No this is not Castro's delayed reaction to the Bay of Pigs 40 years ago, an essay on immigration or my analysis on the influx of Latin players into the majors while blacks simply toil in the minors or in other sports.
As the Bronx is Burning airs on ESPN Tuesday's,(I was sure it was a movie not a mini-series) the city of Chicago is ablaze...again over news of Mav's owner Mark Cuban application to buy the Chicago Cubs. As Steinbrenner's resplendent aura looms over the Bronx Zoo, Mark Cuban has now taken the first step towards beginning his reign as ringmaster of Wrigley's circus.
It seems like these days Mark Cuban has his hand in everybody's cookie jar. Sometime in between running the Mavericks, contemplating ownership of the tumultuous Pittsburgh Pirates, his hometown Pirates and attempting to become an irritating rash on the NFL's hide, he decided owning the Chicago Cubs would be a nice time consuming project during the dog days of summer.
Not since the days of His Airness has there been a potential arrival more anticipated than Cuban's in Chicago. There is already a website devoted solely to news about Cuban and the Cubs at http://cubanandthecubs.com/. That didn't take long... Even the Cubs players and Lou Piniella have been bated into the discussion. Cubs starter Carlos Zambrano, who will be eligible for free agency after the season, had a five-year, $72 million contract extension shelved in April when Tribune Co. announced the sale of the team and put a stop order on spending beyond this season responded to the news of Cuban's application by saying ''I like him, He's like me -- a temper, and he doesn't like to lose. I don't, either. I think he'd bring whatever it takes to win the World Series. It'd be good if he could buy the club, plus I could be signed by him. I know he'd have the money for me. He'd take care of his players.''
However, I bring up Steinbrenner because of the cyclical nature of Cuban's potential excursion into baseball ownership while "The Boss" is apparently descending into private anonymity. Amazingly his gradual progression into private life has been reported on scarcely by media outlets outside of New York. Originally, this began as a hypothetical column on the potential Cubs and Cuban regime but as I began to imagine the endlessly hilarious possibilities, all I could do was subconsciously compare him to "The Boss".
If Steinbrenner was a God there is no doubt he would have made Cuban in his image, albeit without the excess body hair(Maybe some men did evolve from primates...) Both men hail from working class families only to foray into professional sports ownership and both men have meddling tendencies, but also pull out the stops to please their fanbase and spare no expenses in doing so.
Cuban and Steinbrenner have also been two of the most easily accessible owners to the media, while Mark Cuban takes it a step further by frequently answering e-mails from fans and writing his own no-holds-barred blog on subjects such as Donald Trumps hair to his eazy, breezy colonoscopy.
Yet, their cantankerous attitudes and antics have put them at odds with league authority for reasons beside their winning ways. In 1974, just two seasons after buying the Yankees, Steinbrenner was suspended for two years only to return in 1976 with a world championship ballclub and in 1990, was infamously banned for baseball for life after hiring Howie Spira as his human shovel to dig up dirt on former outfielder Dave Winfield while Mark Cuban has now drawn the ire of commissioner Stern, league officials and every referee he's ever crossed paths with.
In 2007, the NBA enacted a rule to regulate the behavior and mandate a level of decorum for it's owners in response to the actions of Cuban, who, during the regular season, and during the 2006 NBA Finals, sat courtside, participated in team huddles and frequently berated referees.
Now umpires everywhere are shaking in their boots at the unpleasant possibility of Mark Cuban and Lou Piniella occupying the same dugout while the temperamental Zambrano and his "mean right hook" pitches on the mound. I'm not sure if an owner has ever been removed from his own stadium but the Vegas odds are high on Cuban becoming the first.
Cuban has been fined by the NBA, mostly for critical statements about theleague and referees, at least $1,665,000 for 13 incidents. Until the day he dies Mark Cuban will swear up and down that the2006 NBA Finals was an NBA conspiracy construed by Commissioner Stern and amazingly he has a point. After Joey Crawford's Scrappy Doo-like request to go 12 rounds with Tim Duncan we've seen how impartial referees can be and who could blame Stern for exacting revenge on Cuban? How degrading would it have been for Stern to kiss up to Cuban who has constantly belittled him in the media while presenting him with the NBA championship and we've seen before the type of strings Stern will pull if you try to make a mockery of his him, or his League.
As much as I've relished the Yankees shortcomings in the past 7 years, I've come to appreciate the man who stands behind Pete Rose's Hall of Fame candidacy yet against his own inclusion into Cooperstown. I respect him for his obvious passion for baseball and applaud him for his stance on social change. While Sheffield and now Kenny Lofton may take take aim at the Yankee's for their apparent racial prejudice, it's easy to forget that 46 years ago, "The Boss" willingly hired John McLendon as head coach of the National Industrial Basketball League's Cleveland Pipers making him the first African-American head coach in professional sports and nearly brokered a merger which would have admitted the Pipers into the NBA as the league's 10th team.
Hypothetically, with Steinbrenner and Cuban in the NBA, Stern would have suffered a nervous breakdown years ago, at least with Bud Selig, Mark Cuban will be able to get away with it.
Much like Steinbrenner's early 70's Yankees before Cuban brought the Dallas Mavericks 7 years ago and entered the lexicon of sports fans, the franchise seemed destined to continue it's precipitous decline into the cellar of the league standings. When "The Boss" invaded New York in 1973, after a nearly successful attempt to buy the Cleveland Indians his initial promise was to siphon off the day to day management of the floundering Yankees franchise while he focused on his shipping company.
Before Steinbreinner's coup of the Yanks from CBS' ownership, they were already the most mythical franchise in sports history. The Celtics and Lakers of the NBA had only been relevant for two decades while the Yankee's had been winning championships since Celtics architect Red Auerbach and Laker George Mikan, the NBA's first superstar were still toddlers, and the NFL was still in it's infancy.
And at the same time, they are also invariably different. Steinbrenner who attended West Point runs a tight ship within the Yankees that reinforces a buttoned down professionalism as opposed to Cuban's enthusiastic kid in a candy shop mentality. While Steinbrenner institutes a clean cut look for his players, Cuban pads his players' locker rooms with Playstation 4's. Yeah I know, they're not even out yet.
Ironically, the man so dead set against free agency in it's nascent phase has since used his endless resources to use the concept to his advantage and developed a near monopoly on baseball's free agency network in it's adulthood as year after year the Yankees have wielded their hefty payroll to sign blockbuster free agents.
He has the audacity to publicly criticize members of his organization but the introspect to realize his own mistakes and shortcomings. He regrets letting Reggie Jackson walk away to the Angels, hired Billy Martin 3 separate times and never forgave himself for prematurely firing Yogi Berra as manager after 14 games. He has the gall to do what is necessary no matter how unpopular the decision is, yet the lightheartedness to poke fun at himself.
Tupac once joked, "Once God finds a replacement for Tupac, I'm gone." Though, I'm not directly correlating this to Steinbrenner's ailing physical or mental health but in the professional sense, "The Boss" is fading away fast. Perhaps this is the perfect time for the brash and Mark Cuban to resuscitate the Cubs. Even without the championships to show for it, the Cubs have been one of the three most visible franchises of the last 50 years despite sharing the city with the the Southside White Sox. They sell out every home game despite a 90 year drought of World Championship futility. Their auspicious beginnings were followed by nearly a century of unfortunate events.
However, the signs point to a changing of the guard as Steinbrenner's public statements are now made through Yankees spokesman Howard Rubenstein and the Yankees future is shrouded in mystery after the divorce of his daughter from Steve Swindal, the successor to the Yankees ownership hierarchy, a move that appears to end his chance to take over as head of the New York Yankees.
A Friday lunch date with George Steinbrenner, his son Hal Steinbrenner and son-in-law Felix Lopez at Legends Field in Tampa, where George is a fixture at these days, didn't lead to Torre discussing a contract extension with The Boss or getting a tongue lashing about the Yankees barely breathing in the AL East and Wild Card races. When asked abut the involvement of George in the discussions Torre said, "The family understands how important it is to be involved. They are all active, let's put it that way."
Perhaps it's no accident that Cuban's involvement in baseball could begin now. As one aging legend begins to fades into the background another brash, and self assured aristocrat appears ready to take the reigns of baseball's hidden gem.
The once energetic and outspoken public figure has been replaced by a reticent, shadow of his former self. As reviled as he may be by non-Yankee baseball fans across the country there is a reason his lifetime ban from baseball eventually became a 3 year suspension. Baseball needed him running the Yankees, the same way it now needs Cuban to revive the Cubs. Fans need a team to hate and perhaps Cuban should be that guy for the Cubs.
In recent months there have been increasingly louder whispers about Steinbrenner's health as anonymous sources close to Steinbrenner have been quoted in all of the 3 major New York newspapers confirming that Steinbrenner is suffering from Alzheimers and/or dementia while his loyal subordinates protect him.
Just last week, respected Yankees reporter Mike Celizic wrote "The body is there, but the mind is fading. He isn’t going to drop the axe on anyone because he can’t. He’s not going to rip anyone because he can’t remember their names. I’ve been saying for several years that he’s not the same man he once was. I never used the word “dementia” because I didn’t know what the reason was. I only knew what I heard privately from people, and that was that the Boss had lost his fastball."
It's one thing to think old age has mellowed "The Boss" while he has accepted his role in the background but it's another to think he's slowly losing a grasp of his mental facilities. Instead, the appropriately named General Manager Brian Cashman has become the new public face of the Yankees. (But seriously, is Brian CASHMAN, the most fitting name for the man responsible for assembling one of the most exorbitant payrolls in baseball sports? Maybe not as ironic as trusting anyone named Eddie Griffin with your convertible over the weekend(No seriously, the irony is off the charts. Eddie Griffin's and automobiles don't mesh well, especially if it has a built in DVD player. Some stains linger. )
For all I know Steinbrenner may be the same rude, overbearing "Czar of Right" behind closed doors and at 77, he might just be taking a short nap, but either way he won't be around forever.
But if he is still the same Boss, no one likes to fling around cash like Cuban. Though the NBA's salary cap restricts Cuban from making the type of transactions Steinbrenner makes on a regular basis, MLB's revenue sharing system would give Cuban more room to flex his hefty checkbook's muscle. If Cuban were able to throw his hat int the ring, those Steinbrenner/Cuban/Red Sox spending sprees every winter would be epic. The rat race to sign high profile free agents would be the stuff of legend and who knows with both men never afraid to stir up controversy, perhaps Cuban could be the jolt to reinvigorate Steinbrenner's ego.
So I say to the Chicago Tribune, and Major League Baseball Owners everywhere, this has to happen for the sake of baseball. However, the odds are slim because Mark Cuban is considered a pariah amongst the stodgy elite of sports ownership fraternity and Bud Selig is the man who will eventually have the final say.
Sure it would probably make things tougher for other owners to possibly witness a new culture of winning to the Cubs but this is a game for the fans and it's bad enough that for every Jerry Jones or Maloof Brothers we have to suffer through 10 more Donald Sterlings or Tom Benson's who are content simply making a profit instead of doing whatever it takes to put a winner on the field.
Cubs fans have suffered long enough and it's time they received some sort of restitution.
In a recent Chicago Tribune survey, polling the kind residents of Chicago the results were anonymous.
Do you want Mark Cuban to be the next owner of the Cubs?
74.3% Yes (13774 responses)
25.7% No (4760 responses)
18534 total responses
The Cubs won't be a cheap acquisition and whoever purchases the team will not only need to meet the asking price, but they will also need sufficient funds to run the team. There aren't many people out there who can assume such a financial burden and Mark Cuban is one of them.
Cubs fans have spoken and if Selig and the Tribune Company ignore the fan's collective desires, it would be a travesty to deny baseball's lovable losers an opportunity to finally become baseball's enviable winners. --D.J. Dunson Jr.
74.3%
