Imrem: Cubs raise prices. Also, water is wet

The Cubs announcing Monday that ticket prices are going up was like fish announcing that water is wet.

It's what sports franchises do. When they lose, they raise the cost of a seat a little. When they win, they raise it a lot.

This bothers some of my contemporaries. They remember going to games as kids and paying 50 cents, then 60 cents, then 75 cents and finally a buck to sit in Wrigley Field's bleachers.

They remember having enough room to spread out on their own bench, soak in some rays and have enough money left for a hot dog.

They are glad to tell you how so few people were in the ballpark that the Cubs closed the upper deck.

They could hear the crack of the bat, hear the players' chatter, hear themselves think.

To be honest, even as the Cubs advanced through the World Series I felt a tinge of nostalgia for the old days when even the bad times were good — and affordable — as the Cubs routinely finished in the bottom half of the National League.

Heck, the upper half of the bottom half was viewed as a glorious season.

All games were played during the day. Murphy's Bleachers was the dumpy but comfortable Ray's Bleachers. Characters like porn star Seka frequented Wrigley Field.

Get over it, geezers.

These are the good, new, albeit expensive days.

The Cubs are World Series champs, baseball's hottest ticket and one of the hottest in sports.

Wrigley Field is the place to be ... if you can afford to be there.

The dramatic increase in ticket prices should annoy me but doesn't. I should rant about what it costs for a family of four to attend a Cubs game but I won't.

The Ricketts ownership can charge whatever they want after delivering a championship. After all, they insist all revenues will go back into sustaining the Cubs' success.

Meanwhile, nobody is twisting anyone's arm to buy what they're selling.

Most people realize by the time they advance beyond the first floor of grammar school that major-league baseball is big business.

Personally, I wouldn't pay to get into a Cubs game or Bears game or any game that requires me to refinance my mortgage.

Just prior to closing on the purchase of the Cubs in 2009, Tom Ricketts made an interesting statement to a small group of us.

The man who shortly would become Cubs chairman said he didn't want Wrigley Field to become a corporate experience.

My interpretation was that Ricketts didn't want only Boeing, United Airlines and McDonald's to be able to afford tickets.

Yet, seven years later, that's the direction the Cubs are headed.

Oh, sure, fans still can buy season tickets but they have to divide the cost 81 ways.

Let's see, Joey, you won the lottery, you pay for the gold game and Liz, you just got a raise, you pay for the silver game, and me, I'll freeze my butt off in a cheaper seat in April.

You might have noticed during the Great Recession that among the few jobs where salaries didn't plunge was professional athlete.

Somehow, people whose salaries were frozen or employment was terminated managed to scrape up enough cash to attend sporting events.

There's the sports supply, there's the fans' demand and there's prices rising as long as the two overlap.

Yep, water will keeping getting wetter.

mimrem@dailyherald.com