@ Sloan Park There's A New Ball Game-In-Town: Win Back The Public Trust

The $200M+ Mesa taxpayer-financed Sloan Park - home for the 12-weeks Spring Training session for The Chicago Cubs in Riverview - was back in the news yesterday.
Not for the kick-off of Cactus League baseball, but for a blunder by Billionaire-owner of the team franchise during a press conference. The Cubbies had a bad off-season, not a winning streak last year, and they're not to a good start this Spring for what is usually a homecoming celebration for fans here in Mesa.
The sins-of-the-father, Billionaire Joe Ricketts have come to bite-back when his son Tom tries to score some points that backfire with the media.

THE NEW GAME-IN-TOWN: Win back public trust

(scroll down to bottom of this post to see where it bites)

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Tom Ricketts addresses father's emails, Addison

MLB.com-20 hours ago

Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts addressed the team on Monday morning as he does every spring, but this year, ... Quote highlights from Ricketts' press conference.

By Jordan Bastian MLB.com @MLBastian 

Obviously," Ricketts said, "this is a different kind of gathering than we've had the past few years. . . Prior to taking any questions, Ricketts started his news conference with an opening statement about his gathering with the team. There was the usual talk of expectations for the year ahead -- winning the World Series being the goal -- but Ricketts also condemned the language used by his father. . .

Ricketts emphasized that his father is not involved with the Cubs' decision-making and does not benefit from the team's revenues in any way.
"Not the ballpark. Not the hotel. Nothing," Ricketts said.

MESA, Ariz. -- Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts addressed the team on Monday morning as he does every spring, but this year, he needed to discuss more than just the baseball season ahead. Off-the-field issues have dominated the focus recently for Chicago, creating distractions from the upbeat feelings typically associated with the start of camp.

Ricketts wanted to talk to the players, coaches and staff about the recently leaked e-mails containing racist and Islamophobic rhetoric from his father, Joe Ricketts, whose fortune paved the way to purchase the Cubs a decade ago. Then, the team's chairman met with reporters for more than a half-hour, touching on Addison Russell's 40-game suspension, the recent partnership with Sinclair Broadcast Group for the launch of Marquee Sports Network next year and the payroll situation, among many other topics.

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Why didn't Cubs throw money at big free agents?

'We don't have any more'

Bob Nightengale, USA TODAY Published 4:06 p.m. ET Feb. 18, 2019

Updated 4:10 p.m. ET Feb. 18, 2019

“Now, we have to express the damage caused by those emails."

Why didn't Cubs throw money at big free agents? 'We don't have any ...

USA TODAY-Feb 18, 2019

It was Joe Ricketts, the father of Tom and his siblings that own the Cubs, whose .... Just like that, the Cubs' last scheduled press conference of the spring is over.

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13 February 2019

Cubbies Spring Training Opening Day Marred By Racist Comments From Right-Wing Billionaire Joe Ricketts

Not a whiff of this scandal here in Sloan Park - the $240-million Wrigley Field sports complex at Riverview financed in 2012 on the backs of debt burden of Mesa taxpayers for the Billionaire-Ricketts Family who own the Chicago Cubs baseball franchise - until a press conference yesterday.
The story broke 9 days ago in Splinter News .

(The post was produced by the Special Projects Desk of Gizmodo Media. )
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Once again, who's responsible and accountable for playing fast-and-loose with millions of taxpayers' money/debt obligation service bonds to finance another Field of Schemes for billionaires:
City Manager Chris Brady
[Image credit AZ Central Picture Gallery 09.20.2018] 
 
We need a scandal to throw some light on these schemes
Here it is:
During the 2012 elections, Joe Ricketts spent an obscene amount of money trying to unseat Obama, who, he wrote in an email, was an “ideologue” and a “cheat.” He was also, concurrently, reading and ruminating on the sorts of chain emails that would foreshadow our current political apocalypse: hysterical birther memes, anti-Muslim screeds, frustrated takes on the “Multicultural and Diversity aspects of our culture.”
When initially contacted by Splinter, Joe Ricketts chose not to comment on the emails that appear below. However, shortly after this story published, he posted a statement on his personal website, writing:

I deeply regret and apologize for some of the exchanges I had in my emails. Sometimes I received emails that I should have condemned. Other times I’ve said things that don’t reflect my value system. I strongly believe that bigoted ideas are wrong.

Ricketts is one node in the establishment that created the Republican Party in its current form: Obsessed with tax cuts for the rich and wary of the impending “welfare” state, savvy enough not to cop to racialized terror in public, but fearful of what it considers a hostile takeover of Christian culture. Any other elderly Nebraskan might take this all-caps xenophobia and half-truth, mix it in with their existing political ideas, and take it to the voting booth.
Guys like Joe Ricketts take their ideas somewhat further.