The Chicago Tribune last week recused (voluntarily withdrew) itself from any and all coverage of the potential sale of Wrigley Field to the state, citing a conflict of interest running too wide and too deep for the Trib to cover with any kind of journalistic neutrality. The Sun-Times, of course, jumped on the opportunity to take shots at their rival’s new owner while verbally salivating at the prospect of any Wrigley deal falling flat on its face.

The Tribune theoretically took the high road with this, with last week’s editorial insisting the results of the deal will have too much of an impact on the personal lives of staff for them to possibly leave their own interests out of it. But left out of their entire statement – and the Sun-Times‘ retaliatory potshots – on the issue was that the Tribune’s interest in the well-being Cubs is in fact nothing new, and every employee of that company has profited in some way from the Cubs either winning or – more commonly – being favorably marketed. As different operating arms of the same company, there is absolutely no way to deny the direct relationship between well-being of the two; even the most casual observer knows a good deal of the Cubs’ marketing triumphs stem from the brilliant synergies of owning both the product (the Cubs) and the means of delivering it to a mass audience (WGN TV, WGN Radio, and the Tribune, for starters).

So while they’ll claim to take a stand on their ties to the future of the North Side baseball operation, it’s really only in the context of the public sale. They’ll still print pieces about how leading the worst division on baseball after twenty games means the Cubs are “riding the wave,” or how awesome it would be if Ronny Cedeno’s wacky predictions came true, or devote numerous features to the made-up significance of that one time 25 years ago Lee Elia told Cub fans what a bunch of losers they were. They’ll run pieces about how great it would be if Mark Cuban would buy the team, or how Wrigley is the most lovable lil’ ballpark on the planet, and all without the standard-issue markers that the Cubs and Tribune are owned by the same people. Even Microsoft and General Electric, both generally viewed as pure evil, put disclaimers in MSNBC articles when the content and its owners cross paths.

Meanwhile, 25 years ago on the other side of town, another Chicago baseball team went a step further and actually, you know, made the playoffs in solid fashion. Oddly, there’s no mention of that in the Tribune‘s sports pages these days, just fake anniversaries of non-events and front page cheerleading for the most futile team in the history of sports.

Of course. Anything else would be unprofessional.