It was no big deal when we heard that the Cubs had called a press conference for after the game.  We all figured they were either going to announce they’d sent a new record for “most fans who wasted money on pointless horseshit baseball” (for the ninth time in ten years, no less), or that they were going to tell the world that they’d taken Pink Taco’s money and were renaming Wrigley Field.

Instead, they announced that Andy MacPhail, 12 years the president of your Chicago National League Ballclub, was resigning his position to concentrate on yachting or some other very white hobby.

But wait until you hear (like you don’t know already) who the Cubs have hired as “interim” president.

When you’ve successfully marketed losing for nearly a century, who do you reward?  The VP of Marketing and Broadcasting!  That’s right, the new president is John McDonough.  The man who’s brought you celebrity seventh inning stretch singers, blue home and road jerseys and scratch off “giveaway” days.

Proving he knows how to sell, McDonough sat at the interview table and said, three times by my count, that the Cubs were going to win the World Series.  I tried to fake excitement, much like the nine sensible Cardinals’ fans out there who watched their team become the least deserving playoff team in sports history today.  You want to believe this is good.  You want to believe this is an accomplishment.  But you know better.

The most encouraging part of the press conference was when soon to be ex-Tribune employee Paul Sullivan had the temerity to ask the big boss, Dennis Fitzsimons if the corporation has plans to sell the team.  Fitzsimons would not answer.  Not to go all IvyChat on you, but that sounds like a yes to me.

That makes sense.  MacPhail bailed out, they promoted a guy already on the payroll to be the president and Fitzsimons called the new hire “interim” but it was pretty obvious from listening to McDonough that he doesn’t think he’s interim.  Kind of makes you wonder if Fitzsimons didn’t mean, “He’s the president until the new owner decides what to do.”

Assume though that the Tribune doesn’t sell the Cubs.  Then, this is just a typical “housecleaning” for them.  They launch the president and don’t bother to try to keep the manager but leave a huge hulking heap of steaming trash sitting in the middle of the living room.  If you’re going to start over, eat Hendry’s extension and fire him and his cadre of dopes, too.  Really start over.

But they’re not doing that.  Because they’re the Cubs.

By the way, how is there any drama to tomorrow’s announcement about Dusty?  Media and fans act like the Cubs could decide to keep him.  But Dusty’s contract expires tonight (technically, it probably expires on November 1, but who’s counting?)  Dusty doesn’t want to come back any more than the Cubs want him.  Should they decide tonight that they want him to manage next year, he’d just tell them to screw off.  He’s gone.  Stop pretending this isn’t a done deal.

Also, because tomorrow will be a Bears’ article and Tuesday we’ll have baseball gamecasts (and a short playoff preview), I’ll just point this out.

The Cardinals “won” the NL Central by losing 10 of their last 14 games, and finishing with a whopping 83 wins, it’s only fitting.

You would think any team with Jim Edmonds on the squad would enjoy entering the playoffs ass first.  Right?