There are but two seasons across most of these United States, many folks swear: summer and road construction.
Nowhere is this more true than at the corner of Clark and Addison in Chicago, where the sun always shines over Wrigley Field and construction to build a winner has been ongoing since before the days of Bill Veeck and Harry Caray.
But as this current group of onesie-wearing Chicago Cubs blasts baseballs toward Belmont Heights and throws no-hitters in Hollywood, there now are noticeably fewer traffic cones. With the game's fifth-best record and a core of young talent that is the envy of baseball, all roads continue to lead to Wrigley Field.
Only, this time, with traffic beginning to move easily, they are not traversed by billy goats, black cats and Blues Brothers.
Rather, the roads are traveled by a former second-team all-state linebacker who somehow escaped the clutches of football in Ohio for a life in baseball.
They are covered by a sixth-round draft pick who, just 26 years old, already has been traded twice and beaten cancer. And by a silky-smooth rookie shortstop acquired from Oakland last summer after the Cubs passed on him in the 2012 draft because they thought he was out of shape.
If this disparate bunch wasn't so loaded with talent, why, you might even be tempted to call it a motley crew.
"I didn't really think of it in those terms," manager Joe Maddon told B/R the other day, warming to the idea, about an hour before Jake Arrieta no-hit the Dodgers. "And then you've got KB from Vegas-slash-San Diego, Jorge Soler off the island."
By all means, add Kris Bryant, who was overshadowed by Bryce Harper's legend in Las Vegas but still led the nation with 31 homers at the University of San Diego in 2013, the year the Cubs made him the second overall pick in the draft.
And add Jorge Soler, the Cuban defector who is manning right field this year and has been compared to Vladimir Guerrero.
"I guess it speaks to really good scouting, having this schematic of what are we looking for not only skill-wise, but makeup-wise, person-wise, people-wise," Maddon said. "Because all of them are really highly accountable. That's the one common thread among the group: For young guys, I have not heard one excuse.
"It is very impressive."
Kyle Schwarber, 22, is the would-be linebacker from Middletown (Ohio) High School whose uncle, Thomas Schwarber, pitched for Ohio State and in the Detroit Tigers system. So…of course he went to Indiana University.
"I knew baseball was what I wanted to do," says Schwarber, 6'0", 235 pounds and the Cubs' first-round draft pick in 2014. "I had fun playing football. I had some opportunities to go play. I could have played both at IU."
Instead, he sat down with his parents, they discussed his options, and it was clear Schwarber's first love was baseball. Still looks that way, too: The kid was the Most Valuable Player of the Futures Game in July and hasn't stopped. Since the All-Star break, through Sept. 1, Schwarber was tied for second in the National League with 11 homers, tied for fourth with 30 RBI and tied for fifth with 32 runs scored.
Sometimes, he even still misses playing football.
"I liked playing the games," he says. "I miss the physical factor."
Translation: He means what an entire fleet of ex-football players mean when they say that. He misses hitting people.
OK, so given one chance to lay a clothesline tackle on any of his teammates, just for fun, who would he hit?
Schwarber looks around the Cubs clubhouse, eyes twinkling.
"No one," he says.
C'mon. No one?
"They're all really nice," he says. "This is a really good personality club."
A few lockers down, shortstop Addison Russell grins. Yep, he says, he believes Schwarber. Absolutely.
"Oh yeah," says Russell, 21, acquired by the Cubs last July in the Jeff Samardzija deal. "I feel like Kyle is a nice guy.
"I imagine he could truck some people."
Russell was a running back in high school in Pace, Florida, which is why, he says, the Cubs passed on him in earlier drafts. They thought he was out of shape. By the time he was 17, Russell says, he weighed 225 pounds.
A year later, as a senior and hearing rumors that his baseball draft status was diminishing, he was down to 195 pounds.
"They didn't know I put the weight on myself for football through weightlifting," Russell says. "But I became too bulky."
So he put himself on a diet of egg whites, greens and lots of lean meat—pork chops and fish, especially—and Oakland picked him 11th overall in the 2012 draft.
The Cubs, picking sixth overall, took outfielder Albert Almora. He remains in their system and could be their center fielder of the future.
As for Russell, he's now the shortstop of today. Maddon benched veteran Starlin Castro a couple of weeks ago, then moved him to second base, making it official.
"He's been cool about the whole thing," Russell says of Castro, 25. "I have nothing but great things to say about him.
"We're getting along, as well as up the middle."
By the time he's finished, especially if he can help lead these Cubs to a World Series title sometime in the near future, some folks may think Wrigley Field, at 1060 West Addison, resides on a street named for Russell himself.
Don't laugh. These guys already have come so far from the hype this spring, when Schwarber wore No. 74, Russell No. 75 and Bryant No. 76.
"Now we've all got our own numbers," Bryant says, beaming like a teenager who just purchased his first car.
Schwarber now wears No. 12, Russell No. 22 and Bryant No. 17.
Bryant, of course, came into the season with the most hype of all. He's responding, too, with 22 homers and 84 RBI in 122 games, and probably leading a tight NL Rookie of the Year race that also includes the Giants' Matt Duffy, the Pirates' Jung-Ho Kang and the Cardinals' Randal Grichuk. (The thinking here is that the Dodgers' Joc Pederson has fallen behind.)
The only Cub close to Bryant in terms of commanding attention this spring was first baseman Anthony Rizzo, now a veteran at 26. It was Rizzo who last winter guaranteed an NL Central title this summer. Controversy? Please. Rizzo is a man who beat Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2008. Like he cares if some folks couldn't believe he had the audacity to actually believe in his team.
Plus, he's earned his way to Wrigley Field, having been traded twice to get there. Then-San Diego general manager Jed Hoyer acquired him from Boston in 2010, then darned if Hoyer, now the Cubs GM under Theo Epstein, didn't acquire him again in 2012.
Rizzo has a quick bat and equally quick wit. When I asked him last summer, given Hoyer's obvious (for good reason) man crush on him, if he would immediately begin learning Japanese if Hoyer took a GM job in Japan, Rizzo quipped, "As long as they sign me for as much money as they signed Masahiro Tanaka."
Hoyer, Epstein and Co. didn't even give Soler (nine years, $30 million) as much as the Yankees gave Tanaka (seven years, $155 million). Currently on the disabled list with a left oblique strain, Soler's road to Wrigley Field was more unlikely than that of any of his teammates. After playing in the 2010 World Junior Championships in Canada, he defected from Cuba, trained in the Dominican Republic, established residency in Haiti and was cleared to sign in the United States two years later, in 2012.
With Soler in the lineup this season, the Cubs are 53-35. Without him, they are 22-22.
Then there's Javier Baez, the slick-fielding second baseman summoned from Triple-A Iowa on Tuesday as part of the Cubs' wave of September call-ups. It's been a terribly difficult summer for Baez, the Cubs' first-round pick (ninth overall) in 2011: His beloved sister, Noely, passed away in April. The Baez family moved from Puerto Rico to the United States several years ago so that Noely, who was born with spina bifida, could receive better care.
As a September recall, Baez can quietly fit in and tug the rope here and there without the burden of high expectations.
For that, he's in the perfect place with the perfect manager. Maddon, a couple of weeks ago, declared it "American Legion Week" and told the Cubs they were not taking batting practice before games for the entire week.
Being that they went 5-0, it's carried over. They skipped hitting before Arrieta's no-hitter Sunday night in Dodger Stadium, too.
Say one thing for the Cubbie kiddies: They never expected to scratch and claw their way to the big leagues, only to find out there would be no batting practice before some games.
"Oh, hell no," Russell says, chuckling. "But this is great, man. It's awesome.
"Joe, he knows. He sees how hard we work every day. When he sees we need a blow, he gives it to us."
Maddon describes batting practice as the single most overrated thing major leaguers do, and ordering a young team to skip BP would be as astounding to some folks as the sight of a big league team boarding a charter flight in pajamas—which the Cubs also did late Sunday night in flying home from Los Angeles.
"I like the idea of not doing it," says Bryant, who, along with some Cubs, still takes a few swings in the indoor cages on days when there is no on-field BP. "It's overrated. You just go and put on a show for the fans.
"I enjoy hitting in the cages and not worrying about where the ball is going."
Sometimes, it's all about taking the road less traveled. No batting practice, wearing onesies, audaciously arriving a year or two ahead of schedule.
"It doesn't really matter where you come from," says outfielder Chris Denorfia, a 10-year veteran. "They're doing a good job, and looking at the makeup of the guys, the chemistry here starts at the top, in Joe's office, and works its way down from there.
"We're going to win, we're going to get our work in, we're going to be professional and we're going to have a good time doing it."
Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com
- Login to post comments