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.

“It’s great. I mean the team’s 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 it’s 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: “We’ll see tonight.”

Among the steak dinners, drinks and hallway chatter at The Drake in downtown Chicago, the dominant item on the owners’ agenda is baseball’s 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 commissioner’s office,” New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner said. “They’re going to do a great job, and everybody’s been working hard. That’s 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 don’t think it’s going to impact it much as far as where we’re going to be,” Steinbrenner said. “I mean we’ve got money coming off the payroll for the first time in a few years, and we’re 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 what’s available.”