Meet-and-greet, Cubs style

Ricketts family to press the flesh at Tuesday dinner

November 3, 2009, 5:49 PM

By: Bruce Levine

MESA, Ariz. -- The Cubs organization meetings began on Tuesday and plans are already in motion on the business front.

New owner Tom Ricketts and his family met the baseball side of the organization for the first time on Tuesday and will schmooze and press the flesh with the 90 people in baseball operations Tuesday night at the team's hotel in Mesa at a meet-and-greet dinner. Wednesday's plan for the Ricketts family is to spend the entire day looking at a possible site for a new Cubs spring training home. A location in East Mesa and an Indian reservation casino are two of the areas that Ricketts and president Crane Kenney will check out on Wednesday.

It's already been reported that the Cubs have a solid offer from a group in Naples, Fla., to build the Cubs a new spring training home there. Civic officials, including the governor, will do everything they can to keep the Cubs in Arizona for now and the future, as the Cubs are the biggest draw in the Cactus League. The Cubs have an out in their current contract at Mesa's Ho-Ho-Kam park which allows them to get out after the 2011 season if they wish.

On Thursday, the organization meetings will move to Ho-Ho-Kam Park, where the entire baseball operations group will have a lunch and watch some of the Cubs' top prospects perform in the Arizona Fall League. Shortstop Starlin Castro and third baseman Josh Vitters had huge games on Tuesday. Castro added to his fall league stats with a home run and a triple in four at-bats. Vitters had three singles. Castro, the Cubs' shortstop of the future, is the talk of the Arizona Fall League among scouts. The 19-year-old shortstop is hitting a league-leading .425. Vitters, the No. 1 draft pick in 2007, has also been hitting well, batting .340.

White Sox fans, don't fret; I'm off to see your young players in the Arizona Fall League on Tuesday night. I'll have some reports for you on Wednesday.

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