Top 3 wackiest but very real recent Chicago Cubs news stories

Chicago Cubs: 1. Man sues Cubs for selling Wrigley ivy as a souvenir

A Michigan man is suing the Chicago Cubs over stealing his idea to put the Wrigley Field ivy into small souvenir products and sell them.  Daniel Fox created the concept back in 1984 and actually entered into a licensing agreement with the Cubs to sell single ivy leaves from Wrigley Field’s outfield wall that he encased in seven-inch plexiglass.

Fox received 10 percent of the royalties for each one sold. The Cubs actually added their logo to the product to make it look more official. The story doesn’t allude to whether the Cubs continued to sell the product after 1984 or how many years they sold the product.

More from Cubbies Crib

• Cubs starting pitching has been thriving on the North Side
• Make no mistake: the Cubs are very much about power hitters
• Cubs are giving pitcher Javier Assad a deserved shot
• Cubs: It’s time to start thinking about potential September call-ups
• Cubs: P.J. Higgins deserves to be in the lineup on a daily basis

In 2001 the story continues that the Cubs wanted to market a variation of the ivy product and asked Fox to help but he refused as the Cubs did not want to pay him. In 2015 when the Cubs were beginning to get hot, Fox once again approached the Cubs about his ivy product and this time the team declined his offer.

Imagine Fox’s surprise, when in 2016, the Chicago Cubs offered fans the chance to buy an almost identical product to Fox’s creation for $200 each! The team sold 2,016 products to mark the significant year of winning the World Series Championship.

It looks like the Cubs may be in trouble here as even just a cursory look at the products makes one think that they were all similarly created.  Fox thinks his idea was clearly copied and so filed the lawsuit.

Okay I admit to being “one of those people” who has bought trinkets like the Wrigley ivy before. I have a piece of the Twin Towers – World Trade Center and a piece of the RMS Titanic in a similar small plexiglass case.  Obviously, these were historic giant structures that failed one way or another in history and so are now available for the public to own apiece of history that no longer exists.

So why are the Cubs selling their ivy at all? It hasn’t failed or gone away and while it’s a very distinguished part of Wrigley Field, it’s a plant! It gets all brown in the packaging and will likely turn to dust in the near future. A piece of the field, building and even pieces of the old seats would seem like a better trinket for fans.

Who am I to say though, since the Cubs sold a couple thousand in 2016? Question is: will the Cubs be handing 10 percent of their collected $403,200 over to the original Ivy-Man?

Stay tuned Cubs fans, it may just get wackier yet.