“They can have my buildings, but I need to get fair value,” said Loukas, who sarcastically suggested if the Cubs truly wanted to increase profitability, they ought to field a better team.

Indeed, while the Cubs were known as lovable losers, the absence of winning had not made the heart grow fonder. Paid attendance has fallen by about 100,000 a year since the Ricketts family took over, and while the Cubs still outdraw two of every three major league clubs, lower gate receipts now annually reduce revenue by about $30 million a year, Ricketts admitted. Other estimates go higher.

Business on the rooftops has similarly declined as corporate outings to a Cubs game have lost cachet. Small groups and even individuals can now buy rooftop tickets on the Internet. Admission is sometimes sold as a Groupon deal, making the rooftops direct rivals with the Cubs for ordinary fans.

In January, at the annual Cubs convention, both Ricketts and Kenney once again singled out the rooftop problem as the final obstacle before any renovations could begin. Ricketts poked fun at the owners of the buildings, likening them not only to neighbors who peek through your window to watch Showtime on your TV but also to profiteers who charge others to do the same.

Beth Murphy, 59, owns a small rooftop business beside her tavern, Murphy’s Bleachers. She said she found it dumbfounding to be portrayed as a villain. Murphy has been a Bleacher Bum since she was a teenager; she used to have a schoolgirl crush on third baseman Ron Santo.

She said, “I never thought I’d be considered the reason the Cubs can’t win the World Series.”

• • •

Tom has signed about an hour’s worth of hats, shirts and scorecards, and his hands are flecked with black ink from his Sharpie. He is heading down a ramp from the upper deck when he sees another of those things that drive him nuts. There’s an ugly wall of decaying wood behind rusty iron mesh.

“How do you let a jewel like Wrigley Field deteriorate so much?” he says, shaking his head.

On May 21, with the current baseball season seven weeks old, Tom Ricketts issued a video message to the fans that made the Cubs seem even more pitiable than their record at the time, which was 16-28. He stood in the team’s clubhouse, demonstrating how batters were forced to warm up by hitting a ball off a tee like the tiniest of Little Leaguers. Baseball’s other 29 teams had the benefit of indoor batting cages, he said, adding, “It’s time to invest in Wrigley Field and to do the things our competitors do.”