By John Mark Woelfel

The Cubs made an addition on Tuesday.  No, they didn’t sign a veteran right handed reliever to bolster their bullpen or a new leadoff man to help kick-start their offense.

The new addition?  A large, yellow, elbow macaroni noodle that has the slogan “You know you love it” written across it.  The new ad is to advertise Kraft’s macaroni-and-cheese dinners. 

Chalk another one up for the Ricketts family finding a new way of helping pay for the second-highest payroll in all of baseball.

“We’ll continue to generate incremental revenue for the ballclub so we can continue to help the performance on the field,” Cubs executive vice-president of marketing Wally Hayward said.  “And we’ll continue to renovate and preserve Wrigley Field for the next generation of fans.”

“It’s outside the ballpark.  It’s out along the street.  It’s creating a lot of excitement.  People are googling ‘You know you love it,’ and it takes them to the Kraft mac-and-cheese website… it’s a nice way to bring in a corporate partner at a significant deal without doing anything inside of the ballpark.”

Hayward did not say how much Kraft paid to place the “ad,” but since it’s not inside the park it won’t be nearly as much as the estimated $2.5 million from the Toyota sign that will be installed.  Hayward said the noodle would remain for the rest of the season.

The noodle is located on the west side of Wrigley Field, just a few yards away from the Ernie Bank’s statue near Clark and Addison.