TRIBUNE'S BEST PITCH?

Hey Guild Sports Fans,

It isn't often that you can go to Camden Yards and support both teams, but that opportunity is coming on Tuesday night, June 10, when the Orioles host the Chicago Cubs in the first game of their first-ever inter-league series.

The Guild has acquired a block of seats for union members who want to shake off that nagging sense of job insecurity and enjoy a carefree evening of company-bashing at the ballpark. Tickets will be distributed by a drawing at lunchtime on Monday, June 9, in the Sun cafeteria. If you want to come, and help leaflet outside the Park before the game, fill out the form below and return it to any of our exhausted union mobilizers.

How can you support both teams?

Root for the Orioles, since you already support the Tribune-owned Cubbies and their $90 million payroll by forgoing decent annual raises and working extra hard every time our beloved parent company decides that more staff cuts are the only way to celebrate record profits and revenues.

The Cubs rank 10th in the major leagues in total payroll and pay each player on the 25-man major league roster an average salary of $2,883,690, even though the team is what the Tribune Company bean counters (and some fans) would call an under-performing asset.

Major League Baseball reported to Congress last summer that the Cubs were one of 28 teams that lost millions from 1995 to 2001, and it wasn't exactly money well spent. The last time the Cubs were in the World Series, Babe Ruth was still healthy enough to visit his own birthplace.

While the Cubs were losing 95 games last year, the Baltimore Sun was turning a healthy profit and Sun employees were wowing the Pulitzer Committee again.

Which brings us to this week's trivia question: Which of these two Tribune subsidiaries raised employee salaries by an average of 9 percent last year and which grudgingly gave its workers an inflation-lagging average of about 2 percent in 2002 before offering a wage freeze in its latest contract proposal?

If you said that Sun employees got the bigger raise, you'd be wrong, but you probably are so out of touch with your strained personal finances that you won't think twice about spending $6 bucks to buy one of your union mobilizers a delicious draft beer.

So, sign up now for a great night at Camden Yards.

Please return this coupon to your mobilizer by 11 a.m. Monday morning, June 9. Or, bring it to the Sun cafeteria at noon on June 9. Our drawing will be held at 12:30 p.m. We'll have cake, too! A collection box will be at Sun Park on Friday, June 6, and will be picked up Monday by 9a.m. Members who are not downtown can fax their coupons to the Guild office at 410 752-8340. (Tickets will be distributed at the ballpark before the game.)

- Peter Schmuck, for the Guild action committee

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NAME:___________________________________________________ Ext:_________

LIMIT: One ticket per Guild member.