Sox Partner Buys Cubune, Slices Off Cub- Part

This does not feel like Konerko's grand slam or Podsednik's walk off in Game Two of the World Series. It feels more like something from the days of Richie Zisk, Chet Lemon, Dick Allen, something from the long era when the stars rarely aligned for us in a universe profoundly maligned against us. It feels like one of those rare moments when a grainy image on Channel 44 made you leap up from the couch in your parent's living room or when you pulled your car to the side of the road to catch every nuance of the broadcast voice of Bob Elson or Harry Caray (before the Tribune bought Harry's soul). This feels like the kind of rare victory we only knew at Old Comiskey, back in the day when we were so used to losing that the thought of a championship was nothing more than a pang of foolish hope.

But it's happening: The Tribune Company, just bought last night by White Sox minor partner Sam Zell, is selling the Cubs.

But let's not uncork the champagne quite yet. This isn't the fall of Berlin; it's only the landing at Normandy. The Tribune has stocked its staff — particularly its sports staff — with Cubs fans and filled the heads of its reporters and editors with a strange world view in which they actually seem to believe that "everybody loves the Cubs" and nobody sees their bias. It's hard to imagine the mentality inside the Tower changing as soon as the team is sold. Indeed, once they're liberated from an easily documented financial association with the Cubs, many inside the Tower will undoubtedly feel free to let their bias fly (like an L flag). Someone has to change the corrupt thinking inside that newspaper — a new editor with old-fashioned scruples. Dennis Fitzsimmons, Ann Marie Lipinski, everyone who presided over this culture of corruption, really ought to go.

Zell is buying Tribune with the help of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, which means the reporters and editors who work for Tribune media will become even more invested in Tribune assets than they already are, and with the Cubs expected to sell as early as October, they stand to profit personally and profoundly from the season that opens today.

The Tribune has still never mentioned Sam Zell's partnership with the White Sox nor his longstanding friendship with Jerry Reinsdorf. Strange, no? Maybe they thought no one would notice. Because a man who wears a Sox cap just walked into the Tower, sat down at the biggest desk, and kicked the Cubs out the back door.