Cubs chairman says team's sale unlikely by Opening Day

MESA, Ariz. - Crane Kenney is through putting timetables on when the Cubs' sale will be final.

The team's chairman said Wednesday that "it will be a challenge to make Opening Day," and other reports have said mid-May is a more likely closing date.

The Cubs have been for sale since Opening Day of 2007, and the process appears to be winding down for the Ricketts family to gain control of the storied baseball team from the Tribune Co.

"The Ricketts family and the Tribune are very close to the terms of their deal, which is the first domino that needs to fall," Kenney told Chicago reporters during a wide-ranging conversation. "And then from there, because of the Tribune bankruptcy, we need to have a court involved to approve the terms of the transactions as supporting creditors, who obviously have a great interest in seeing how this transaction unfolds.

"And Major League Baseball needs to weigh in and hopefully quickly approve the Ricketts as the new owner of the club. There's been good progress on those two last parts, even though the first part isn't quite done."

Earlier this winter, Kenney expressed hope the deal could be done by Opening Day.

"I think it will be a challenge to make Opening Day," Kenney said. "If I were to tell you we'd make Opening Day, everything would have to fall into place just perfectly. The world's an imperfect place, so I would say that's probably unlikely.

"There's a negotiation that's occurring. And like every negotiation, there's an issue or two that probably wasn't spotted early and needed to be resolved. None of them are in any way really fatal to the transaction."

The Associated Press reported that "a top baseball official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the sport doesn't make announcements prior to balloting, said a vote by owners to approve the deal isn't likely to take place until mid-May at the earliest."

The other bit item of interest on Wednesday is that Kenney confirmed interest from other municipalities in Arizona and from cities in Florida in becoming the Cubs' spring-training home.

The Cubs have been in Mesa continuously since 1979 and haven't trained in Florida since 1913-16, when they trained in Tampa.

"We have an option, if we give them notice before spring training in 2010, to exit our lease early," Kenney said. "Then we could leave after the 2012 season."

Kenney was scheduled to meet with the mayor of Mesa on Wednesday. The Cubs play their Cactus League games at HoHoKam Park. Their minor-league camp and team offices are at Fitch Park, six blocks down the street from HoHoKam.

The White Sox and Dodgers just opened a sprawling complex called Camelback Ranch, in Glendale, Ariz. The Indians are at a new facility across the valley in Goodyear.

Tuesday in Glendale, the Cubs helped the Dodgers draw a Cactus League record 13,046 for their game in Glendale.

"We are the ratings leader in the valley," Kenney said. "With a degree of humility, we'd say we're the leader in the valley. And our obligation is to make sure we have a state-of-the art facility, that we have the best economics in the valley and that we're providing a facility for our players. Basically this is an 11-month operation for us.

"People are aware that if we were a free agent, we would be the most desirable free agent in the market."

In other areas, Kenney said Wrigley Field is being completely re-sodded. The park hosted hockey's Winter Classic on New Year's Day, and the NHL is covering the cost of the re-sodding. Last year, the Cubs put an entirely new drainage system in the park.

Although the NHL used big-screen TVs to bring the action close to fans in the park, Kenney said the Cubs have no immediate plans to install the big screens in or around Wrigley.

"We learned a lot," he said. "One of the great things about the hockey game, because everyone understands it's a onetime event, they'll let you experiment a little. I think you even saw some pyrotechnics before the game, not that we would look at doing that.

"Yeah, so we learned some things from them. One of them was that the Jumbotrons were pretty interesting. I don't see us doing those any time soon. But the element of preserving the scoreboard and yet giving the fans more information about the game, there could be an argument that that's a positive."

One thing fans will notice on Opening Day is a yet-to-be-named restaurant situated alongside the park near the intersection of Addison Street and Sheffield Avenue, on the right-field corner. The restaurant, Kenney said, will be 7,000 square feet and will allow the Cubs to compete with some of the areas bars and restaurants.

Kenney also sang the praises of the three concerts Wrigley Field will host this summer, two by Elton John and Billy Joel and one by Rascal Flatts.

Those concerts, even though they can be hard on the playing field and add to traffic in the neighborhood, benefit the Cubs' baseball operation by generating additional revenue, Kenney said.

"This is going to sound odd, but Elton John's going to help us win some ballgames," he said. "It's a weird way to look at it, but those three concerts are going to generate enough revenue."