So now that Sam Zell and his merry men at the Tribune Co. have agreed to terms with Tom Ricketts and his crew, all ownership will be ceded to Ricketts, right? This is how a sale works. Or maybe this isn’t how a sale works?!

*dramatic pause*

As it turns out, Zell is trying to pull a crafty little maneuver, one that seeks to get out of $300 million worth of taxes and has the Tribune still retaining part ownership. I had to read this Washington Post piece like three times to figure out what is going on here — TOO MANY NUMBERS, MAN — but I think I understand it now.

Some time before the sale, Zell changed the Tribune Co. from a standard C corporation to an S corporation to avoid taxes. BUT, if you sell assets — ie. the Cubs and Wrigley Field — within 10 years of such a move, you owe corporate gains taxes. But Zell doesn’t like taxes. He likes straight cash, homie.

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This happened late on Friday, so it’s old news by now, but yes, it’s true: The Rickettses signed a piece of paper in which they agreed to buy the Cubs for around $845 million, as well as own a 25 percent stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago. And you thought it would never happen.

For one, Jim Hendry’s lingering questions about payroll will be answered, or at least he now has someone in which he can address these concerns. But, there are several other issues that Cubs fans will be seeking answers to now that Ricketts is on board, pending MLB owners’ and a court’s approval.

Over the weekend, Bob addressed this on our Cubs blog, Out of the Ivy. Here’s one:

What happens to Wrigley Field? The Cubs are in a unique position with Wrigley Field. It’s a cash cow that they can fill no matter what. But it’s an aging and perhaps dangerous facility that locks them into playing a ton of day games and limits their opportunity to generate new revenue streams. Furthermore, the training and practice facilities for players are not exactly top notch. And to change any of these things, he has to get powerful alderman Tom Tunney’s approval. Will he seek to rebuild Wrigley on its current grounds like they did with the bleachers? Or will he look to move the team elsewhere?

The pending sale did little to affect the Cubs’ performance this season, but as far as management is concerned, they’re likely all breathing a sigh of relief. Their new boss is very close to officially becoming their new boss.

Time to get to work, no strings attached.

It’s up for debate right now. Last night, Darren Rovell tweeted this: “Haven’t yet found a bank who will admit they’ve agreed 2 finance Utay’s second Cubs bid. Is this deal real or a bluff?”

Today, the Sun-Times has a source that’s calling the report of a second deal for the Cubs involving Marc Utay, the one separate from the deal sent along to MLB involving Tom Ricketts, “flat-out wrong.”

So, this is the situation we have right now: anonymous sources saying completely opposing things to different news outlets. Fun! As has always been the case here, nothing is over till it’s over, and even when it appears to be over, it’s not over. I half expect Marc Utay and Tom Ricketts to have some sort of Face/Off transformation, so Ricketts appears to be the owner, but it’s actually Utay’s body. Maybe they can split the bid and become co-owners, and there can be a zany reality show on NBC about their struggles to compromise on key issues.

They can call it “Marc and Tom Plus 25.” I see no reason why it wouldn’t be an immediate success. I look forward to seeing them on the cover of US Weekly for 30 consecutive weeks.

Remember this morning when I wrote how that second suitor Sam Zell was going after vanished, and him and Tom Ricketts came to a preliminary deal of sorts, and though not final, it’s been sent along to MLB? This was progress. Finally.

But it looks like Sam Zell has one-upped the Ricketts group. He actually dipped back into the pool and grabbed Marc Utay — one of the four finalists bidding on the team before the Tribune picked Ricketts to exclusively bid. And Marc Utay and Sam Zell have some fancy paperwork that details a deal for the Cubs, too. What a sly fox that Zell is.

Reuters has the details:

One of the sources reporting the Utay group’s deal said the new offer is “a higher price but less cash upfront” than the Ricketts bid.

“I don’t think it’s completely over yet,” said the source, who asked not to be identified because the sale process is ongoing. “By the same token, Ricketts has a real edge here.”

Tribune, which has been trying to sell the team for more than two years to reduce the company’s debt burden, said no agreements are in place.

“We have not reached an agreement on terms with either party,” Tribune spokesman Gary Weitman said.

It’s actually quite the savvy business move by Zell. By submitting two deals to bankruptcy court (if the Tribune Co. chooses to do that), it only increases the chances of something going through. One has to feel for the Ricketts group: they were basically assured a date to the prom, but now will have to battle it out with some other bro for the Cubs’ hand at the dance.

Who knew the sale of a team would have this many twists? Mark Cuban, you still out there?

Friends, it seems Sam Zell and Tom Ricketts have smoked the proverbial peace pipe, and the talks of turning to another suitor is a thing of the past. The Tribune is reporting documents outlining a proposed deal between Ricketts and the Tribune Co. have been sent to MLB. Some of their sources didn’t go so far as to say these documents were a “tentative sales agreement,” but the fact that something resembling numbers and particulars of a deal are now in the hands of Bud Selig and company means things are pointed in the right direction for all parties involved.

But, as has always been the case here, nothing is set in stone. These are not the final documents. And, if and when the final papers are sent along to MLB, there’s still some hoops to jump through. The Tribune creditors and a bankruptcy judge must be cool with everything, and 75 percent of MLB owners must approve of the deal. (And you never know how Peter Angelos is going to vote!)

Setting all the yet-to-come hurdles aside, this is the first significant breakthrough after months of stalled negotiations. It’s like they just learned how to get past the elevator stage in Donkey Kong, or that the Earth may indeed be round.

It’s round, right?

According to the um, Tribune, sort of.

As you may recall, Sam Zell has become impatient with the slow-moving Tom Ricketts, the same Tom Ricketts that went to celebrity fans for cash, the same Tom Ricketts who is making Bud Selig cranky.

A few weeks back, Sam Zell hinted that if Ricketts didn’t hurry his ass up, he wasn’t adverse to talking to another group, even though Ricketts had won the bid for the team.

Looks like old Sammie has pulled the trigger on that.

Tribune Co., unhappy with the slow pace of negotiations to sell the Chicago Cubs to the Ricketts family, has reopened talks with another interested party who lost out to the Ricketts in the auction for the baseball team, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The parent of the Chicago Tribune has reached out to a group led by Marc Utay, managing partner of a New York private-equity firm who grew up in Glenview and attended New Trier West High School.

Tribune Co. spokesman Gary Weitman said the media company is “assessing other alternatives” but would not confirm nor deny that it is talking again with the Utay group. He also said that the company continues to have “an active dialogue with the Ricketts family with an eye toward reaching a definitive agreement.”

This. Team. Will. Never. Get. Sold. At this point, I think Ricketts and Utay should just form a supergroup and buy the team. Because the longer the sale hangs in limbo, the longer Jim Hendry has his hands tied in the spending department, and the worse off the Cubs are.

And this season, they could use all the help they can get.

Remember when everyone thought the Cubs were going to get sold like a year or two ago? And then Tom Ricketts finally won the bid a few months back? And then the deal has dragged on? And then Bud Selig started grumbling about it? And then Sam Zell said if the deal doesn’t get done, there will be others that want the team?

Not familiar with the last one? Zell said it recently:

“We’ve made it very public that the Cubs don’t fit into the long-term picture of the Tribune,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “So if the Ricketts deal doesn’t get done, I’m sure there will be other ones.”

Now, the entire rest of the article goes on to say Zell expects a deal to get done with Ricketts, and that the struggling economy is to blame for the hardships in coming to an agreement. All thing we’ve heard before … the latter being a completely viable excuse: securing credit in this kind of economic downturn is incredibly difficult. Or so I’ve read. I don’t know anything about money, except If I hand some of it to the Chipotle cashier in an hour, I will get a sweet burrito for lunch.

But, Zell’s blockquoted comment here does seem to point to one thing: like Selig and the MLB brass, like Cubs fans, like the media, like pretty much everyone, he just wants this damn deal to get done. If he can’t with Ricketts, he’ll get it done with another group, one way or another.