Pat's New Partner: Someone Completely Different?

This much we know: Pat Hughes has signed a 5-year extension with WGN; the Cubs and WGN are looking for someone to fill Ron Santo's slot as radio analyst (seriously, follow that link and you can apply right now); no one can fill the void Ron Santo left in the heart of Cubdom.

Ed Sherman says it well in his column on the Cubs' task of finding a new analyst:

Let's make this clear: The Cubs never will have another Ron Santo.

They'll never find another analyst who played the game harder and knew and felt more what it meant to be a Cub. There never will be another character in the booth who could make you laugh the way he did. Certainly, it is highly unlikely the new person will be wearing a toupee.

Indeed, Mr. Santo will be missed.

Sherman also informs us that Mark Grace is unlikely to leave his gig with the Diamondbacks, which allows him to moonlight with Fox on the weekends. That leaves a list of proposed usual suspects of Keith Moreland, Dan Plesac, Dave Otto, Todd Hollandsworth, Eric Karros, and Gary Matthews. If I had to pick between any of those prospects, I'd choose Zonk. But I'd much rather see the Cubs go in a completely different direction.

I don't know if the aforementioned job listing is official or facetious and can't say for sure how reliable the listed prerequisite is: "Preferred candidate will have played with the Chicago Cubs -- or played major league baseball with previous broadcast experience as a game analyst." I hope they'll find someone who meets none of those criteria.

Really, are you pleased with the state of baseball analysis as we know it? Do you find yourself saying, I wish a former player could tell me when the big moments are coming and that a hit here would be big or a strikeout here would be big or a win today would be big, big, big, BIG? Will you be waiting all winter for that special ex-jock to pretend he knows what the pitchers and hitters are thinking? Are you going through Joe Morgan withdrawal?

Didn't think so. I understand the value of former players who wish they were still playing can help us better relate to the action on the field, but for most of us who have been following the game for more than, say, two years, that style of insight has become repetitive. Every baseball broadcast I've ever heard follows that formula. Good-with-words guy describes the action, good-with-sports guy interprets it. Listen and watch enough games, and you pretty much know what's coming. Only the personalities change (and some of those have been and are truly entertaining, don't get me wrong).

But wouldn't you like to see something different? Wouldn't it be a stroke of genius to add a little spicy variety to the broadcast booth? What if we actually *gasp* learned something during a baseball game? It could happen if WGN would take a page out of Billy Beane's Moneyball manual.

Let's try putting a stathead in the booth. I'd prefer a witty, friendly one, but even a person with a caustic edge would be new. Regardless, Pat Hughes, for all his brilliance, is not a champion of advanced statistics. I don't get the impression he's closed to the concept, but he's an unabashed traditionalist in the most endearing sense. Imagine if the Cubs countered Pat's calm, old-fashioned play-by-play with someone who brought the conversation into the 21st Century of baseball metrics.

While Pat gives us the colors of the pinstripes, caps, shirts, shoes, and socks, his partner could hit us with win probabilities, linear weights, wOBA, and WAR. How much more interesting would the broadcast be if the analyst could tell us how the run expectancy would change when Quade chooses to sac bunt? I would love to hear someone challenge the antiquated myths of baseball lore, an anti-Morgan of the broadcast world. It would actually teach me something and inform us all. Scary, I know, but I'm willing to try.

WGN and the Cubs should be willing too. There's no reason this couldn't work. Pat Hughes can establish an on-air relationship with just about anyone, though I don't dream any pairing will be as magical as Pat & Ron. So how about some science instead? Do something new, something different, something informative for all who listen. I guarantee, it would have the entire baseball world talking. And some of the discussion might actually be complimentary.

You Can Catch It All on WGN

Cubs on WGN? Niemi says NO!

Taking in Cubs games on WGN, both good-old channel 9 and AM 720, is a tradition that goes back as long as I've been a Cubs fan. (I'm aware that the Cubs existed in broadcast form before I began caring about them in 1981, but I honestly don't care about that, do you?) But tonight, the radio broadcast will be on WIND AM 560 to accommodate the Blackhawks. Apparently, Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals in Philadelphia is more important than Game 3 of the potential second consecutive sweep of the Cubbies in Pittsburgh.

I'd have to agree with appearances. This isn't the first time the Cubs have been preempted on their own flagship station. Before the early '90s sent the Bears station hopping across the left side of the Chicago radio dial, they would occasionally bump the broadcasts of their younger ursine brethren. But those were regular-season affairs for both teams, and it usually brought a sense of relief.

It seems like just last week that Cub fans couldn't wait for the 2009/2010 Bears to take the sting away from the 2009 Cub season. But that season had barely begun before we were waiting for the 2010 Cubs to alleviate the woes of another failed Bears season. Somewhere along the way, though, the 2009/2010 Blackhawks skated through and shattered the mediocrity threatening to take over this city.

And now they have a chance to claim WGN, the Stanley Cup, and the hearts of Chicago fans. I hope they do it in convincing fashion (aka making those sorry schmucks in Philly wish they had just dropped the series to Boston to save them from the embarrassment brought on by the team with the best jersey in sports).

Whether you tune in to hear Z return to the starting rotation or Lord Stanley's Cup return to Chicago, I hope you enjoy the sound of the state of Philadelphia bowing in humble desolation. Go HAWKS!

The Cubs on WGN: How much is that worth?

It's a bizarre little economic triangle the Cubs are in right now, no? You've got Sam Zell, the owner of the Cubs and the Tribune Company; the latter filed for bankruptcy protection in December while the former was excluded in hopes the billion-dollar sale would not be compromised. Apparently when you file for bankruptcy protection, it helps not to have too many easily liquidated assets sitting around.

Next you've got the Ricketts family, who are trying to buy the Cubs for $900 million—although they'd like to see that price go down.

And then you've got a somewhat silent third party looking on: the bankruptcy court, which has its eye on every move Zell and the Trib make. Don't forget about them, especially as the closing of the Cubs sale gets complicated by one little issue that complicates not only the sale of the team but also the future worth of the Trib as it reorganizes under Chapter 11: the broadcasts.

Up until now, the Trib has owned the Cubs, so who cares how much the broadcasting TV and radio contracts with Trib-owned WGN are worth? The other 29 teams in MLB, that's who. 

For those of you who have never sat next to a Steinbrenner at a party, there's this little agreement the owners of MLB teams have called revenue sharing. The more money the big-market, big-revenue teams make, the more they have to share with the little guys (somewhere Joe the Plumber is blowing a gasket). So here's where the money starts to get a little funny.

Obviously advertising is the biggest revenue stream for almost any media company. In the case of the Cubs, any advertising revenue credited to the team gets shared; any money credited to the Tribune Company proper is untouchable. So if you own the Trib, it would be in your best and greediest interests to put a cap on the amount of revenue that gets credited to the team.

So it should have come as no surprise in 2001 when, lo and behold, it was revealed that the White Sox ($30 million) actually make about $7 million more per year in local ad revenue than the Cubs ($23 mill). The Cubs contract (with themselves, essentially) is structured heavily in favor of the Tribune. The team and the company split actual ad dollars 50/50, but things like sales fees, commissions, and back-end client agreements divert a huge amount of revenue away from the team.

That approach was great when the Cubs wanted to avoid sharing their money with other teams. But when the Ricketts get involved, they'll want to stop sharing money with the Trib. A deal that limits their ad revenue (and their ability to shop broadcasts to other, non-bankrupt entities later) severely decreases the value of those contracts and the team on the whole.

Meanwhile, the bankruptcy court will be very interested to see A) how much earning power the Trib will have after the sale goes through, and B) how much value the company's current assets are really retain. It seems like the Trib wants to hold on to one of their surest money makers, hide its real value from the courts, and inflate the value those interests represent to the Cubs. 

So is anyone really surprised this is a sticking point? The other main interested party is the fans, and I think we'd all like to see the new owners keep as much cash as they can. Yeah?

It's beginning to look a lot like baseball.

Ladies, gentlemen . . . prepare to pee your pants. Chicago Cubs baseball is on the air. There's no need to type any further. Let's just all relax and soak in the moment.




Okay, that's enough soaking. Go change your drawers quick before the first pitch.

Play ball!