the DH spot to lengthen the careers of one-dimensional veterans like Jim Thome or to open the doors to a young run-producer like Adam Lind or Matt LaPorta while a Jake Fox (.420, 12 homers, 31 RBIs in 21 games) is stuck at Iowa, the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate.

Well, now you’ve swayed me!  Because Jake Fox needs a position to play on the Cubs!  He might win AAA player of the year this year and it’s a pity that he hasn’t had a great chance to play in the big leagues.  Scott McLain was a Pacific Coast League MVP, and Steve Balboni won it twice!  Ooh, the talent!

That’s partly why  AL payrolls are higher – although not as much so in 2009 as recent years – and AL teams are deeper, thus better able to withstand injuries.

Uh, no.  AL payrolls were higher because they have the Yankees and when one team will spend twice what anybody else will it’s going to bring the average up.  One of the reasons the gap has narrowed is that the Cubs are finally paying their fair share. AL teams are not deeper.  If anything they are shallower because the bench comes into play so little of the time.  When bench guys don’t play, you think they’re better than they are, until somebody gets hurt and they have to prove it.

There’s no way to prove the next point, but I think it’s a big one. Deeper AL lineups make for mentally tougher pitchers, who are more likely to perform under the greatest pressure.

There’s no way to prove it because it’s wrong.  “Mentally tougher?”  Fuck off.  That’s just dumb.

There’s no way for a pitcher to finesse his way through any AL lineup. An NL starter is guaranteed some easy outs, which could help him get through two or three of the six or seven innings he pitches. I think the extra toughness shows up in October, when AL teams have won 11 of the last 17 World Series.

This point is just so dumb it’s astonishing.  First off, you say “some easy outs” and clearly mean the 7-8-9 spots in the order (or in a Dusty Baker order 1-2-8-9), only one of which is the pitcher.  So how would the DH elevate the play of other hitters in the order?  What this simplistic point fails to mention is that NL pitchers are cost innings pitched because they have to leave earlier in games for pinch hitters.  So the benefit only exists if your goal is to pitch fewer innings.  Finally, John Dewan of Baseball Info Solutions was on the always terrible Mike Murphy Show yesterday and had this stat for you.  Since 2000, the difference in runs scored per game for the AL (with the DH) and the NL (without) is .06 runs per game.  Not six tenths of a run, but six hundredths.  Fat lot of good it’s doing the American League.  But hey, whatever it takes so that you can see Ty Wigginton get four extra at bats like he did last night when he DH’d for the Orioles.