Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
The Cubs and Sox: One City and Two Directions
For a third consecutive day in a row, Good Morning Chicago, and San Diego, and Milwaukee, and Los Angeles, and wherever else you’re reading from.
Thank you for starting your morning with me.
Monday’s newsletter on the Lonzo Ball and Alex Caruso signings is here.
Tuesday’s newsletter on the Demar DeRozan signing is here.
Read those, and then read this one, so when I die prematurely from Alzheimer’s thanks to lack of sleep, it won’t be because I was writing passionate free agency blogs at 2 a.m. for eight people.
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Today we’re going to delve into the Cubs and Sox trade deadlines, and a bit more. Not diving into the details yet — in due time. There’s just so much to cover. It’s a good time to be a Chicago sports blogger.
Let’s go.
The best part of the Cubs history is over, but please don’t tell Keith Olbermann I said that.
Apparently the early 1900s Cubs, who played when there were half of the amount of teams there are now, and black people weren’t allowed to play in the MLB, would have something to say about this.
For my money, the team that dominated the 2016 season, came back from a 3-1 deficit in the World Series, and ended a 108-year World Series drought take the cake.
I remember when the Cubs traded for Anthony Rizzo. I remember the day Theo Epstein was hired. I remember the day Joe Maddon was hired and when Jon Lester was signed — in fact — I remember exactly where I was when I learned of both of those.
I remembered those so vividly because I also remember watching the 2003 team vividly, at 8 years old, on my 12-inch television in my room. I remember the 2008 heartbreak, and my Dad proclaiming he was done with the Cubs after a lifelong bout with anguish and suffering. He got back on the bandwagon quickly, just as he will despite his “The Cubs are dead to me after trading Javy” text to me last week.
We watched game after game, talking ourselves into every new guy leading off that would not ultimately be a part of the core. Starlin Castro added some excitement, but ultimately, being a Cubs fan meant watching every game religiously, hoping for better times, but never truly believing they’d come.
But once the Cubs were sold (if you think the Ricketts are the worst owners ever, you’re too young), Epstein was brought in, Bryant was drafted, and ultimately Maddon and Lester were brought in, we let ourselves believe a little bit again, like a sheltered puppy leaning up against its cage to finally greet its new owners.
Nevertheless, a couple more awful years followed Epstein’s hiring, which of course was his plan. If you didn’t know the farm system well enough, you thought (and I thought) that every guy from the minors was going to be the next Sammy Sosa. I attended a game in which Junior Lake hit two home runs out of the ballpark. Junior Lake, in the end, was not quite Sammy.
Then 2015 came. That’s my favorite baseball season of all time, as strange as it sounds. Perhaps it’s the Cubs fan DNA in me, that I love the year they lost more than the year they won.
It just all happened so suddenly. Javier Baez, Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo, all at their finest. They overachieved, a foreign concept to us Cubs fans. That playoff run, beating the Cardinals on the way, brought some of the most joyful baseball moments of my lifetime. These weren’t the same old Cubs.
Forget the black cat, the billy goat, and all that bullshit. The Cubs were going to be here to stay.
(It also probably helped that the Cubs got swept by the Mets and didn’t lost in seven in heartbreaking fashion.)
I can still listen to a certain song, or feel a gust of wind, and be brought right back to that 2015 playoff run. It changed everything.
It also started a new point in my life. I remember being at a game and having Cardinals fans talking shit, and my Dad (as I worried he was going to bash their heads against the seats) telling them that the next 10! years were going to be different.
The next 10 years felt right. I don’t know how long I thought the Cubs reign was going to go for, but it felt like it would never end when looking forward from 2015.
And thus a new part of my life was started. This past week, it felt like that part ended.
That’s why these trades rock you and I so hard. It’s not just that your favorite players are gone, it’s that we finally have to close the book on that awesome part of our lives, a part that won’t be replicated ever again. Cubs fans lived entire, long lives watching games on WGN every day in the summer, and never saw a World Series. We did.
I knew it would end eventually, and that it had already — in some ways — ended. But closing that book, finally and for good, was hard to come to grips with. That part of our lives is now over. For me personally, it felt a little bit — not too be dramatic — like my young adulthood was over. That age where getting embarrassingly wasted was still something to laugh at, and not something to cringe at nonstop at for the next two to three weeks.
In a lot of ways, that’s not just a feeling. By the next time the Cubs compete, my life is sure to be completely different. The friends that I made memories with during the 2015-2017 run may not be around, in person with me, for the next. That magical feeling probably won’t return.
Of course, it doesn’t help when you trade away magic itself. Javier Baez is the most electric player I ever watched in person. Going to the ballpark to see Javy play, win or lose, was always worth the price of admission, even when the Ricketts made taking a step into Wrigleyville cost you $300. If there’s one thing I could change, it would be that trade, even if Pete Crow-Armstrong becomes the stud he’s promised to be.
And I don’t think that’s what the Cubs management understood this past week. “It’s a business.” Yeah, we get it man. As if we couldn’t tell by how Wrigley has changed over the past 10 years? We know why the moves were made.
But to not re-sign any of those guys, and to see their sadness on the way out, and to see them sit on the bench instead of getting their closure at Wrigley, that just didn’t feel like the right end to it all.
Perhaps there’s never a right time to end it, or a time where it feels right. Hardly any team gets their “Last Dance,” as the Bulls did in the 90s. Even then, fans were left wanting more.
We still don’t know the future plan. And I’ll be writing more about the returns, in detail, in the coming weeks.
I’ve been thinking a lot about where the blame lies, and if it has anywhere to lie at all, over the last few days. I’ve changed my mind constantly. Was it Hoyer, the Ricketts? Did the players play a game of two-face with us, saying different things to the media than they did behind closed doors?
I’ll have my take on it soon enough. Even Jed Hoyer wasn’t above an emotional, maybe irrational, rant on the radio the other day.
But for now, I’ll watch the Cubs when I can, and try to fall back in love with the process of building toward something.
In the end, though, it’ll never feel the same as it used to.
Part of the joy of baseball is having a team to watch every single night. It’s not being able to go to a few games per year, it’s that comfortable go-to that’s there every night in the Chicago summer — whether through the radio or on television. It’s soothing, and unlike any other sport that we consume.
We’ve also been robbed of that, to an extent. That undoubtedly adds to the hurt as well.
And that’s also why the White Sox come up is so well deserved. Sure, the Sox won it all in 2005, but the drought between 2008 and last year was as bad as they come in professional sports.
The handoff of Craig Kimbrel to the Sox felt like the final torch pass from the North Side to the South Side. It’s now Sox fans who are entering that golden era, one that they probably feel will never end. And I’m not here to tell them it ever will.
The Sox played the ultimate game of rope-a-dope on their fans at the trade deadline. They grabbed Ryan Tepera — a respectable bullpen arm — and Cesar Hernandez, a reasonable everyday starter for the rest of the season at second base.
That would have been fine, and very Sox-like.
And then, boom. They stopped playing small market and went out and got their guy, the best reliever in baseball this year, Craig Kimbrel. They didn’t sit on their hands and they didn’t allow Liam Hendriks’ existence to stop them from going to the next level.
They gave up Nick Madrigal and Cody Heur, and if I’m a Sox fan, my first thought is: Who cares? Okay, maybe not. I probably would have been sad to give up Madrigal too, especially because he’s one of those guys that always promised to be there when the team starting competing for World Series.
But these are the trades you have to make. Some Sox fans, understandably, haven’t totally let themselves realize where the Sox are. They’re World Series contenders, right there with the Dodgers and the Astros. Those teams don’t care about giving up Cody Heur or Madrigal types for Craig Kimbrel.
The Sox now are left with almost no weaknesses, especially as Luis Robert nears his return.
The time is now.
By the way, Ryan Tepera is good, I promise.
Marc-André Fleury, the best goalie in all of hockey next year, is going to be a Chicago Blackhawk this year. The deal — even considering the risks — was a hell of one by the Blackhawks.
It’s unclear how good the Hawks will be next year. But they will be better.
After the wide range of moves the Hawks have made, namely for Fleury and Seth Jones, they’ve put themselves in a position to compete next year.
Compete for what, exactly? No one knows yet. But it appears the front office has finally realized what the fans seemed to realized much earlier — with Patrick Kane still in his prime, the Blackhawks could no longer just let things play out.
The inherent risks of the moves are that Seth Jones, who will now be one of the most handsomely paid players in hockey, was bad last year. Like, really bad. A change of scenery should help, and it’s more likely he’ll be closer the the best version of him from a few years ago than the version of him last year. Hell, he has to be.
The move for Fleury likewise came with the risk that he would not play this year. He was reportedly doing research on the Hawks situation, and ultimately decided to play. That alone is enough to inspire some confidence.
It’s not as if the Blackhawks have become a contender overnight. But just like the Bulls, what’s the alternative? Each team has been bad, frankly, for multiple years in a row. If now was not the time to make moves to upgrade the roster, when was?
Amid all of the free agency and trade deadline madness, the Bears have put on the pads. What would normally be the primary focus of the newsletter at this point has been backburnered for both good and bad reasons.
Andy Dalton has apparently looked good in camp, and Nick Foles is the favorite to start the Colts first game at QB despite not being on the Colts.
The bottom line moving forward, is, though, it’s all on Justin Fields.
Bears fans will be engaged this year because they always are. But what everyone’s waiting for is Fields, and all I hope is that he doesn’t realize that this entire city is peaking over his shoulder, hoping he can be the savior.
David Montgomery apparently looks “faster.” I’ve read that multiple times since camp began. If that’s the case, he’s set for a big year. Montgomery has been a good back since he came out of Iowa State, but two things held him back: a dreadful offensive line and a lack of breakaway speed.
The former still may be an issue, but if the latter is improved, that immediately improves the Bears offense.
Teven Jenkins, allegedly the Bears starting tackle and second round pick, has yet to participate thanks to a back issue. Not good. He’s still not there yet health-wise, and Nagy’s updates on his progress have been murky.
Robert Quinn, who has benefitted now from the narrative that he was never really healthy last year, is battling back tightness as well. While most of us have come to grips with Quinn being a bust of a signing, for the Bears defense to remain elite, he has to be worth something this year.
Eddie Goldman, who cannot get out of his own way, has been placed on the COVID-19 reserve list.
Thank God the Bears are one of the more vaccinated teams in the league, and thus, will have less of a risk of an outbreak that keeps players out of games during the season.
Justin Fields threw the ball around Soldier Field for the first time in front of fans the other day. Naturally, it was electric. And excuse my language, but fuck, he looks good in pads.
Can’t believe we have him, and can’t believe we’re just nine days away from the preseason opener.
It’s been one day since I wrote the DeRozan manifesto, and I’m already over my reservations.
He was the third most efficient iso scorer last year, and his skillset is so much different than LaVine’s offensively that I think the mix will work quite well. Kevin O’ Connor wrote a piece in The Ringer yesterday applauding the move, and also pointing to the fact that while DeRozan is aging, he’s actually getting better and more efficient as the years go by. His time in San Antonio helped him develop even further past 30.
The Bulls are going to win a playoff series next year — book it. Us vs. the World.
They signed a rim protector yesterday, Tony Bradley, to a minimum deal. A good center with some upside, Bradley is the first piece to solidifying the Bulls defense.
We’re still awaiting on more moves that will undoubtedly come over the next few days — who knows what AK has up his sleeve for Lauri Markkanen, meaning, who knows what we’re getting for him.
I’m all in.
Zach LaVine is also showing out in the Olympics, and has proven to be a top-4 player on the team. It’s evident to everyone watching and everyone playing, and the first person Kevin Durant acknowledged in his postgame presser was Zach.
He’s not just doing it on the offensive end, either. He’s become a menace defensively, both one-on-one and in the passing lanes. If he can keep this up in the NBA, there’s no telling what the Bulls ceiling is.
LaVine was fantastic last year. It was his best year in the league, by far. He changed the perception of him. This year, with a good team around him and even more improvements added to his game thanks to this Olympic experience, I think he’ll eclipse that.
Thank you all for reading. Today, yesterday, and Monday. More coming next week. Enjoy your weekend and tell your friends to subscribe to STILL GOTTA COME THROUGH CHICAGO.
The Cubs section is some of your best writing yet. Absolutely nailed the emotional side of it.