Mark Cuban Still Wants to Buy the Cubs

And I still want to let him.

In Rick Morrissey's column in the Chicago Tribune today, he lets it be known that Mark Cuban has submitted his application to purchase the Cubs.

Now, I'm not even a Cubs fan, but I want this to happen. Not only would it be good for the Cubs, but it would be good for baseball as well. Cuban would be an owner that didn't just toe the company line and do everything Bud Selig tells him he has to.

Of course, it's for that reason that we shouldn't get too hopeful.

But it's hard to shake the image of Commissioner Bud Selig holding Cuban's application by his thumb and index finger, and at arm's length, as if he were holding a rat by the tail. That's probably unfair to Cuban, who runs a successful NBA franchise, but it seems to sum up baseball's general estimation of him.

It's not enough that everybody who works for him in Dallas loves him, and that the fans love him. It's not enough that he's turned a perennial loser into a winner, and actually made people care about basketball in Dallas of all places. No. He speaks his mind. Something Bud Selig just doesn't want to deal with.

They won't notice that in the last year, Cuban has calmed down quite a bit. Whether he's finally maturing at the age of 48, or if it's calming effect of his new wife, I don't know. All I know is that he wasn't hounding David Stern publicly all season.

Cuban would be a dream owner for the Cubs, but it's not going to happen. Yet just another example of Bud Selig not really caring what the fans of the game he governs thinks.