Marathon Pundit: Daley against state purchase of Wrigley Field; Black Sox swag sold

While Major League Baseball suffered yesterday what is probably its worst day since the Black Sox scandal broke--Thursday saw the release of the Mitchell Report on steroid abuse among MLB players, there were a couple of Chicago baseball stories worth reporting on.

As I blogged yesterday morning, Governor Rod Blagojevich, who had almost as bad of a day as now tainted Roger Clemens did--read below to see what I'm talking about--is considering a state purchase of Wrigley Field, where the Chicago Cubs play. Of course the state is essentially broke, and fellow Democrat, Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago, is not too juiced up about the idea of Illinois owning a second baseball park. It already owns the South Side stadium where the White Sox play.

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Calling Wrigley Field a "gold mine," Daley said there is no danger of a new owner moving the Cubs and, therefore, no reason for a deal that would amount to "taxpayers helping out the Cubs."

"We can’t even get any money for the CTA (the city's public transit division) and they're worried about the Chicago Cubs? They've made money every year. It's very profitable and some way, we're supposed to bail them out? I've never heard [of that] . . . I don't think they’re leaving. They just increased the price of tickets," Daley said.

"We have a crisis at the CTA right now. It's hard to believe . . . that people are now talking about taxpayers helping out the Cubs. The Cubs are not gonna move. It's a gold mine. . . . If you're gonna start holding this issue over the heads of passengers of the CTA and this crisis we’re in and they want to start talking about whether or not taxpayers are gonna buy [Wrigley Field] — that’s hard to believe."

Looks like Blagojevich's idea is a strike out. Even with Daley's support, the unpopular governor can't be expected to round up enough votes to get this through the state legislature.

Chicago's other baseball team, the one that won the World Series two years ago, was in the news on Thursday.

In 1920, it was discovered that eight Chicago White Sox players had conspired with gamblers to "throw" the 1919 World Series. Although a jury found the players innocent of conspiracy charges, the eight, including the legendary Shoeless Joe Jackson, were banned for life from Major League Baseball.

An auction of previously unkown documents, letters and memos detailing the scandal was held in suburban Burr Ridge, Illinois. The winning bidder was the Chicago Historical Society, which promises to display some of the artifacts, make the rest available to researchers, and to send photocopies of the entire cache to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Related post:

White Sox win World Series!

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