How much should it concern Cubs fans that their owners are horrendous Republicans? Deadspin's Jesse Spector said followers of Chicago's National League team should be greatly alarmed that their team is owned by people who are funding the ransacking of American democracy through heinous, inhuman policies.
The Ricketts family (seen in group photo) owns the lovable Cubbies, and Todd Ricketts also chairs the Trump Victory Committee, a campaign that's "going just swell, isn’t it?" Spector asks before questioning Ricketts' ethics.
The snarky story continues with Spector calling Ricketts a racist for having posted a social media comment about “kung flu” in reference to COVID-19 even before President Donald Trump did so.
Republican connections are not unique to the Cubs, Spector noted with great disdain that San Francisco Giants owner Charles Johnson has pitched a lot of money at Republicans, too. According to Spector, some of the Republican owners in pro sports range from borderline normal to "complete buffoons":
"... Lots of NFL owners are on the Trump train, too. Across all sports, owners are obscenely rich, and the obscenely rich tend toward the GOP, which in this era means supporting Trump, and has taken things from 'can I root for a team owned by someone with whom I have political differences?' to 'is it morally wrong to continue supporting this team owned by people who are funding the ransacking of the concept of American democracy as part of an entire slate of heinous and inhuman policies?' In some cases these owners might also be terrible at owning a sports team, too."
Assuming most Cubs fans are Republican-haters like himself, Spector offered two alternatives for them: "Remember that the team is not the owner. You don’t have to be a Cubs fan, and it’s possible to get through conflicted feelings, as Cubs fans should remember from the feeling of winning a World Series in which Aroldis Chapman gave up a tying homer in Game 7[.]"
Cubs fans can be good guys just like shortstop Javier Báez and right-fielder Jason Heyward: "Those are good guys, and if the team they play for wins, in the city you love, that’s great. And everyone loves parades, right?"
The fallback position for left-wing Cubs fans was: "If the team stinks and is full of jerks with an evil owner, you can also go the other way and keep your distance. Torturing yourself emotionally in the name of something you don’t like anything about is unhealthy and not a mark of honor as a sports fan, or whatever you’d want to call it."
Here's a question for Deadspin readers. Should you care that Spector didn't even come up with this idea for a GOP-hating Cubs fans story on his own? He merely borrowed the concept after reading a New Yorker article, "Trump Collides With the World of Baseball," written by Alex Kotlowitz. Spector didn't plagiarize that story, but his story lacks originality and similarly bashes Republican pro sports owners.
In his attack on President Trump and Republicans, the New Yorker writer said: "No one wants to say anything good about the Rickettses. They are rich and Republican. Is there a combination that more connotes evil in the imagination of progressive news readers?”
