The Chicago Cubs have a new owner and he's not Cuban

I'm not sure how much praise this is, exactly, but Mark Cuban is the best owner the Dallas Mavericks have ever had. I would also say Cuban is a superior sports franchise owner than anyone individual or group of individuals who have ever owned the Texas Rangers. Maybe that speaks more the quality of owners more than anything else, but there you have it.

From a number of items I have read (admittedly, I never addressed Cuban himself on this subject) I gathered he also wanted to own the Chicago Cubs baseball team. There were all kinds of questions that grew out of this interest. Was he too flamboyant for the staid image of baseball? Would other owners even grant him admission into their country club? If he couldn't produce an NBA championship, what makes him qualified to produce a World Series winner? Did he have the bandwidth to devote the required attention to the Chicago Cubs, the Dallas Mavericks, HD Net and what-have-you?

I actually thought those questions and others were being debated until I read this Associated Press Story which (1) announced the sale of Cubs to one Tom Ricketts, a member of the family that founded TD Ameritrade and someone who met his wife in the bleachers at Wrigley Field, and (2) said that Cuban was not even one of the finalists considered for the purchase. In fact, nowhere in this story does the name Mark Cuban even appear.

Did I miss something along the way? Did Cuban withdraw his offer? Was the Tribune Company, the current Cubs owners, just toying with him? Whatever, I'm personally happy that he is still just the owner of the Dallas Mavericks -- not that he can make them contenders anytime in the near future, but at least he restored some semblance of competition and excitement to pro basketball in Dallas.

But, hey, Mark, if you want to get a WNBA franchise for these parts, I'm behind you 100 percent.

Bowling for Cubs

Mark Cuban went bowling last night. Not here, but in Chicago, where he apparently endeared himself to members of the Chicago Cubs by participating in something called the Kerry Wood Stike Zone Celebrity Bowling Tournament. Now one could argue, albeit not convincingly, that Cuban was there not because he was interested in purchasing the Cubs but because the oft-injured Cubs pitcher who organized the tournament is from the Dallas area and he was just there showing hometown support.

But according to this story in today's Chicago Sun-Times, the Cub players participating in the tournament were pretty much taken with Cuban. In fact one of them, pitcher Ryan Dempster, was quoted by the paper as saying: "It would be great (if Cuban bought the baseball team). He's done tremendous things with the Mavericks. If he became owner of the Cubs, I'm sure he'd do wonderful things."