Eight times Aroldis Chapman fired a gun inside the garage of his Miami-area home around 11 p.m. last October after an argument with his girlfriend.
Before spraying those bullets into a concrete wall, the Davie (Fla.) police report alleges Chapman choked the woman and pushed her against the wall _ though no charges were filed due to "conflicting stories and a lack of cooperation from all parties involved." Whatever happened that chaotic night, Chapman's girlfriend felt frightened enough to exit his house and hide in the bushes until more than a dozen police officers were dispatched to the scene, the report says.
Now that the Cubs have traded for Chapman, the hardest-throwing closer in baseball, Chairman Tom Ricketts needs to immediately explain his thinking. With domestic violence one of the most significant issues confronting professional sports, Ricketts owes Chicago an explanation for why the Cubs would be willing to compromise their integrity to increase their chances of winning a World Series. Ricketts needs to demonstrate he understands exactly what the move says about the Cubs and that he realizes what's possibly at stake in terms of credibility and accountability. How does getting Chapman square with the clubhouse character and good citizenship Ricketts often mentions when discussing The Cubs Way?
Acquiring a player with Chapman's recent history is not be the kind of transaction the Cubs can casually consider to be just another big move at the trade deadline. Ricketts cannot just rely on Cubs president Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer _ baseball guys _ to detail how Chapman shortens the game and widens the championship window this year. That's their job to improve the roster as much as possible. Epstein and Hoyer deserve every benefit of the doubt when it comes to building good baseball teams. The Cubs getting Chapman goes well beyond baseball. It goes to what a baseball team wants to stand for.
Thus ownership must weigh in on the Chapman decision _ ideally Laura Ricketts too. The Rickettses need to defend a move many will consider indefensible and articulate how the family concluded the end would justify the means in Chapman's case. The Dodgers had a deal in place for Chapman last winter but backed out after the report of the October incident, with general manager Farhan Zaidi saying "we just weren't comfortable making the move," due to Chapman's past. What makes the Cubs so comfortable, Ricketts family? The Dodgers have a higher bar of behavior to clear than the Cubs?
The Yankees rationalized acquiring Chapman, who served a 30-game suspension from Major League Baseball for the October incident. Since no charges ever were filed, teams thinking World Series like the Yankees were _ and Cubs are _ can lean on fact that Chapman already paid a penalty and everybody needs to move on. It's an understandable response. Feeling squeamish about adding a player with Chapman's baggage is just as easy to understand.
From purely a baseball perspective, justification comes easily. Chapman and his 105 mph fastball gives the Cubs one of the game's premier closers in a bullpen that already includes reliable reliever Hector Rondon, Pedro Strop and 41-year-old Joe Nathan. Chapman's arrival further enhances the Cubs' position as NL champion favorites.
But trading for Chapman isn't really limited to ending the Cubs' 108-year wait for a World Series title, which will be cited as a reason to accept a guy who already has been punished. Trading for Chapman underscores the win-at-all-cost mentality of pro sports that now permeates Wrigley Field, a fact of sporting many grudgingly accept more than they embrace. We saw it in May 2015 when the Bears signed Ray McDonald despite his troubled past involving domestic-violence incidents, Chairman George McCaskey vouched for his character, and it blew up in everyone's face. Whatever Ricketts says, let's hope he doesn't say he used Chapman's parents as character witnesses.
Will Cubs fans care if Chapman records the final out of a World Series victory and that image, on the cover of Sports Illustrated, ends up blown up and framed on your basement wall? Would you always look at that historical moment in time and cringe because Chapman symbolizes the day the Ricketts regime lowered the standards for player behavior on the North Side? Or would you forget everything but the amazing feeling of celebrating after the last out? How ambivalent do female Cubs fans feel about this?
I can understand why the Cubs, in go-for-it-now mode, have talked themselves into trading for the closer who potentially puts them over the top. I can accept that such bottom-line decisions are made every season in every sport in a business where talent trumps character. I don't have to like it. Not with the Cubs making their games easier to win but harder to watch.
