MLB

Filed:October 30th, 2009

Chicago Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts

And with one 20 minute press conference this morning, an historic event has come and gone, with the Ricketts family officially announced as the Cubs owners.

It doesn’t matter who he says is his daddy.

Pedro Martinez is a first ballot Hall of Famer.

The 38-year-old from the Dominican Republic may not have the mid-90s fastball he once displayed, but he still has the prowess on the bump to take over a contest on the game’s biggest stage.

Just look at the way he navigated through Game Two against the New York Yankees on Thursday night.

"It's going to be a big difference between family ownership and corporate ownership. For one thing, as you can tell from talking to us, we all have the same agenda, which may not always be happening inside a corporation. We just want to win. We want to bring a championship back here ." -Tom Ricketts in his first press conference as owner of the Cubs.

According to the Houston Chronicle’s Richard Justice (as well as MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart), the Houston Astros have added two new faces to their 2010 coaching staff.

Beyond the hiring of new manager Brad Mills (along with the return of Sean Berry as hitting coach and Dave Clark as third base coach), the Astros have announced the addition of Al Pedrique [pictured] as bench coach and Bobby Meacham as first base coach.

The Astros' new pitching coach is also planned to be unveiled sometime in the very near future.

Upon watching the first two games of the 2009 World Series, I was astonished at the number of empty seats at Yankee Stadium.

Sportswriters constantly claim that New York Yankee fans are the best in baseball. I am not here to disagree with them, but just question it from their support?

It amazes me how Yankee fans needed the Yankees to lower ticket prices in order to "fill" the stadium. BRAND NEW Yankee Stadium tickets are as low as $277 on Stubhub.com, while the cheapest ticket for Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park is $395.

To some degree, I sympathize with New York Yankee fans. Granted, my tears are largely of the crocodile variety because I readily acknowledge they bring a lot of the exploitation on themselves.

Few fan bases are so quick to turn on their players when performance dips.

Sometimes I wish baseball would get with the program.

It just perplexes me that Bud Selig allows one league to play one style of baseball and the other league to play another style of baseball.

The disconnect between the style of play is all over one position: the DH.

The American League has it, the National League doesn't, hence the different style of play in both leagues.

With the World Series now going on, one league's players are always at a disadvantage because each home ballpark calls for a different adherence to the rules.

On Friday morning, the Chicago Cubs introduced their new owners to the media and the world with a press conference from a rainy Wrigley Field. The 35 minutes of questions and answers was informative, humorous, and encouraging for not only Cubs fans, but any baseball fans.

Tom Ricketts, the leader of the Ricketts Family, gave a brief introduction statement in which he outlined three points for Cubs fans under which they will work moving forward:

1. "We're going to win a World Series"

• Year: 2002
• Record: 55-106
• Win Percentage: .342
• Win Percentage Change: -65 from the year before
• Run Differential: -289
• Pythagorean Record: 52-109
• AL Finish: 14th of 14 teams
• Manager: Phil Garner and Luis Pujols
• Best Transaction: Couple of decent moves here, actually. First, the Tigers drafted Curtis Granderson and Joel Zumaya in this draft, nothing to sneeze at there. Second, prior to the start of the season, they picked up Craig Monroe off of waivers.
  

In New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of

There's nothing you can't do, now you're in New York

These streets will make you feel brand new

Big lights will inspire you, let's hear it for New York

This is the chorus (as sung by Grammy winner Alicia Keys) to Jay-Z's current hit single "Empire State of Mind."