Cubs 101 - Pt. 72 - The Sale of the Cubs to the Ricketts Family

When Andy MacPhail resigned from the Cubs during the '06 season debacle, it soon became clear that the long-time whispers of a Cubs sale were formulating into reality.  The Cubs parent owner -- the Chicago Tribune -- was in dire financial straights and, even though the Cubs were a perennial money-maker, they were facing the grim task of bailing out their debt and satisfying their stock holders.  None of that stopped Jim Hendry from signing some very big names on the free agent market soon after the '06 season ended, though. But when the sale of the Tribune to Sam Zell was announced in April, 2007, the Cubs had a new defacto owner who pledged immediately to sell off his billion-dollar asset as quickly as possible.  Naturally, I thought that meant '07 would be a lost season -- after all, with a new owner the Cubs perhaps had frozen assets and Jim Hendry would be less likely to have the bank to expand the payroll as needed.  Although the Cubs didn'...