Tom Ricketts explains why team plans to keep Addison Russell

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Cubs co-owner Tom Ricketts was doing media rounds this morning, and stopped by ESPN 1000 to talk shop with our own David Kaplan. 

The two talked Cubs Convention, payroll, season expectations and much more. One of the most noteworthy bytes, though, was Ricketts' response when asked about disgraced shortstop Addison Russell. 

Russell, who's been accused of domestic violence, is currently serving a 40-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball's Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Polic. In a lengthy blog post, Melisa Reidy -- Russell's ex-wife -- detailed a history of physical and psychological abuse while in a relationship with him

When Kaplan asked about the reasoning behind keeping Russell on the team, here's what Ricketts had to say: 

"Yeah well in this situation and in these situations, there’s no one size fits all answer and there’s certainly no easy answer. In our case, we talked to domestic violence experts, we talked to Addison multiple times, we got as much information as we could on the situation. The fact is, we have a choice to make. The choice is you can let the player move on and let it be his problem or you can try to let the team be part of helping him deal with what he has to deal with."

"In our case, after all our conversations with the outside experts and Addison himself, we decided the better thing for the player and his family was to help him ride it out and hopefully he can do what he has to do to improve and to make sure these situations never happen again. In a lot of ways in this situation it’d be easier to just let him go, let him see what happens and fight his battle alone, but we think he’s committed to avoiding [anything close to] these situations and we kind of feel like it’s the better answer for everyone involved to not just wash our hands of it but to see if we can’t help Addison get through this and become a better person and someone who avoids getting himself in situations and doing things we all find reprehensible." 

The Ricketts won't have their usual Q-and-A session at Cubs Convention this weekend, so this is probably all anyone will get from Ricketts on the subject. 

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