CHICAGO -- Tom Ricketts was walking back to the owners meetings Wednesday when he was stopped by a few people on the street, eager to congratulate him on the Chicago Cubs World Series title.Such is life for Ricketts these days. It has been two weeks since the franchise won its first championship since 1908, and the party is still going strong.Its great. I mean the teams a member of the family for a lot of folks, Ricketts said, and the fact that we had this kind of success after all these years of not quite getting there is just magical for this whole city.Ricketts will be acknowledged by his fellow owners for the title at some point during the meetings, but otherwise its pretty much business as usual. Asked whether he might be handed a few more bar tabs as a result of the historic championship, a grinning Ricketts responded: Well see tonight.Among the steak dinners, drinks and hallway chatter at The Drake in downtown Chicago, the dominant item on the owners agenda is baseballs collective bargaining agreement, which expires Dec. 1. Negotiators for owners and players have been meeting since spring training.Baseball has not had a work stoppage since 1994-95, and Commissioner Rob Manfred appears confident there will be an agreement by December.I trust the commissioner, trust the commissioners office, New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner said. Theyre going to do a great job, and everybodys been working hard. Thats about all I could add.Some of the major issues include the owners desire for a draft of international amateur players, the luxury-tax threshold and whether there will be changes to the draft-pick compensation system for premier free agents.The uncertainty surrounding the CBA could affect free agency and trade talks, but Steinbrenner made it sound as if the Yankees are pretty set about their plans no matter what happens with the labor talks.I dont think its going to impact it much as far as where were going to be, Steinbrenner said. I mean weve got money coming off the payroll for the first time in a few years, and were going to put a decent portion of it back into the club, like we always do. How much remains to be seen, depending on what our needs are and whats available.The Yankees traded slugger Carlos Beltran and relievers Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman in a rare pre-deadline sell-off on their way to an 84-78 record and a fourth-place finish in the AL East. Steinbrenner reiterated his desire to get under the luxury-tax threshold, wherever it lands with the new agreement, but he mentioned upgrading the bullpen as a priority.That could lead to a reunion with Chapman, who saved 20 games for the Yankees before helping the Cubs win the World Series.Look, anytime you can get a guy thats already proven he can play in New York ... its a tough place to play and if you can get a guy thats proven he can play there, then thats a plus, Steinbrenner said.Everyone is chasing the Cubs after they won a major league-best 103 games and the franchises third championship. But winter also is the season for stadium renovations, and the Yankees and Cubs are both working on construction projects.Yankee Stadium is getting more social gathering places, and the club also is enhancing its facility in Tampa, Florida. Wrigley Field is getting what Ricketts called a home plate club of premium seats, similar to other stadiums, but nothing as dramatic as when the jumbo videoboards were added to the iconic ballpark for 2015.Now it really is primarily about rebuilding the park and adding bathrooms and adding points of sale and doing all the little things to make it not only the park you would want to watch a game in, but one that serves as then like a modern park, Ricketts said.---Jay Cohen can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jcohenap Nike Air Max 97 China Wholesale . -- An ugly goal by Nick Bonino helped the Anaheim Ducks overcome the defensive-minded Phoenix Coyotes on a night when their ragged power play continued to struggle. Air Max 97 Sale . Klitschkos management company says the bout will be the Ukrainian fighters 25th world championship fight. 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RIO DE JANEIRO -- Shaking to samba and sharing reflections in uniquely Brazilian ways, Olympians and fans said goodbye to the Rio Games with one last big bash that was both revelatory and a sigh of relief.The Rio Games, the first in South America, were a 16-day spectacle that combined numerous highlight-reel moments with ugly and even bizarre episodes that sometimes overshadowed the competitions. Rio residents, known as Cariocas, were not about to let sporadic rains and strong wind gusts get in the way of a final hurrah.These were marvelous Olympic Games in the marvelous city, said International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, playing off the cidade maravilhosa nickname of Brazils postcard city of inviting coastlines, year-round sun and lush tropical vegetation.While the stadium erupted in applause at that designation, a few minutes later there were boos of sadness when he announced: I declare the Games of the XXXI Olympiad closed.The closing ceremony in iconic Maracana Stadium was also meant to take care of some business -- formally signaling the transition to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan.But Sundays party was all about Brazil, designed to be more low-key than the opening ceremony, which focused heavily on Rio.The ceremony featured original footage of Alberto Santos-Dumont, the man Brazilians recognize as the inventor of the airplane. The theme Brazilians can do with their bare hands was a nod to the emerging economy of the worlds fifth-most populous nation.Dressed in colorful feathers, dozens of dancers formed in the shape of the arches of Lapa, a popular area of Rio akin to Roman ruins, then morphed to make the shape of iconic Sugarloaf before quickly changing again, this time to the official 2016 symbol.Samba legend Martinho da Vila, whose tunes make their way into many popular telenovelas, sang Carinhoso, or Affectionate.The athletes poured in under light rain, waving their flags while many shook their bodies to samba-infused pop that made the stadium feel like a Carnival parade. Britains athletes wore shoes with soles that lit up in changing colors of red, white and blue, while Tongan taekwondo athlete Pita Taufatofua danced onstage in a grass skirt as a DJ performed, reprising a moment that captured attention when he carried the flag for his country during the opening ceremony.The show widened its lens to Greater Brazil, a massive country with a land mass slightly larger than the continental United States. There was a tribute to cave paintings of some of the first inhabitants of the Americas, in Serra da Capivara, in northeastern Brazil, today the nations poorest region.Spectators got to see performers shake to frevo, a frenetic dance that -- if its even possible -- makes high-octane samba seem like a staid ballroom affair. Holding small umbrellas, dancers jumped and marched while performing acrobatics.They performed to Vassourinhas, which means small brooms, a popular song that was also the name of a famous club in the northeastern city of Recife.The show also built performances around saudade, which means anything from longing for someone to sadness to remembering good times. It is one of the most important words in Brazilian Portuguuese.ddddddddddddLights flashed translations for the word in many languages, and a group of women sang Mulher Rendeira, or Lace-making Woman, a nod to the countrys African heritage. Brazil was the last country in the Americas to outlaw slavery, in 1888.The Games had many memorable moments, both for Brazilian competitors at home and athletes from around the world.Soccer-crazed Brazil got partial payback against Germany, winning gold two years after a 7-1 World Cup semifinal shellacking that left many in Latin Americas largest nation fuming. American gymnast Simone Biles asserted her dominance with four golds, swimmer Michael Phelps added five more to up his staggering total to 23, and the worlds fastest man, Usain Bolt, put on his usual show with three golds just days before his 30th birthday.But there were also ugly episodes, such as American swimmer Ryan Lochtes fabricated story about a harrowing robbery that was actually an intoxication-fueled vandalism of a gas station bathroom, and bizarre issues like Olympic diving pools going from crystal blue to gunky, algae green -- at a time when Rios water quality in open waters is one of the biggest local environmental issues.There is widespread expectation that the Games in Tokyo, one of the worlds richest, most recognizable and cosmopolitan cities, will run more smoothly than they have in Rio. But theres also worry in Japan over whether the Olympics will further drag down an economy that has been struggling for decades.Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike accepted the flag from the IOCs Bach and Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes, signaling the transition.Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abes brief but showstopping gig in the closing ceremony as the Nintendo character Mario offered a tantalizing glimpse at Tokyos plans.The organizers for the Tokyo Games crammed the works into a brief two-minute film montage before Abes appearance. Athletes perform more than a dozen sports as landmarks like Tokyo Tower, cherry blossoms, a bullet train, Tokyo Bay Bridge and the famous scramble intersection in Shibuya whiz by.Anime and video game icons like Pac-Man and Hello Kitty were featured, along with the beloved blue Doraemon cat, who pulled from his pocket of magic gadgets a green warp pipe to whisk Abe from his limousine in Tokyo straight to Rio.Abe emerged from his Mario outfit in his usual get-up of a smartly tailored suit and tie.Many people will analyze how things went for the Rio Games in the months ahead. But on Sunday, one strong sentiment was relief -- that despite some problems, overall the Games went well.That wasnt a given going in. The Zika virus scared away some competitors and tourists, rampant street crime in Rio and recent extremist attacks around the world raised fears about safety, and Brazils political crisis, and the economic angst behind it, threatened to cast a pall over the competitions.We are very resilient. We didnt leave anything important unaddressed, said Augusta Porto, 36, a translator and Rio resident. We can welcome people despite the serious problems that we have faced in the recent past. ' ' '