There was much ado the other day about a newspaper report regarding Mark Cuban’s chances of buying the Chicago Cubs. The report in the Chicago Sun-Times quoted a Major League Baseball source as saying there was “zero chance.”

But the source, who was quoted anonymously, of course, was talking without having any actual knowledge of the situation involving Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and bidder for the Cubs. How do I know that? Because I read the rest of the source’s comment: “There’s no way Bud and the owners are going to let that happen.”

This was not Commissioner Bud Selig or an owner talking. This was said at the general managers meeting in Dana Point, Calif., last week, and it was said by a general manager or a lower-level official in the commissioner’s office. This was also said by someone who was merely expressing his view based on what he believed to be so. In other words, the comment was without foundation and basically meaningless.

You could have said it, or I could have said it, and it would have carried the same import. In fact, I will say it. I don’t believe that Selig and the owners will accept Cuban even if he is the high bidder. But I don’t know that to be a fact. The Cubs’ sale process has to play out before anyone can arrive at that juncture.

Surmise and supposition are available to anyone, but they don’t complete or dictate deals. If Cuban should offer $1.3 billion for the Cubs and the next highest bid is $1 billion, is Sam Zell, owner of Tribune Company, which is selling the Cubs, required to take $300 million less because the commissioner and the owners don’t want Cuban?

Under terms of the loans that Zell took to help buy Tribune for $8.2 billion, he has to pay back $500 million or so next May. An additional $300 million would look pretty good to Zell. On the other hand, at the rate the sale is progressing, Zell may not have anything to pay off the debt.

Last August Zell chose 5 of 10 bidders to pursue the purchase, but nothing has happened since. Well, actually a lot has happened, but nothing to enhance the sale. The nosediving economy has apparently had the opposite effect. Zell is now said to be considering selling half of the Cubs instead of 100 percent. You could ask which half will he sell, the hitting half or the pitching half, but you know that’s not what he is considering.  

Only a few months ago Zell was looking at a possible sale price of more than $1 billion, said a person familiar with the deal. Now, he said, it’s likely that potential buyers are looking at the value of the Cubs differently and saying they remain interested but they can’t do $1 billion or more. Therefore, a 50 per cent share makes sense.

Zell could hold onto the other half and sell it once the economy reverts to normal, assuming it does.

At last look Zell had five prospective buyers at prices he considered good enough to go forward with. The only problem is the economy has apparently interfered with the normal progress of such a sale.

By now, under usual circumstances, Zell would have asked for second bids. He would have written letters to the five remaining bidders saying now that you have seen all of the Cubs’ financial data and done your due diligence, please submit formal bids. But this second stage hasn’t occurred, and the bidders are still waiting to take the next step.

It is not known if all five bidders Zell invited to the next round remain in the game, but these are the individuals and leaders of groups who have been identified: 

• Cuban, 50, owner of the Dallas Mavericks N.B.A. team and chairman of HDNet, a high-definition cable channel he founded. A former computer salesman, he sold Broadcast.com, a video site he created, to Yahoo for $5.7 billion. 
• Tom Ricketts, 42, chief executive of Incapital LLC, a Chicago bond underwriter. Son of J. Joe Ricketts, founder of online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corporation.
• Hersch Klaff, 54, chief executive of Klaff Realty LP of Chicago.
• Leo Hindery Jr., 60, managing partner of New York equity firm and former head of YES network, and Marc Utay, 48, managing partner of New York equity firm.
• Jim Crane, 58, Houston businessman who has operated freight-forwarding businesses.

One name not listed is John Canning Jr., a minority owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, who didn’t submit a high enough bid to make the cut. However, he and his representatives have continued talking to Zell and the Tribune people and shouldn’t be counted out of the running, especially if the economy affects other bidders.

The delay in the sale’s process can only help Canning, chairman and co-founder of a Chicago-based equity firm, Madison Dearborn Partners LLC. The reason Canning can’t be dismissed is his relationship with Selig. The commissioner’s friends and associates have done well in ownership pursuits in recent years.

Selig denies that he influences decisions on the sale of teams, but the perception exists that he does.

In 2005 the Oakland Athletics were sold to Lewis Wolff, a Los Angeles real estate entrepreneur and an A’s executive, for about $180 million. Reggie Jackson, who had previously made an unsuccessful attempt to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers, said at the time that his group was prepared to top any offer for the Athletics by $25 million.

But Reggie was told he was too late, that Wolff already had been given an option to buy the team, and he didn’t get the team. Wolff was a college fraternity brother of Selig.

Three years earlier a group headed by John Henry bought the Boston Red Sox for $660 million even though another group submitted a bid of $750 million.

A couple of months before the sale, I wrote in The New York Times that the Henry group, which also included Tom Werner and Larry Lucchino, was the leading candidate. The next day a Boston Herald news columnist took exception to my report, asking who is this guy Chass and how does he know who the leading candidate is.

If the columnist had been a baseball writer, he could have known, too. Henry, Werner and Lucchino were all friends and associates of Selig. No one else had a chance.