Cuban takeover of Dodgers? Another Cubs nightmare

Just when Cubs fans think they have experienced their worst nightmare, a worse one looms.

The Dodgers are in bankruptcy and likely will be for sale sometime soon. The clamor for Mark Cuban will begin in Los Angeles, just as it is anywhere a sports franchise is on the market.

By the way, yes, that's the same Mark Cuban who entered and exited the bidding for the Cubs.

The ivy on the Wrigley Field walls still weeps for Cuban every time Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts says something or does nothing.

I was opposed to Cuban ever owning any team in any sport in my hometown. Why? Just because, that's why. Oh, you need a better reason?

OK, here it is: If a 50-year-old man wants to wear a T-shirt while sitting courtside at pro basketball games, he should be a poor sports writer rather than a billionaire owner.

However, I have softened my disdain for Cuban, and not because his Dallas Mavericks beat the dastardly Miami Heat in the NBA Finals.

The turning point in the Mavs' playoff run came when Cuban shut his yap instead of vying for attention.

Then Cuban, the spoiled, rich man-child who used to flaunt his wealth by paying hundreds of thousands of dollar in fines for berating NBA officials …

Well, he paid for the Mavs' victory parade so the citizens of Dallas wouldn't have to.

Good stuff. I'm still not a huge Mark Cuban fan, but if he really is new and improved and gentler and kinder, I grant him permission to own the Dodgers.

(You forgot that these matters require my permission, didn't you?)

Anyway, Major League Baseball owners still don't want Cuban as a partner. They don't want another George Steinbrenner with a lot of money and a willingness to buy championships with it.

Baseball owners prefer somebody like the rational, logical, methodical Ricketts family, which is why they were permitted to buy the Cubs.

Influential White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf certainly approved of Ricketts, who poses less of a threat to the Sox than Cuban would have.

Whispers always have circulated that Reinsdorf, who as Bulls chairman competes against the Mavs, blocked Cuban's bid for the Cubs.

So, would Reinsdorf try to form another posse to cut off Cuban at the MLBorder in Los Angeles? Would he care as long as Cuban isn't trying to march on Chicago?

Let's imagine the answers are no and no and Cuban winds up with the Dodgers and becomes the biggest ham in Hollywood.

Then imagine Cuban, the one who got away from the Cubs, spending whatever it takes to make the Dodgers one of the best franchises in baseball, the way he did the Mavericks in basketball.

Finally, imagine the Dodgers winning a World Series and Cuban paying for the victory parade through the streets of Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, the Cubs would be sinking deeper into their second century without a championship.

The only hope on the North Side here is that Cuban considers buying the Dodgers a bad business deal after seeing how baseball operates.

Cuban might not be able to resist, however. L.A. is a bigger market than Chicago, with a better ballpark than Wrigley Field and more potential revenue streams.

If Mark Cuban does wind up owning the Dodgers, the nightmares would just keep getting worse for Cubs fans.

mimrem@dailyherald.com