Here's hoping Cubs' Ricketts stays course

Tom Ricketts should be applauded.

Make no mistake about that.

Not only did he go out and purchase the best general manager available on the market last fall, but he also gave Theo Epstein carte blanche to run the baseball team.

And Epstein did what no GM on the North Side has tried to do since Dallas Green in 1981, when he was bent on rebuilding the Cubs from the bottom up.

But then 1984 happened, far ahead of schedule, and Green set about trying to win the World Series quickly.

He nearly did.

And even while in the process of trying to win, Gordon Goldsberry was building a farm system that ultimately produced, but when Green was fired in a power struggle in 1987, Goldsberry was swept out with him.

And here we are 25 years later — with Epstein trying to do it the right way.

This season has been as bad as advertised and Cubs fans shouldn't be surprised. There will be more beatings like Wednesday's 17-1 thumping at the hands of the Mets, and there will be much more ugly than pretty.

Next year doesn't figure to be much better, and the season after that might begin to show some promise.

Still, this needed to be done and full marks to Ricketts for finally allowing it to occur.

But now you have to wonder just how patient he will be.

The Cubs owner is looking at a lot of empty seats these days and in a wretched economy it's hard to blame people for staying away from a terrible product.

In previous decades, maybe the drop-off would not have been this steep, but times are very tough and the Cubs are paying a price for fielding a last-place team.

What's scary is wondering whether Ricketts can stay the course under the circumstances.

He did not flinch last winter when some huge names were available in free agency, the kinds of names that would have excited Cubs fans and sold hundreds of thousands of tickets.

Much of the local media ran with speculation about the Cubs' interest, and Epstein laughed behind closed doors about such nonsense.

Those players would not have helped the Cubs win and they would have been a blight on the Wrigley Field landscape for many years to come.

It would not have given Epstein the time and flexibility to do this the proper way, to put the Cubs in a position to compete not once, but year after year.

It would have repeated the mistakes of the past.

Epstein is charged with putting in place an organization that can win consistently, not one that might have a chance to compete a bit here and a bit there, while patching together lineups and spending even more to make up for expensive errors.

Ricketts, so far, has allowed the new front office to work without interference, if you exclude the Kerry Wood signing, which is a relatively minor blip in the grand scheme.

But if Ricketts suddenly changed his mind this winter or next and wanted Epstein to make moves that would sell tickets, he would hardly be the first man in charge of the Cubs who panicked and committed that gaffe.

It's difficult to look at all the empty seats and not think of these things, and if it's easy for us to wonder, you must also wonder how much Tom Ricketts thinks about how much better the park would look in 2013 with more fans occupying Wrigley.

So here's hoping Ricketts does not repeat the mistakes of the last 40 years.

Here's hoping he doesn't go for the quick fix.

Here's hoping he allows the man he hired to do the job correctly without wading dangerously into the deep end as so many Cubs bosses have done before him.

It's no guarantee that Theo Epstein will get it right.

But we have seen the results of so many getting it wrong.

Give the man a chance. You've come this far.

Let him continue to do it right.

brozner@dailyherald.com

Ÿ Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's “Hit and Run” show at WSCR 670-AM, and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.