CHICAGO — It has been five long years since Chicago Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts held a question-and-answer session with fans at the Cubs Convention.
The annual “Meet the Owners” panel was canceled in 2019 amid the Addison Russell controversy and a lack of free-agent spending. When the Rickettses decided not to face the fans again at the 2020 convention, most felt they were ducking their customers to avoid their wrath.
“I know a lot of people make a big deal of the fact that we don’t do our panel, which we really enjoy,” co-owner Laura Ricketts said of the controversy before the 2020 convention. “But we were like the lowest-rated panel. A lot of people come to it, I think, because there’s nothing else going on maybe. But I told Tom we should just do it anyway next year.”
