In August 2009, after two-and-a-half years of trying, the Tribune Company finally sold the Chicago Cubs to the Ricketts family. The Ricketts made their money in the investment world, with patriarch Joe founding Omaha-based broker TD Ameritrade in 1971. Joe’s son, Tom, would become the public face of the Cubs, the most famous losers in US sports.

The fact that the Cubs even had a public face was a bizarre feeling for fans like me, but there was plenty of reason for optimism. Tom Ricketts wasn’t just going to be another billionaire corporate owner. He was more than that: he was a fan. He and his brother Pete lived in an apartment across the street from Wrigley during the 1984 season, when the team reached the playoffs for the first time in four decades, and he even met his wife in the bleachers at a game. He understood the team’s history, he respected the traditions, and he believed that under his family’s leadership, the team could shed its reputation as “lovable losers”.

He was right, though it would take some time. The team took fifth place in the NL Central five seasons in a row to start the family’s tenure, but they were putting the pieces in place for future success. Prior to the 2012 season, the team brought on former Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein to serve as president and Jed Hoyer of the San Diego Padres as the team’s new GM. The pair made several canny trades and, in just the seventh season under the new ownership, the Cubs broke their 108-year World Series drought, beating the Cleveland Indians in a thrilling seven-game set.

But as the glow of a World Series win faded over the past two seasons, it’s become increasingly clear that not all change has been for the better. The no-frills experience of a day at Wrigley, free from loud walk-up music and LED scoreboards, is mostly a thing of the past. Now, star first baseman Anthony Rizzo regularly takes the plate to the tune of Taylor Swift’s Bad Blood while ads scroll on recently-installed screens in both left and right field. Rooftops across the street from the stadium were once seen as a cheeky way for fans to catch an unauthorized glimpse of the action, eventually evolving into businesses of their own, but are now mostly under the control of the Ricketts family itself. The bullpens were moved off the field and out of sight, and much of the obscure mish-mash of businesses that made up surrounding Wrigleyville were shuttered and replaced with hotels and office buildings, rising like some sort of suburban phoenix from the dingy ashes.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Wrigley Rooftops – that let fans watch Cubs games from nearby houses – have lent gameday a unique atmosphere. Photograph: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

At the Chicago Tribune, Blair Kamin explained the trouble with these new structures, writing, “Wrigley once rose majestically, like a medieval cathedral, above the humble jumble of three-flats and stores that rimmed it. This contrast, an essential part of the ballpark’s beauty, is now compromised by the cumulative impact of the new buildings around it.” “RIP Wrigleyville,’ wrote Ryan Smith of the Chicago Reader. “Welcome to Rickettsville.”

There’s something a bit disconcerting about what’s happened with the players, as well. Prior to the 2012 season, shortstop Starlin Castro was accused of sexual assault. Two years later, he was questioned by police in the Dominican Republic about two separate shootings. During the 2016 World Series run, the Cubs traded for flame-throwing closer Aroldis Chapman to shore up the team’s bullpen. Chapman began the 2016 season suspended after allegedly choking his girlfriend and firing several shots in the garage of his Florida home (Chapman and Castro were not charged over any of the incidents). During the 2018 season, the team acquired second baseman Daniel Murphy, a man who once said, “I do disagree with the fact that [MLB Ambassador for Inclusion Billy Bean] is a homosexual.” Given Wrigley’s proximity to Boystown, one of the largest LGBTQ communities in the country, Murphy’s acquisition just days before the Cubs’ annual “Out at Wrigley” LGBTQ Pride event left some fans with a bad taste in their mouths. Shortstop Addison Russell will begin the 2019 season finishing up the final 28 games of a 40 game suspension after allegedly physically and mentally abusing his ex-wife.

At a certain point, it’s worth Cubs fans asking ourselves whether the Ricketts purchase was a deal with the devil. Yes, they turned the team into perennial contenders — but in doing so, haven’t shied away from players with murky histories. Yes, they made much needed renovations to the stadium, which as recently as 2004 was literally falling apart – but in doing so, wiped away so much of its low-tech charm. Yes, they gave fans names and faces to put to the team’s ownership – but in doing so, made it that much harder for fans to compartmentalize the business and the baseball, especially given the Ricketts family’s massive presence in the world of politics (Joe Ricketts has donated millions of dollars to conservative political action committees, Pete Ricketts is the Republican governor of Nebraska, and Todd Ricketts is the current finance chairman of the Republican National Committee), making it extremely fitting that it was just days after the team’s World Series win that Donald Trump was elected president.

Recently, a trove of racist emails sent by Joe Ricketts – who is not involved in the day to day running of the club – were published by Splinter, putting ownership into damage control mode. To top it off, the team’s proposed TV network, set to debut in 2020, will pair them with controversial conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcasting, meaning that Cubs fans will no longer be able to “catch it all on WGN,” as the line in Steve Goodman’s 1984 team victory anthem “Go Cubs Go” says. The Ricketts-ification of the Cubs will soon be complete, for better or for worse.

Like a lot of change in life, it’s hard to definitively say whether everything that’s happened to the Cubs over the past decade or so is good or bad. Whether it’s a new morning routine or a new job, change is rarely simple, but the truth is that nothing ever stays exactly the same. My own conflicted thoughts about the Cubs under Ricketts’ ownership probably have less to do with a love of baseline bullpens or some sort of attachment to the McDonald’s that’s been replaced by a hotel. In reflection, I think that a large part of my discomfort comes from a sense that baseball, this great game that’s retained so many of its traditions over the many decades, is not some exception to the rule of change. At its core, the pain a sports fan feel when his team is knocked out of the playoffs, the sadness someone feels as her favorite player hangs up the spikes for the final time — I believe those emotions are about change more than anything else. As a person, as a Cubs fan, I’m doing my best to embrace those feelings of conflict.