sports it's Dan Bernstein unfiltered on 312 sports and it's brought to you in partnership with my bookie. Sometimes we make spring training and getting excited about baseball way too difficult and just way too detailed and too much too soon. And that's why I think that the editors of Chicago Magazine did a great job with the March issue and the COVID that just came out and it's it's Pete Crow Armstrong on the COVID I love the fact that at least one outlet in Chicago sat in a room and said, what's, what's a big story when nothing else is going on. And so, hey, Cubs are coming back. They were in the playoffs last year and. Okay, great. Let's. Let's talk about the Cubs a little bit. We. Well, they got this guy Pete Crowe Armstrong, who's awesome and everybody loves him. Really? Yeah. Tell us more. Well, he's young, he's really good at baseball. He's telegenic, he's smart, but he kind of acts like a kid and he's enjoying himself, but he's also really well raised and he's not running around doing stupid stuff. Well, why don't we put him on the COVID then and just do a whole essay about how awesome he is? Okay. That's all you need for spring training. What else do you need, really? If you're a Cub fan right now, do you really want to know at like, when you wake up today, do you want to see Jameson Ty own's pitch grip on his kick change? Is it the first thing? And you know, and maybe you want to go. You're going to fan graphs or something and you're looking at that, you're like, oh, wait a second, we've got a. We've got a new heat zone that might change because they put up a sign that changed a wind current in a park. That's a. There's, there's a time and a place for that. Nothing against that. I'm, I'm that dork, too, but sometimes it's just keeping it simple. And when you put that picture on the COVID of. Of Chicago magazine, it's Pete Crow Armstrong, no helmet, no hat, just his big mop of curly red hair and he's got a bat slung over his shoulders and he's sticking his tongue out. That's the COVID of the magazine and that's kind of the story. It really is. It's just not that hard. Now that's how you get excited about Cubs baseball, if you're really paying attention to stuff. And the story's wonderful in part because it's written by just a great writer. I mean, you, you've probably read Wayne Drees work at ESPN going back decades now, and I think he's. He's been a. A journalism professor as well. University might be University of Iowa. I think I should probably have looked that up. But he's. He did a wonderful job just kind of spending time with pca describing in fine detail the way he carries himself and boy, these. The quotes in this piece, they're obviously the pull quotes are what's making news. But I think you've got to Read the whole thing to get kind of a sense of how self aware he is. He might be more self aware off the field even than he is on the field PCA right now. But what I love about it is there's nothing better. I always say there's nothing better. As a fan of a professional sports, when you know your team is getting good and the Cubs, we can debate where they are in there in this particular window and what their proximity is to a World Series, etc. But when you have a young star who is playing as expressively as he does, almost in some ways a more refined version of Javier Baez, at least at the plate. But he gives you a lot of the same stuff with his. The intensity with which he plays, the joy with which he plays, the. The fact that he lives all out there in a game. He does not hide his emotions. And some guys can play like that and some can't. We've heard Ian Hap talk about it. He always says he wishes he could play like that, but he couldn't ride the highs and lows. And it's something that it sounds like PCA is learning how to deal with a little bit, that if you're going to have the high highs, it means you're, you're, you've got to go through the low lows as well. And the best players over time find that kind of equanimity. They find that, that stasis that allows them to deal with the six months of, of good and bad and the dark, the before the dawn and all the stuff that you go through in an entire baseball season. But there's, there's so many little fun details in this and there's just so many great quotes from him and the fact that he and I always say, and his people, but obviously I don't know what kind of editorial control he had, but the fact that he agreed to some of these more artistic photos that he's done, I think it speaks well of him and his level of confidence. Say, yeah, sure, let's do this. And he obviously allowed a great deal of access and a great deal of observation and certainly time. My takeaways from this are several. One being that he knows how difficult this game is already and that's hard to do at a young age and, and also be great and also have every projection metric having you as a, you know, a four and a half win player this year at his age he entered last year, according to this is the 18th youngest player in Major League Baseball. So there's maturing to do, experiences to endure, perspective to gain. And he struggled to give himself that leeway. He says what's undeniable is that baseball is too hard to go out there every day and succeed. That's, for some reason, the one thing I can't yet rewire in myself. It's harder than any mechanical change or anything that I've had to fix. But I think just the fact that he knows that, that he's aware of it, is a really big deal. And he is seemingly in control of some of these environments where he knows, I've got to get better at this. I have to relax about this. I've got to be. I've got to work harder here. And there is some. There are some insights that emerge over the course of a wonderfully written piece here. And there's a lot of description of his relationship with kids at some of these events that he goes to and the clinics that he does, and just how much he enjoys being around the game and being around there with young kids. A lot about how he was raised, when he went to Harvard, Westlake High School, his parents being pretty cool, being Hollywood actors and exposing him to a lot artistically. And they don't seem like they've really pushed him. You don't hear anything, really, from the parents at all. It's all they're letting him do. The speaking for him is great. And he talks about how he knows that he can present a certain well, here. Let's hear his words. I'm sure I come off like a douche sometimes. That's how I present my fun to people, I guess. I'm not loud anywhere else. I'm not riled up anywhere else. That's where I get to do that stuff. So, hell, yeah, I rub people the wrong way. That's what I did in AAA that day, that week, just playing well and beating their ass. He knows his exuberance can irritate opponents. And it's. He mentions the contract situation, too. And you have to go there. You have to talk to him about this stuff. But he does say, I would like to win a World Series. I want a ring. And he mentions how much fun he has playing here. He said being in the playoffs at Wrigley Field, he said, he called it the sickest shit I've ever been a part of. Different from any other baseball game I've ever played in my life. Like having a 10th player out there just talking about the crowd. And he said, I saw what bringing playoff baseball back to the city meant. That's an easy, immovable goal. The fuck are you playing for if you're not trying to play in the playoffs and win the World Series, man? Take that and absolutely change playing to owning. Change that as we head in to a likely work stoppage. My man pca. Take that quote. The fuck are you playing for if you're not trying to play in the playoffs and win the World Series? Change playing to owning. Slap that down on the bargaining table. The fuck you owning for if you're not trying to own in the playoffs and win the World Series? He says there's more to life than baseball, but maybe not for me right now. This shit is my life. If that doesn't get you ready to go, I mean, come on, come on. Talking about the deal, he says, I've made it clear I want to be here for as long as they want me. I want what's best for the team. I'm cool with being under team control and being here. League minimum ain't too fucking bad. I'm not laughing at him. I just think he's adorable. He's set to make around 820,000 in 2026, so it's remarkably low for a budding superstar. None of it's top of mind. He says, quote, I play the game because I like beating other people. The money will be life changing regardless. I'd like to get a fair deal so I don't fuck the market up. I want to look out for the other center fielders who have to go through the same process, which is why I'm glad the Cubs and my agents are figuring out how to do this. So a couple things that are in there, it's good they're talking, it's good that there is something that they're figuring out. But for somebody as young as he is to say that so that he doesn't want to mess up the market, I want to look out for the other center fielders who have to go through the same process. So he wants to make sure that he's compensated well enough that that rising tide lifts all ships. That is unique for someone his age. It also bodes really well for the upcoming labor negotiations. If it's an indication about that understanding on the part of one of the games most telegenic, marketable, exciting young stars. I think that's a really good sign because usually people like that. He's like, I don't know, man. I don't know. And they're, they're living their life and running around and he is, he is enjoying himself too he certainly is.
Dan Bernstein (38:02)
Well, this is. Well, we were talking about youth sports before, and also anybody who has had kids in hockey has known that every month, USA Hockey magazine arrives, and there is. You want. Because once you get your USA Hockey number and anybody who plays sanctioned hockey in this country, you are a part of USA Hockey. You just are. And you're on every mailing list and all of every email list, and your kid is. Every year, you've got to have your official USA Hockey number. And that's how they know that there's no shenanigans going on with. With ages or people moving around from team to team. And we have had even in, like, house league years and years ago, they wanted to move a player to a different team that had to go all the way up to USA Hockey to be approved. So it's part of your life. And I think USA Hockey has a decision to make regarding the men's team here and maybe wants to take it out of their hands, because once the women's team declined that invite, There is a question now of what the right thing is to do for the men's team as far as sending the right message from USA Hockey. Does the men's team want to support the women's team in this regard? And we know that that laughter was not a good look. That. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Women say you got to invite the women's team. Okay, well, all I know is that when you do get stuff from USA Hockey, it says, like, they. They go out of their way to say, USA Hockey is committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all participants. And they say that we seek to attract and build a diverse and inclusive organization and membership at every level. We are committed to creating a Welcoming environment for all without discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, culture, health, veteran status, color beliefs, physical or cognitive ability, gender, socioeconomic background, sexual identification, social status, and age. We actively support and show appreciation for people with multicultural backgrounds and various life experiences to embrace unification and opportunity within the hockey community while strengthening our commitment to connect with all audiences. All I would say to USA Hockey is prove it. Prove it. And are you gonna let the women hang on this one? I'm just very curious what these, all of these NHL players and the men's team, should USA Hockey take it out of their hands and say in solidarity with our women's team, if they're not going, we're not going. For whatever reason, it's all. All of us go from USA Hockey or none of us go. And the men's team's been very quiet. They haven't said anything officially, and USA Hockey hasn't said anything officially. But I just think that this is an opportunity for this organization to live up to everything it says it is. And if they're not, you better explain why. You better explain why.
