While most of America celebrated the swearing in of Barack Obama as our country’s  44th president last week, another nation - Chicago Cub Nation - was awaiting word of its own fate with the announcement of the team’s potential sale to Tom Ricketts and his billionaire family.

The sale is far from final.  Between negotiating through the Tribune Co.’s bankruptcy filings and pending approval by Major League ownership, there’s enough hoops for the Ricketts family to jump through that purchasing Ringley Bros.  might be a better proposition.

Nonetheless, it was announced Friday that Tom Ricketts and family were the favored bidders of the Tribune Co.  Which either puts them in play to become the recipient of one of sport’s - not just baseball’s - most storied, and lucrative franchises or the latest dupe of financial wizardry since Bernie Madoff hung up his Ponzi scheme.

One thing is for certain - this isn’t 1981 anymore - the year the Tribune Co. purchased the Cubs and historic Wrigley Field from the Wrigley Family for a cool $20 million.  Which by today’s standards will likely buy a vendor’s booth across from the stadium where you can sell unlicensed and leftover Kosuke Fukudome memorabilia.

In 2009, Tom Ricketts and company is willing to part ways with $900 million of the family’s reportedly $1.2 billion fortune for the Cubs, Wrigley Field and a 25 percent interest in Comcast, Chicago’s regional sports network.

The above tells me two things about the proposed sale:

1. Tom Ricketts is no dummy.
2. There’s a boatload of money to be made in this kind of pay for play.

There’s also one potential problem I see as well.  Is there a boat big enough to squeeze into the Lake Michigan harbor to tote it all away?

For better or worse or as a blessing or a curse Chicago Cubs baseball will likely be in the hands of the Rickettses by opening day.  From all accounts the bankruptcy negotiations with the Tribune Co. and the two-thirds majority vote by Major League baseball owners are more mere inconveniences than actual roadblocks.

Men like Tom Ricketts are used to dealing with inconveniences every day.  Securing a World Series championship for a team that hasn’t won one in 100 years is the kind of roadblock no one comes across every day.