ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a big, bountiful, boisterous, beautiful city. This magical place had almost everything that anyone could ever desire, even in your most fantastic dreams. Unbelievably tall buildings, exciting boat and bike tours, countless huge and wonderful parks, great views, including the best lake or oceanfront in the world, the finest museums, the tastiest food, and incredible music for every ear.
It also boasted having the bestest, most loyal, most enduring and by far, the most patient sports fans in the world, far outpacing any other fans across this flat earth. That was one reason why this wonderful city was blissed and blessed with not one, but two beisbol teams, because long ago, beisbol had bin berry berry good to them.
Yet, this is not the tale of the Southsiders, with their brand new, decaying ballpark, cracking and falling apart on the day it opened. Nor is it about their pathetic pitching rotation, and their lack of power and apparent lack of will to win.
Nor is this the tale of the city's hapless futbol team which turned a landmark stadium into a large, urinal shaped UFO, squatting on the shore of a great lake. And no, this is not about the other teams which sometimes win, sometimes lose, but always played their game.
This is the tale of the Mickey Mouse Cubs and their new owner, Jiminy Cricketts.
The SAGA OF THE LOVABLE LOSERS
Long before a conniving cheat named Zam Sell bought a nationally renown newspaper, (which just happened to own the Mickey Mouse Cubs) destroyed it economically, robbed it blind, and put it into artificially created debt-ridden death spiral, the Mickey Mouse Cubs had already created a long and cherished tradition of losing. Having access to the first ever superstation on boredcast TV, and being forced to play most of their games during daylight hours, the Mickey Mouse Cubs managed to gain a national following, despite losing season after season.
No, that is not right. An INTERNATIONAL following.
Despite Zam Sell’s worst efforts, the Mickey Mouse Cubs still managed to win, lose, and draw a stadium filled with fans, and keep beisbol fans worldwide entertained, amused, and in love with the Lovable Losers. It wasn’t that they lost - it was the panache and charm (and heartbreaking regularity) with which they did it, game after game, season after season.
When Zam Sell decided to maximize his personal profit, and thoroughly destroy a once great media giant, he also decided to sell the corporation's very own Lovable Losers. Billionaire Jiminy Cricketts, ready with his vast family's fortune, was willing to play a new game. And so he became the newest owner of the Lovable Losers.
The Beisbol Fairy: You must learn to choose between right and wrong.
Pinocchio, the Louisville Slugger: Right and wrong? But how will I know? I can't choose right. I bat leftie!
(Jiminy Cricket: How'll he know! I'LL KNOW. I know Every Thing! I gots an MBA!)
The Beisbol Fairy: Your conscience will tell you.
Pinocchio, the Louisville Slugger: What are conscience?
(Jiminy Crickett: What are conscience! I'll tell ya! A conscience is that still small voice that people won't listen to. It tells ya,"Profit, profit, profit. At all costs, profit! Screw the fans if ya need to." Now, that's a conscience!)
Pinocchio to Jiminy: Are you my conscience?
Jiminy Crickett: Who, me? Yeah, I guess. Say, we gots to change that name.
Pinocchio: What name?
Jiminy Crickett: Lovable Losers.
And so it came to pass. Jiminy Cricket and his clan on billionaires bought the Mickey Mouse Cubs from Zam Sell, and as promised, they tried anything and everything to change the team's nickname from the hated term,
"Lovable Losers!" to something New and Improved!
And the city endured. Four endless years, four terrible seasons, four solar orbits of fan abuse, poor trades, pathetic coaching and player choices, ridiculous political pronouncements, and insulting petty demands like more night games. And the city, still in love, granted each and every petty wish and demand.
With each passing lunar rotation, Jiminy's threats and demands became ever more outrageous. Eventually, Jiminy Cricketts and his clan made the nastiest threat ever to the city fans. In order for the Mickey Mouse Cubs to stay in the city, he demanded that the city buy him and his Lovable Losers a new beisbol arena, (at the low, low price of $500,000,000). Jiiminy Cricketts stamped his tiny feet, screamed with his whiny voice, and pushed dust motes around like boulders, mentioning second rate cities like Rockford, Peoria, and Pekin as more deserving venues for his beisbol team.
And like magic, Jiminy Cricketts and Pinocchio had their first wish come true.
Jiminy Cricketts: Is it true? Is that hated nickname gone?
Pinocchio: Yes, it is true. They are no longer called the Lovable Losers!
Jiminy Cricketts: Great! What do they call them now?
Pinocchio: Losers.
Jiminy Cricketts: Huh?
Pinocchio: Hey, its snappier, shorter, and just as cute! (as Pinocchio's nasal passage grew as long as a beisbol bat).
The SAGA OF THE GREAT RAINOUT
Jiminy Cricketts, opining on labor costs, and maximizing profit:
“But labor is a controllable, variable cost, and the only way to succeed as CEO is to cut those costs,” said Jiminy.
“You are so right,” chirped in Pinoccio. “Besides, they all look healthy, so they don’t deserve health care!”
And so it was that Jiminy Cricketts sent home all of his best workers, without pay, to keep from paying them a full wage, plus benefits like health care. Even as the storm approached from the west, with blackened clouds, and bright streaks of lightning, Jiminy turned to Pinocchio and asked for a weather or knot report.
Jiminy Cricketts: Well? It looks dry to me.
Pinocchio (using his best Bill Murray imitation): I'd don't think the heavy stuff will be coming for a while.
And because of Jiminy's rampant MBAism and Ayn Randish economic ideas, all of the talented grounds crew for the Mickey Mouse Cubs were sent home without pay. The Keystone Kops were soon jealous.
Because of Jiminy Cricketts' money grubbing MBAism, because of his ridiculously cheap and anti-labor Ayn Randism, for the first time in living history, (anything longer than 28 years is dead history) the National Beisbol Commissioner REVERSED a decision calling the game because of poor conditions, and demanded that the Mickey Mouse Cubs allow the game to be finished the following day. The infamous Tarp Fiasco as it became to be known, soon went viral, and it cemented just who Jiminy Cricketts and his clan really are.
The SAGA OF THE ROOFTOP BANDITS
Once upon a time, a vicious financial scoundrel named Zam Sell owned a beisbol team. But even with the blackest of hearts, the coldest of souls, and the meanest of personas, Zam took pity on some building owners who had created their own mini-besibol center for fans of the Mickey Mouse Cubs. These building owners built rafters, bleachers, and more on the roofs of their buildings, and made enormous profits watching the Mickey Mouse team sputter and err across the street. An entire industry was created and thrived.
Zam Sell, being a realist, inked an unbreakable 20 year contract with the rooftop owners, guaranteeing their right to watch games across the street without any blocking of views. In 2004. 3 years before he would sell out to Jiminy Cricketts and his clan of billionaires.
So, knowing about the 20 year ironclad contract, what would any self-serving, Ayn-Rand worshipping, TeaBuggered conservative do, in the face of such a contract?
Jiminy Cricket: Now, you see, the world is full of temptations.
Pinocchio: Temptations?
Jiminy Cricket: Yep, temptations. They're the wrong things that seem right at the time... but... uh... even though the right things may seem wrong sometimes, or sometimes the wrong things,
Jiminy Cricket: may be right at the wrong time, or visa versa. Either way, I's is getting a new stadium. And the silly city slickers are gonna buy it for me!
Jiminy Cricket: [clears throat] Understand?
Pinocchio: [shakes his head] Uh-uh. But you were gonna do right.
Jiminy Cricket: Atta boy, Pinoke! And you're gonna help me help myself. Cause what is right is profit. Fuck the contracts. Fuck the fans. Besides, I'm a fucking billionaire!
And so Jiminy Cricketts declared war on the building owners across the street. For years, even while they were the Lovable Losers, the Mickey Mouse Cubs managed to fill their ancient stadium to the max. Long lines for the urinals, overpriced beer, bad food, and scary wrought iron staircases dating back to the 1812 war with England, and still the Cubs managed to sell more tickets, and fill more seats, and have more loyal fans than any other beisbol team in all of sport.
But four years of corrosion, abuse, fan abuse, threats, silly political stances, and multiple examples of willful ignorance by the Cricketts clan had finally reached a new low. In the muddle of negotiations for a new stadium (at the public's cost), one of the Cricketts' clan decided to buy the governorship of a large, underpopulated western farming state and pledge many millions to this new project. So, while minimum wage workers for the Mickey Mouse Cubs go home early just so they cannot earn real wages, or earn real health care as a necessary benefit, the Cricketts clan will be buying a governorship.
This was the final misstep for the Cricketts clan. The fan base began to erode, the tv revenues began to fall. Ad slots were filled with Public Service Announcements, and radio stations showed no interest in renewing their agreements with the Mickey Mouse Cubs.
If ever there was a huge asset, formerly beloved and supported by die hard fans, reflecting decades of good will, that was thoroughly and deliberately destroyed, squandered, misused, abused, and dissipated by some idiot MBA assholes like the Cricketts clan, I cannot think of another example.
Yo, Jiminy Cricket. You buttered your bread. Now sleep in it!