The Eighth Blunder of Chicago

The Tribune recently completed a charming series on Chicago's greatest blunders. They began it with that famous Tribune headline, "Dewey Defeats Truman" and ended with that famous Cubs' trade: Lou Brock to the St. Louis Cardinals for Ernie Broglia. Was that a clever gesture toward self-critique by the Cubune? A concession to the pressure applied to the Cubune by you Cubune critics out there? Or was it a calculated effort to fend off criticism, since some of Chicago's greatest blunders have been perpetuated by the Tribune, by the Cubs, or by the union between the two. You see, the Tribune omitted the greatest blunder of all: Tribune Buys Cubs.

It has to be the stupidest thing a newspaper has ever done. Not only did a newspaper that's supposed to cover the whole city take sides in a rivalry that divides the city, but it picked the losing side. Meanwhile, what had been merely a baseball rivalry has become something of a cultural war, in which Southsiders understandably feel that all the Tribune-owned media have turned against them. Sure the Tribune has made some money selling caps and scalping tickets, but what's the value of the credibility it lost? As blunders go, "Dewey Defeats Truman" lasted one morning. The Tribune and Cubs have been blundering arm-in-arm for 24 years.