Rick Reilly Thinks It's Totally Wrigley Field's Fault the Cubs Can't Win the World Series

We all know Rick Reilly has become a terrible writer. I'm not entirely sure if he became terrible when he joined ESPN or was slowly trending that way prior to leaving Sports Illustrated, but his columns have become nearly unreadable at this point. Rick thinks the Chicago Cubs need to move out of Wrigley Field because it is preventing them from winning the World Series. See, the Cubs could make so much more money if they sold advertising at Wrigley Field, and all casual sports fans like Rick think spending money is the quickest way to win a World Series. Obviously winning the World Series is more complicated than that. But...if the Cubs just spent more money then they could win the World Series, right? 

For the 97th straight year, the Chicago Cubs will attempt baseball this season in Wrigley Field. It's historic, magical and covered in vegetation. Then again, so is Machu Picchu and nobody's trying to win baseball games there.

We all know baseball teams can't win games while playing in an old ball park. That's why the Red Sox haven't won a World Series for nearly 100 years. 

I love Wrigley Field. 

Which is why Rick wants it torn down or abandoned. Sure, that makes sense. He loves Wrigley Field so much he wants to kill it.

But I'm not a Cubs fan. If I were a Cubs fan, I would despise Wrigley. I'd want Wrigley laid flatter than Wrigley gum.

You may ask, "Why would Rick Reilly not like Wrigley Field if he were a Cubs fan?" It's a simple answer. Rick isn't very sports-knowledgeable and thinks Wrigley Field is preventing the Cubs from winning the World Series because it doesn't bring enough revenue in, which in turn this revenue would help the Cubs win a World Series. Nevermind the Cubs had the 15th highest payroll in 2012, will have the 14th highest payroll in 2013, had the 6th highest payroll in 2011, 3rd highest payroll in 2010 and 2009, and had the 8th highest payroll in 2008. The Cubs need to generate more money to win a World Series, even though prior to last year they had consistently been in the Top 10 (or even Top 5) of payroll. 

There's a reason they're 0-for-the-last-67 pennant races at Wrigley. The reason IS Wrigley.

There comes a certain point where you can't argue with somebody who is so willfully stupid. We are past that point, but I'm going to keep arguing. There's no way Rick Reilly could believe Wrigley Field is the reason the Cubs haven't won the World Series lately. Well, there is a way. Rick Reilly doesn't understand sports enough to be able to arrive at a different conclusion.

It's an old family dog that probably costs the Cubs about $73 million a year.

Caution: Fuzzy math and too many assumptions are about to be used in order for Rick to come to this $73 million number. 

Where do I get $73 million? Start from the outside-in -- with the money-sucking rooftop mini-stadiums that metastasize outside the ballpark.
 
The owners of these annoying watchtowers sell tickets as though they were the Cubs themselves. 

They even sell season tickets! The city continues to protect these leeches, who pass themselves off as mom and pop entrepreneurs, but actually rake in an estimated $24 million a year, according to the club.

And of course the Cubs should immediately stop these "leeches" and once they have recouped the money they would have a clear path to the World Series, right? Fuck public relations or the fact the Cubs make enough money without stopping these people from selling tickets. All that matters is the Cubs show themselves to only care about money. It will not only gain new Cubs fans, but also lead them directly to winning the World Series.

Of that, the Cubs get a paltry 17 percent, or $4 million a year. Any fair deal would give them at least half. (There's $8 million they don't get.)

Yes, because we need to be "fair" to the Cubs and so that's where $8 million of the contrived $73 million figure comes from. Also, the fact Wrigley Field is old has nothing to do with the Cubs losing this $8 million. The Cubs "lose" this money because they choose to pass up this income and it has nothing to do with Wrigley Field. Big fail on Rick's part.

Inside, the Cubs are prohibited from putting up advertising signs that could make them up to $30 million more a year (that would be $38 million) because the signs would block the views of the precious rooftop oglers and the city can't have that.

Again, this has nothing to do with Wrigley Field being old. This isn't Wrigley Field costing the Cubs money, but the city of Chicago causing the Cubs to lose this potentially fictional $30 million figure. I'm not sure where the $30 million advertising loss comes from since Rick doesn't cite a source, but I'm guessing it is made up.

So at this point, Wrigley Field has cost the Cubs $0 million by my calculations.

You talk about a business being in your business. Can you imagine this happening to any other business?
 
Hey, H&R Block! We're not going to pay you for your tax advice, but we ARE going to pocket the cash people give us to sit outside your window and listen to it!

H&R Block makes money by doing people's taxes and giving advice specific to each person's taxes. This is different from purchasing a ticket to a baseball game. This really isn't the best comparison, but we all know Rick doesn't want to think very much when writing his columns, so I shouldn't be surprised.

You say, "Well, the Cubs aren't really a business. They're a city treasure, a kind of living museum."
 
Fine, if they're a city treasure, then the city should help support them, the way it did for this summer's 30th anniversary of the Chicago Blues Festival, which received a $15,000 grant.

This is a poorly executed use of logic. Simply because Wrigley Field is a city treasure doesn't mean it requires support from the city of Chicago. The Chicago Blues Festival needs money, while the Cubs and Wrigley Field don't need money, so the city doesn't support them with grants.

The Cubs pay 12 percent city "amusement" tax on every ticket (about $17 million a year -- we're up to $55 million), and yet the city doesn't give them a dime. Very unamusing.

Again, this tax has NOTHING to do with Wrigley Field being old. It has to do with how the city of Chicago taxes the team. So since the Cubs don't plan on relocating to another city, even if they played in a cardboard box or on a brand new field that holds 500,000 people with no view of the game available without purchasing a ticket, they would have to pay this "amusement" tax. So Wrigley Field isn't costing the Cubs any money, the city of Chicago is. Why should the city of Chicago subsidize a privately-owned business like the Cubs if the Cubs don't need this subsidized money?

They're allowed to play only 30 night games a year. And they can't even pick the nights. When owner Tom Ricketts inquired if they might play a few Saturday night games this season, the local restaurants fumed, "It'll kill our dinner business!"

Got it. Everybody gets to compete for customers except the Cubs.

Again, again, this isn't a problem caused by Wrigley Field, but a problem caused by the city of Chicago. It sounds like Rick Reilly thinks the city of Chicago, not Wrigley Field is the problem. Yet for some reason the following is the main point of this column:
 
There's a reason the Cubs have never won a World Series at Wrigley. There's a reason they're 0-for-the-last-67 pennant races at Wrigley. The reason IS Wrigley.

Wrigley isn't just the old family dog that needs to be put down. It's an old family dog that probably costs the Cubs about $73 million a year.

So far Rick Reilly is up to $55 million the Cubs are cheated out of and none of that money lost is a product of playing in Wrigley Field, but is a product of the Cubs making certain rules for ticket sales and due to the rules/taxes the city of Chicago sets for the Cubs.

Any idea how much more the Cubs could get for a TV package with 55 night games, which is what many teams play and when most fans watch? Me neither, but let's guess $5 million. (We're up to $60 million.)

A completely contrived $60 million, and again again again, the Cubs television package has nothing to do with Wrigley Field.

God forbid they'd want to put up a decent video replay board, which is ad gold for most teams and, by the way, a place where Cubs fans could actually tell the score of the game without having to do the inning-by-inning math themselves, as they do now on the old hand-lettered relic in center. ($7 million? Total so far: $67 million.)

Arguably the lack of a scoreboard has something to do with Wrigley Field. Regardless, I'm not sure how a scoreboard is costing the Cubs $7 million per year. I don't know the current cost of a scoreboard, but I would imagine the Cubs wouldn't make $7 million per year from the scoreboard immediately after putting it up. I could be wrong.

A lot of the draw and charm of Wrigley Field is that it doesn't have a huge scoreboard in centerfield and fans can watch the game from their apartments. It gives the place a community feel that (from what I know) Cubs fans seem to enjoy. I realize Rick isn't really that interested in sports, outside of writing kitschy human interest stories about sports figures, so he may not realize putting a huge scoreboard in centerfield would take away a lot of what Wrigley Field special. Part of what makes Wrigley so great and helps attendance is that it is a different field from the other 29 MLB teams. Not being a sports fan, Rick wouldn't understand this.

Just to reinforce the fact he doesn't understand the tradition of Wrigley Field, Rick then suggests the Cubs rename the park and sell the rights to a company who will pay $100 million for 20 years. Sure, the field is already named after a company, but that company doesn't pay for the name. Re-naming the field would make the Cubs an extra $5 million per year though!

And forget about how long it takes you to get up and get a hot dog at Wrigley (two innings sometimes), or get to the restroom and back (often three). Hell, by the third inning, the Cubs are on their third reliever. No wonder so many people sneak food in. What's that total in lost concessions? A million? (We're at $73 million.)

There is an argument to be made that these fans wouldn't buy concessions at Wrigley Field if they didn't sneak food in. So I'm not sure the Cubs have lost revenue of $1 million on account of food being snuck in because these fans may not have bought food if they didn't sneak food in.

And that's just the money they don't get. Imagine the players they don't get -- because of their weird start times, their rotting training facilities, their wimpy weight room, their nonexistent in-game batting cage, their backachingly small clubhouse and their 104-year ringless streak.

Imagine how many players they do get because they are players who would love to play on the same Wrigley Field that Rick claims is causing the Cubs to lose so much money.

Can you imagine what a genius like Cubs GM Theo Epstein could do with another $73 million a year?

Yeah, we saw what he did with that money in Boston.

He'd have the fourth-highest payroll in MLB instead of the 15th (2012). One of the biggest draws in sports shouldn't be 15th in anything.

This just shows Rick Reilly's ignorance and complete inability to do research before shitting out another half-assed column. The Cubs haven't been 15th in payroll for very long at all. They have traditionally been in the Top 10 and even Top 5 of MLB teams in terms of payroll over the last decade. The Cubs are taking a strategic step back on spending in order to help turn the franchise around. So the Cubs aren't 15th in payroll because they lack the revenue to be higher than that, but because it is a strategic management decision. Not to mention, Rick Reilly is even more stupid than I thought if he thinks all $73 million "saved" would go directly towards the team's ability to spend. A good portion of that money would go in the pocket of the Cubs ownership.

They started putting up signs everywhere at Fenway, maxed out revenue anywhere they could, and won two of the past 9 World Series.

Yeah, I must have missed that big, new scoreboard Red Sox ownership put up. Red Sox ownership has maximized revenue by putting seats up on the Green Monster, while the Cubs already have seats in the outfield. There is no correlation between the Red Sox putting up advertising and then winning two World Series.

And yet Ricketts doesn't want to raze Wrigley. He was practically raised on Wrigley. He lives close enough that he takes the "L" to most games. And because he loves it, he has offered to pour $500 million of the family's money into renovating Wrigley -- $300 million for fixing the joint and the rest into a proposed hotel/fitness club across the street.

It makes sense considering only the most fucktarded of the fucktarded people could believe Wrigley Field is the reason the Cubs can't win a World Series.

And what does Ricketts want for plowing no government cheese into the Wrigley rat trap? Not a dime. He just wants the city to relax some of the restrictions that make the Cubs a kind of crippled Carnival cruise ship with foul poles.

I'm sorry who does Ricketts want to relax some of the restrictions? Ricketts wants Wrigley Field to relax the restrictions? No, he wants the city of Chicago to relax the restrictions. So again, how is Wrigley Field the reason the Cubs haven't won a World Series? If the Cubs got more night games then the locker rooms would still be small and there would still be no advertising at Wrigley. Wrigley Field would still be the same as it currently is, just renovated in some ways.

Epstein really didn't want any part of this column, but he did email to say, "We're focused on doing everything we can with what we have available to us now to make the baseball operation as healthy and successful as possible."
Too bad there's so little available.

That's just not true. The Cubs could spend money if they chose to spend money. Just look at the payroll numbers for the Cubs over the last decade.

It's simple, Chicago. You can either have your creaky, quaint, vine-covered crypt, or you can win. But you can't have both.

This is such a ridiculous comment. Rick is arguing Wrigley Field is preventing the Cubs from winning the World Series (which it isn't) because the Cubs can't generate enough revenue (which is a lie) to put a good team on the field (which isn't true). Rick seems to believe if the Cubs could spend more money (which they have in the past), then they could find better players to win a World Series (which the Cubs have tried before and it didn't work). Rick writes this column under the fallacy more money can make a team win a World Series (which isn't necessarily true) and Wrigley Field (well, actually the city of Chicago), doesn't allow the Cubs to make enough money. That is seemingly what he wants to prove.

Actually, Rick has no idea what he is arguing. He is not putting any effort into an ESPN column yet again. He blames Wrigley Field for the Cubs not winning a World Series and then blames all of Wrigley Field's problems on the city of Chicago. At this point Rick may be better off just retiring from writing and living the life he really wants to lead of starfucking and pretending to choke someone for the sake of a picture. Rick Reilly's inability to give a shit about what he writes has choked the life out of his sportswriting career.