For Ricketts, Cubs' blueprint began with Red

CHICAGO -- How often does a baseball executive catch a home run ball?
It happened when the Cubs visited Boston during the 2011 season. Chairman Tom Ricketts and president of business operations Crane Kenney were taking in a game from the Green Monster Seats when Jarrod Saltalamacchia sent a homer their way. 

Kenney wound up with the ball and was shown with it on the television broadcast. The Cubs' ownership group took more than just the baseball home from that scouting trip, however -- it returns this weekend with a state-of-the-art franchise that has replicated the Red Sox's success on the field and in the business world.
Ricketts plans to be among a sea of Chicagoans at Fenway Park this weekend for one of baseball's most intriguing Interleague series. You know he's bringing his World Series ring to show Red Sox owner John Henry and others, including president/CEO emeritus Larry Lucchino, who have collected three of their own since 2004.
"Even before we bought the team, I went out to Boston and Larry was very gracious, showed me around,'' Ricketts said. "John's become a friend, talked to me about the things they did -- some things they did well and some things they wish they had improved, walking around the neighborhood there. We were fortunate that the Red Sox had kind of gone down the path before us, so we could take some learning from their experience.''
With baseball's two oldest ballparks -- cathedrals these ownership groups have been entrusted to keep relevant in our changing landscape -- the Cubs and the Red Sox are natural allies. Ricketts was wise to look to Henry and Lucchino for direction after he bought the Cubs late in the 2009 season, and even smarter to pounce on Theo Epstein when the kid from Brookline became open to new challenges.
Epstein has been a game-changer for both franchises. His willingness to consider a move to Chicago was the first real sign that Ricketts had a chance to succeed.
It was a shock to hear that Epstein was open to joining the Cubs, who had cleared the decks to hire him by dismissing Jim Hendry at midseason in 2011. Ricketts had Epstein atop his potential lists of targets -- just above the Rays' Andrew Friedman - but he really didn't know if he'd be able to even officially interview Epstein until shortly after the 7-20 September collapse that caused Boston to miss the postseason.
Maybe the Saltalamacchia homer into Ricketts' seats was a sign good things were coming the Cubs' way.

"Obviously Theo saying yes was an inflection point in the organization's history,'' Ricketts said. "That felt great. [But] when Theo said yes, we were still up against it. We had an old team with a lot of contracts and a very thin Minor League system. There was no elation when we hired Theo. It was like, 'This is the first step on a long journey, and I'm glad we're finally taking it.'''
Ricketts was smart to stick with Hendry for a season and a half as he got to know more about running a baseball organization. He made a point to seek out owners and executives who had been successful, and he picked their brains.
"Billy Beane told me, 'You can't just get a smart GM, you have to get a smart GM who has success and has a little swagger, because you have to change your culture,''' Ricketts said. "A guy like Theo would have that, where some other talented guys -- many of whom have gone on to become GMs -- it would take longer.''
While Ricketts turned the building of a front office and a 40-man roster over to Epstein, he's been busy rehabbing and updating Wrigley Field. The Cubs added two large video boards in 2015, dug down underground to build a large clubhouse in '16 and this season opened an attractive plaza adjacent to the ballpark.
"We took some of the stuff they did in the park, a little bit of what they did outside the park with Yawkey Way and sort of filtered it through our situation of being a little more [in a residential neighborhood],'' Ricketts said. "We also had rooftop issues, which the Red Sox didn't face.''
Even though the Ricketts family was funding the ballpark work with their own money -- at a budgeted cost of $575 million -- it was an agonizingly slow process because of oversight by the city of Chicago and opposition from the operators of rooftop clubs on Sheffield and Waveland Avenues.
"I'll probably never understand why it was so hard to allow us to put our own money in, to be one of the only four teams in baseball that pay for their own stadium. But it's Chicago and there's a process to everything, and things take time,'' Ricketts said. "Everything you do at Wrigley Field, there will be people who are vested in the status quo. I think we got through it by just being consistent and keeping our eyes on the horizon, not overreacting to any one event.
"Same thing with everything else we've done on the baseball side. Just a matter of setting your goals and being consistent, and not letting a short-term setback affect your progress.''
When Ricketts gets together with the Red Sox's ownership group this weekend, there's sure to be smiles all the way around.
Cutting-edge franchises can blossom in the oldest ballparks. You just have to have the vision, the right people and the patience.