Chicago Cubs: Why is Tom Ricketts ducking fans at Cubs Convention?

Chicago Cubs: Are you gonna steal that boy from D.C.?

The federal government is in a partial shutdown – the longest ever.  We all know this.  It’s been going on for weeks now and doesn’t look close to ending.

Let’s be honest – without getting too political here, the Cubs’ ownership family, the Ricketts, have strong political ties with the White House.  While not all of their family sees eye-to-eye on political issues, both Todd and Tom are major political players.  The former was even named the finance chair of the Republican Party.

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Given the current political landscape and the fact that someone is going to be offended no matter what they say or do (or where you funnel your money), maybe the Ricketts have decided that it’s not a good idea to bring politics into CubsCon, thus distracting from the ballclub and the excitement of the event.  While I wouldn’t hide from my beliefs and partnerships, if this is the reason for staying away from the Q&A this weekend, I could almost get behind it.

If the Ricketts family wants to keep the spotlight on the Cubs and away from their political leanings, it’s an almost admirable decision.  However, they could have chosen to just head any questions like that off at the pass by saying, “just so everyone knows, we’re not responsible for the government shutdown and we don’t want politics to take away from this great event – so let’s just stick to Cubs’ concerns here.”  They could even throw in a joke and the vast majority of Cubs’ fans would be fine with that.

Speaking of jokes, there could be ongoing issues with local politics that the Ricketts could want to stay away from as well.  It’s well known that the local government in the city of Chicago and around Wrigleyville has not been the most gracious or easiest to work with. There has always been tension between the Cubs’ ownership and the local government (namely the aldermen), but it seems to have come to a head recently.

Maybe the Ricketts don’t want to field questions about that nonsense given all they’ve done and put back into the neighborhood and city. Either way, just deflect and talk about all of that- most fans are probably on the Cubs’ side anyhow.