The Wrigley Field Scandal

Rod Blagojevich, the Governor of Illinois, is on his way to jail because of corruption. He supposedly blackmailed the Chicago Tribune, among other things.

Daniel W. Cain has been an FBI Special Agent for over twenty years and his biggest case until now had involved something in the newspaper business. On Sunday, he appeared before the United States District Court in Chicago and said that the Governor of Illinois, Rod R. Blagojevich, was being investigated for corruption.

This involves not only alleged illegal political money-making schemes but also the Chicago Tribune newspaper, whose editorial staff has reported in great detail about the Governor for years. Blagojevich has long been suspected of illegal activities.

According to Cain’s portrayal, the Governor is alleged to have made an extraordinarily unethical offer to the cash-strapped owners of the Tribune. He supposedly said that he would only help with the sale of the Wrigley Field ballpark, which is the home of major league baseball’s Chicago Cubs and is owned by the Tribune Company, if some of the newspaper’s journalists who had written critically of him were fired.

The Deutsche Bank is a Creditor

On Tuesday morning, Blagojevich was taken into custody. The Chicago Tribune reported the breaking news and posted Cain’s statements immediately on the Internet. They also included a chronology of the newspaper’s critical stories of the Governor.

For this newspaper, which had kept to journalistic course for many years, something else was going on. It was reported in a section of the previous day’s edition of the Chicago Tribune that the Tribune Company, America’s second-largest newspaper publishing company, was filing for protection from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code.

The plans of investor and real estate speculator Sam Zell, to have the company downsize to a more prosperous corporation, have been temporarily wrecked because of this.

Other than the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, the Tribune Company has 23 television stations, 10 newspapers, the Chicago Cubs baseball team and their ballpark, Wrigley Field.

The Deutsche Bank is also affected by the bankruptcy. With loans valued at up to 570 million Euros, the bank ranks among the largest creditors of the media company. The word in financial circles, however, was that the Deutsche Bank was not expecting any losses from the bankruptcy.

These loans were acquired at a high market discount, meaning that they had only a very low value in the bank’s books. Furthermore, the loans were secured by hedges and property assets of the Tribune Group. The Deutsche Bank had only bought the loans over the course of the financial crisis in the hope that their value would rise again.

Zell took over the company last year, and wanted to sell a large portion of the sole proprietorships and lead the remainder back to profitability. It turned out to be embarrassing since he burdened the company, which was already four billion dollars deep in debt, with another 8.2 billion dollars of debt. He did this so he could buy back the company’s stock.

“Fire those F#ckers”

Protection from creditors allows the corporation to carry on business operations as before but under restrictions. The newspapers of the Tribune Company will continue to appear. Zell said that he would continue to make selling the Cubs baseball team a priority.

The Cubs and their Wrigley Field ballpark are pawns in a big political crime thriller, which was documented in the court records. The FBI wiretapped Governor Blagojevich and the eavesdroppers realized how the politician was saying malicious things about the Tribune journalists, who had called for charges over his abuse of office. Even his wife was cursing them.

One of the newspaper’s owners could fire the editorial writers, because, after all, it is his newspaper. The Governor was becoming even more explicit. He wanted to scream “fire those f#ckers” into the faces of the newspaper’s owners. Only how could he? For days, the Governor and his people had been considering how they could get rid of these irritating critics. A finance manager of the newspaper company was a contact, but his role remains unclear.

On the morning of December 5th, the damn newspaper was once again on the Governor’s mind. Blagojevich was urgent. “What’s with the deal?” An aide responded that it would take time. They agreed that they should still speak with the manager inside the company, but FBI Special Agent Cain showed up four days later.