Chicago Cubs

Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell has become the favored suitor for Tribune Co. - owner of 11 daily newspapers, 23 television stations and the Chicago Cubs - with a $33-a-share bid that offers a clear premium for a company that has been buffeted by new media challengers, according to a person familiar with the negotiations. Investment bankers are working feverishly to try to strike a deal, but so many details remain to be resolved that the company might not be able to meet its self-imposed deadline to conclude deliberations by the end of the month, the person familiar with the negotiations said.

CHICAGO -- Andy MacPhail is a good man and a solid baseball executive, even if you wouldn't know it by looking at his 11-year run with the Chicago Cubs, which produced one 90-win season. He's a good fit for the ownership-challenged Orioles, who reportedly are hiring him to be chief operating officer at the same time they are beginning a managerial search and, no doubt, yet another top-to-bottom review of the organization. The problem, clearly, is at the top. Peter Angelos, a brilliant tort lawyer and thorn in the side to industry, can't get out of his own way. He cannot delegate, constantly usurping authority or simply second-guessing.

BUSINESS DOW +119.01 13,357.74 NASDAQ +31.06 2,596.36 S&P +16.35 1,473.99 SUN INDEX +4.24 347.40 NATIONAL Scandal embarrasses GOP At the start of the week, it was unlikely that many people outside of Idaho and Washington, D.C., had heard of Sen. Larry E. Craig. But after Monday's disclosure of a guilty plea in a men's-room sex sting, Craig became the target of jokes and a national embarrassment to a Republican Party facing an election next year. pg 1A Warner won't run in 2008 Republican Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, one of the most influential voices on military matters in Congress, announced he would not run for re-election, paving the way for a battle between Democrats and Republicans to claim his seat.

SAN DIEGO -- Rejected by the man they really wanted, the Orioles yesterday went back to the drawing board in their managerial search, which will be a longer and more extensive process than the organization had hoped. Joe Girardi yesterday morning turned down the Orioles' three-year contract offer, which was worth slightly more than $1 million per season, according to a source with knowledge of the negotiations, and the club must start over in its search for a permanent replacement for the fired Sam Perlozzo.

The Orioles acquired Freddie Bynum, a 28-year-old utility man, from the Chicago Cubs in a December trade for a minor leaguer. Bynum, the Oakland Athletics' second-round draft pick in 2000, went to the Cubs in a three-team, four-player deal last March. A left-handed hitter, Bynum hit .257 with four home runs and 12 RBIs for the Cubs last season. He is competing for the final spot on the Orioles' bench. What was your reaction when you heard of your trade to the Orioles? -- Nothing really.

Orioles majority owner Peter Angelos is considering whether to fill his team's 27-day-old managerial vacancy with a proven outsider, former Cleveland Indians manager Mike Hargrove, or the club's incumbent third base coach, Sam Perlozzo, according to sources familiar with the situation.Angelos, who days ago projected a midweek conclusion to the process, is expected to extend an offer to either candidate today after yesterday's meeting with a third possibility, Boston Red Sox bench coach Grady Little.

Orioles majority owner Peter Angelos is considering whether to fill his team's 27-day-old managerial vacancy with a proven outsider, former Cleveland Indians manager Mike Hargrove, or the club's incumbent third base coach, Sam Perlozzo, according to sources familiar with the situation.Angelos is expected to extend an offer to either candidate today. Hargrove is scheduled to begin a vacation Thursday while the club's front office is mobilizing for the general managers' meetings in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

If the Philadelphia Phillies fail to reach the postseason, it will be interesting to hear Curt Schilling's reaction. The Phillies ace said in Schilling May that he would be "very unhappy" if the club found itself in contention and failed to improve before the waiver deadline. The Phillies began this weekend four games behind the Atlanta Braves in the wild-card chase and having done nothing before the deadline."I'm incredibly disappointed," Schilling said. "I was just sure we were going to get something done.

ST. LOUIS -- Chicago Cubs pitcher Mike Morgan was hoping for a less dubious place in baseball history.He would love the chance to be the pitcher who puts the long-suffering Cubs over the top in the National League wild-card race or who gets the opportunity to pitch in the postseason for the first time in his 18-year major-league career. He may have to settle for being remembered as the guy who gave up Mark McGwire's 61st home run.Morgan served up a fat fastball in the bottom of the first inning yesterday, and McGwire bounced it off the stadium club high above left field.

He was loud. He was obnoxious. He was the worst homer in the history of baseball broadcasting.But Harry Caray was my buddy.What year was it -- 1964? We are in the old Chevy, Mom and Dad in the front seat, my brother and I leaning forward. (This was long before seat belts.) It's a Sunday afternoon, I remember that, and the visors are pulled down to block the sun and we're driving past another cornfield in Iowa, and we're straining to hear the scratchy voice on the car radio.The Cardinals are winning, the Phillies are losing, the National League pennant is up for grabs and Harry Caray is going nuts.

JUPITER, Fla. -Dave Trembley was a no-nonsense minor league manager who preached respect and responsibility and tolerated nothing less. Lou Montanez was a hot-shot prospect with high expectations but not the maturity to handle them. It was a volatile mix for the Single-A Daytona Cubs in 2002, and it didn't end well. Trembley was fired by the Chicago Cubs' organization after the season because he was seen as too much of a taskmaster. Montanez was ticketed for another season in the Florida State League, far away from Wrigley Field, where he was supposed to man the shortstop position for years to come.

CHICAGO - After nearly two years of intrigue, the billionaire Ricketts family has emerged as the winning bidder to purchase the Chicago Cubs from Tribune Co. for about $900 million, sources close to the situation said last night. The family will now complete negotiations with Tribune Co. The family edged out Chicago real-estate investor Hersch Klaff and New York private-equity investor Marc Utay, a Chicago native, for the chance to follow Tribune Co., the Chicago-based media conglomerate, as owners of the storied yet hard-luck franchise.

CHICAGO - Baltimore Sun parent Tribune Co. is working with bankruptcy advisers at the investment bank Lazard and the law firm Sidley Austin to weigh financial options, including a possible restructuring for the heavily leveraged media company, sources said yesterday. Tribune Co. has been struggling under a $13 billion debt load since real estate magnate Sam Zell took the company private last December in an $8.2 billion leveraged buyout. The company, which also owns the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Cubs faces a deadline today on $70 million of unsecured debt it took on before Zell's deal.

Out of prison, M. Jones tearful about drug use track and field Disgraced track star Marion Jones says she often thinks she would have won gold medals at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, even if she hadn't taken a designer steroid known as "the clear." "I usually answer, 'Yes.' " Jones said on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show broadcast yesterday, her first post-prison interview. Jones, 33, apologized to her teammates and tearfully read a letter she wrote in prison, in which she told her children she lied to federal prosecutors because she didn't love herself enough to tell the truth.

In the past four years, we have had the Boston Red Sox and Chicago White Sox shed their infamy. The Chicago Cubs are really the only multigenerational losers still kicking. There's something engaging, something truly baseball about having a club fail to win for 100 years. Call it tradition. Call it therapy for someone who has watched the Orioles for the past decade. Call it whatever you want, but the Cubs being "not quite there" is good for baseball. (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/cornersportsbar)

Chicago - The Chicago Cubs brought a heavy hitter to Wrigley Field yesterday afternoon, asking the Rev. James L. Greanias, a Greek Orthodox priest from St. Iakovos Church in Valparaiso, Ind., to spread holy water around the dugout to remove an alleged curse that has hovered over the ballclub since its last World Series appearance in 1945. But after Ryan Dempster couldn't find the plate and their hitters took another siesta in a 7-2 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of their National League Division Series, the Cubs might want to get out of the curse-removal business and concentrate on the game itself.

It's hard to imagine this fall being better scripted for TV executives and Major League Baseball. Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Boston are all involved as baseball kicks off its postseason with three games today. New York teams failed to join the high-powered mix, but it was the Milwaukee Brewers, a pretty good story and baseball commissioner Bud Selig's hometown club, that ruined things for the Mets last weekend. So MLB can't be too upset with that. Besides, there are plenty of story lines worth following.

Stephen Chow to follow in Bruce Lee's footsteps HONG KONG : Hong Kong comedian Stephen Chow will play Kato in the Columbia Pictures' adaptation of The Green Hornet, taking on a role made famous by the late action star Bruce Lee's portrayal in a 1966 TV series, the Hollywood studio said. Chow will also direct the movie, which will be the Kung Fu Hustle director and star's American debut, Columbia Pictures said in a statement. Canadian actor Seth Rogen will star as the Green Hornet, a debonair newspaper publisher who moonlights as a masked crime-fighter along with his martial arts-expert sidekick, Kato.

You've got to appreciate living in a country with a government as benevolent as it is merciful. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG all had checkbooks with more red scribbled in them than your kid's first spelling test. But in swooped the government with a charitable bailout. Well, why should such generosity be limited to failing private companies? Here in the sports world, there are plenty of organizations, teams and athletes in need - believe me - and plenty could benefit from a similar government bailout.

The Single-A baseball game between Peoria and Dayton (Midwest League) had slipped into the realm of absurdity even before the first inning was over, as three hit batsmen - one struck in the head - resulted in a free-for-all between the two clubs. It was ratcheted up several notices when Peoria pitcher Julio Castillo took the inadvisable step of hurling a baseball at the home Dayton dugout, missed and hit a fan who had to be taken away on a stretcher. Castillo was arrested and jailed. The umpires, trying to restore order under riotous conditions, ejected 15 players and both managers.