Angi: Pardon our dust, Cubs busy building legacy

From Cee Angi at FoxSports.com on October 20, 2015:

The way things stand now — with the Cubs fighting for a chance at the World Series — it’s easy to forget that less than one month before the Cubs’ home opener, renovations on Wrigley Field were behind schedule. The right-field bleachers wouldn’t be ready until June, and the Cubs asked the city for permission to work around the clock, just to get the park ready for Opening Day. A peek behind the temporary chain-link fence would not instill confidence, revealing a sea of construction equipment, building material and the steel skeleton of the unfinished bleachers. The Cubs hung two large scrim banners across the fencing to obscure the chaos behind it. One read “Pardon Our Dust”; the other: “Building a Legacy.”

It had been five years since the Ricketts family purchased the Cubs, and three since they hired Theo Epstein as President and gave him carte blanche. Given the hole they were in, the Ricketts needed pedigree. Epstein had guided their closest analog — a team with a century-old World Series drought and its own history of curses — to a World Series championship before his 31st birthday, making him the closest thing baseball had to a slayer of defeatist mythologies. Epstein’s plan for the Cubs would be different than for the Red Sox, but straightforward enough: Build a better and less expensive team by grooming prospects, largely eschewing the short-term veteran fixes that had plagued the franchise.

Read the full article here: http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/just-a-bit-outside/story/chicago-cubs-rebuilding-legacy-theo-epstein-franchise-history-102015



Originally published: October 22, 2015. Last Updated: October 22, 2015.