WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump on Sunday boosted the new memoir of Joe Ricketts, the patriarch of the family owning the Chicago Cubs, a mega donor to GOP and conservative causes and the father of Todd, the finance chair of Trump’s re-election campaign.
In a tweet Sunday morning, Trump wrote: “Joe Ricketts, one of our Country’s most successful businessmen, including being the owner of the Chicago Cubs, has just written a great new book, THE HARDER YOU WORK, THE LUCKIER YOU GET. So true! Much can be learned from Joe. Go get the book!”
Joe Ricketts, one of our Country’s most successful businessmen, including being the owner of the Chicago Cubs, has just written a great new book, THE HARDER YOU WORK, THE LUCKIER YOU GET. So true! Much can be learned from Joe. Go get the book!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 17, 2019
The publisher, Simon & Schuster, on its website said Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade, “shares the epic inside story of how a working-class kid from the Nebraska prairie took on Wall Street’s clubby brokerage business, busted it open, and walked away a billionaire.”
Trump trying to vault the Ricketts’ book to the bestseller charts could be a mixed blessing for the Cubs organization since it serves as a reminder of the uproar Joe Ricketts triggered earlier this year after racist and anti-Muslim emails Ricketts authored were published on the website of splinternews.com.
Barack Obama is “a liar and a cheat,” Ricketts wrote in 2010. “Thank God there are a lot of people like us.” He also wrote, ‘‘Islam is a cult and not a religion,” Ricketts wrote. “Christianity and Judaism are based on love, whereas Islam is based on ‘kill the infidel,’ a thing of evil.’’
In February, after the emails came to light, Cubs president Tom Ricketts said, “He realizes those statements cause pain. But I love him. He’s my dad. He’s a great man.”
Trump was wrong when he wrote that Joe Ricketts owned the Cubs. Joe Ricketts’ fortune bankrolled the purchase of the Cubs. However, the team is controlled by his four children who are on the board. At one stage during the 2016 campaign, Joe Ricketts was a “never Trumper” but eventually came on board.
Todd Ricketts is the finance chair for the combined Trump/Pence and Republican National Committee fundraising committees. Tom Ricketts runs the Cubs, while another brother, Pete, is the GOP governor of Nebraska. Sister Laura is a major Democratic donor and fundraiser.
Earlier this year, fans protested when Todd Ricketts brought GOP donors to Wrigley Field in connection with a fundraiser in a Chicago hotel. Trump, in Chicago last month, raised about $4 million at a Trump International Hotel and Tower.
Joe Ricketts was in Washington last Wednesday to talk about his book at the American Enterprise Institute. At the event, according to the AEI website, Ricketts, asked “What is the most important thing about your story that you want people to know?” said in reply: “Make mistakes,” Ricketts said. “Do something, and don’t be afraid to make a mistake or to lose. Just make sure you don’t do the same thing twice.”
In the book, Ricketts tells the story of how the deal to buy the Cubs came together:
One day, my middle son, Tom, approached me with a proposition. Back when he had applied to business school, he had written an essay describing his dream job: owning and managing the Chicago Cubs. At that time, he and Pete lived in an apartment above a bar across from Wrigley Field. When I telephoned them and the El train went by, we had to pause because the noise drowned out our voices, but Tom loved living so close to the ballpark. Now he suggested that our family make an offer to buy the Cubs. Over the years, I had put Ameritrade stock into trusts for all my children, and with the TD Ameritrade deal, those trusts had become extremely valuable. The kids had the means to make an offer on their own, but he still wanted my blessing.
Tom pitched me his proposal, and I said, “That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.” Tom, however, was a natural entrepreneur with an entrepreneur’s optimism. He told me later that he felt my response, harsh though it might have been, was a step forward. Yes! Tom thought to himself. Dad didn’t say no!
I had never had any interest in baseball, but he had described his plan as a business venture, which I understood very well. I was also compelled by the idea that my four children would go in on this venture together. I could see that it would be a complex and ongoing project, something that would require them to stay in frequent contact and manage their differences. Could this become the keystone that the family lacked? We differed on politics, differed in our religious beliefs, but this could be something the entire family had in common. What finally convinced me was seeing all my grandkids at a Cubs game, seated together in one row. I told Tom that if his siblings supported the idea of buying the franchise, I would support it, too.
In a way, it was a perfect business for my kids to take on, because I didn’t know anything about running a sports franchise so I couldn’t interfere. People told me we were going to lose money if we got into the sports business, so I warned my four children, “You can’t come back to the honey pot. Take the money to make the purchase, but after that, you have to run it successfully or sell it to someone who can.”
As it turned out, I was wrong. Buying the Cubs was not a stupid idea at all. From the start, my children ran the franchise successfully. With new management, the team won their first World Series in more than a century, and the value of the franchise multiplied. The four siblings have weekly phone calls in which they navigate around the challenges of owning the organization together. I could not be happier to see them close and connected, and also to know that I was able to model for them how a family can unite around the work they must do together, focused on being creators and not just consumers.
In this way, although Ameritrade did not become the family business, Ameritrade money and Ameritrade values helped my children establish the family business that will last beyond my lifetime.
