MLB.com • 22nd August 2021

Bubic shines in no-no bid: 'Good rhythm'

“That’s just a shame that he wasn’t able to keep rolling there, I’ve never seen anything like that,” Matheny said. “It’s an embarrassment, I think ... to have something as special going on as what we were witnessing right there. You pull us off that field, that rain better hit us or something better happen worse than what [did] happen.” “Apparently there is some rule that they’ve had in place here, but that rule needs to be changed,” Matheny said. “I’m just going to be honest, I’d love to see w

Chicago Sun-Times • 3rd May 2021

For White Sox’ Tim Anderson, it’s all work, no stray

One of White Sox manager Tony La Russa’s mantras for his young players is: Be confident but never comfortable. That leaves no room for complacency to seep in. Even though he’s in his sixth year in the majors, shortstop Tim Anderson embodies that philosophy. Since debuting in 2016, he has gone from a guy who can hit for some power but not for average to the 2019 batting champion and 2020 runner-up. And as he gains more experience in the majors, Anderson is going from making adjustments game by

Chicago Sun-Times • 19th April 2021

Cubs catcher Willson Contreras is twice the guy he used to be

Cubs manager David Ross believes Willson Contreras’ evolution from bat-first catcher to all-around player is nearly complete. Catcher is arguably the most demanding position in baseball, and many backstops never find the right balance between what they do at the plate versus what they do behind it. When he came up for the Cubs in 2016, Contreras showed he could deliver with his bat right away. He has a career OPS of .819 and consistently has hit for power since his rookie season. But the quest

Forbes • 10th March 2021

What Baseball Can Teach About Work-Life Balance

Workplace culture has shifted significantly since the advent and then popularization of email in the 1990s, and it has shifted monumentally since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. It might be fair to liken this shift to the introduction of the printing press in the 15th century. The worlds before and after are markedly different. In baseball — as in all major sports — athletes are playing during an information revolution unlike any before, and they are also juggling the worlds of social m

Forbes • 10th March 2021

Chicago Cubs Outfielder Ian Happ Keeps Busy With Podcast, Charity Efforts

The global pandemic that took hold in the United States last March brought work life to a halt for many and at least changed it significantly for nearly everyone. A lot of people used this newfound pause in the usual pace of life to pursue interests they hadn’t had time for otherwise. Among those people is Chicago Cubs outfielder Ian Happ. When the 2020 baseball season was halted just a couple of weeks before the scheduled March 26 Opening Day, Happ and his spring training roommates — Nico Hoe

Chicago magazine • 29th September 2020

Imagining a Cubs-White Sox World Series

In the 120 years that Chicago has had two baseball teams, both have made it to the same postseason three times. The first time, they faced each other in the 1906 World Series. The White Sox, then a five-year-old franchise, beat the Cubs. The next time both teams made it to October, in 2008, the divisional rounds were disasters: The Cubs got swept by the Dodgers, while the White Sox managed one win against the Rays. Now, the Cubs and Sox are back playing fall baseball, at a time when both teams

Forbes • 13th May 2020

MLB 2020 Proposal Would Give Baseball A Chance To Play To Its Strengths

No matter what it looks like, the 2020 baseball season is going to be a strange one. It’s over a month past when opening day should have taken place, and there is no real start date yet. The most recent proposal — and maybe the most realistic one — is for the league to split into three geographical divisions and play out the season in stadiums in Florida, Texas, and Arizona with the hope of eventually moving to home ballparks in as many cities as possible. This plan, as reported by USA Today’s

Forbes • 26th February 2020

“Through My Eyes” — Cubs Outfielder Ian Happ Creates Artwork For Family Charity

The idea started with Ian Happ wanting some artwork for his apartment in Chicago. He moved in during his rookie year in 2017 and started asking around for help right away. Happ knew he wanted an up-and-coming artist, so he reached out to an old teammate from his time at the University of Cincinnati who had gone on to work in New York as an architect. The friend sent him a few names, but it was the freehand cityscapes drawn in pen by Pat Vale that caught Happ’s eye. “I thought his work was incr

21st October 2019

Nationals-Astros World Series could change MLB pitching strategy

In 2005, the year Justin Verlander made his MLB debut, 50 different pitchers threw at least 200 innings. Ten years later, that number was cut nearly in half. For the past three seasons, only 15 starters have hit that innings benchmark. In the span of one career, the trend has dramatically shifted away from starters of Verlander’s ilk. There are many factors that go into a change like this. MLB bullpens are filled with more specialists and more guys who can light up radar guns. In 2018, starters

1st October 2019

How Tim Anderson made small adjustments and won a batting title

CHICAGO — It was a mid-April dustup with the Royals that spurred Tim Anderson to introduce a personal motto: “Stick talk” would come over the course of the season to speak not just for how he carried himself, but also for how he would perform. On the way to winning the American League batting title with a .335 mark, Anderson did plenty of stick talk. After batting .250 through the first two games of the season, Anderson’s average never dropped lower than .307 the rest of the way. Even an ankle

23rd September 2019

Three years after Cubs' World Series win, pressure to repeat has taken toll

CHICAGO — Building the winner was easy. Sustaining it has proven to be the real challenge. A little more than three years ago, the Cubs were at the top of the mountain, a roster centered on a young core that had won the World Series and ended the most epic championship drought in American sports history. Since then, the Cubs have gone on a steady decline, potentially cutting short the dynasty that appeared in the making in 2016. Yes, the Cubs won another division title in 2017 and went to the

12th September 2019

The Joy of Eloy: White Sox rookie Jimenez embodies the future of his team

CHICAGO — There was a recent at-bat that perhaps best describes the way Eloy Jimenez embodies where the White Sox live right now: full of hope and expectation, but not quite ready to fully deliver. In Cleveland on Sept. 4, Jimenez went to the plate in the top of the ninth with one out and the bases loaded, his team down 8-6. The White Sox had already rallied for two runs to draw the game within striking distance, and Jimenez had a chance to complete the comeback. He worked back from an 0-2 coun

31st August 2019

'It gets overwhelming': How MLB players, managers handle fans and trolls on social media

He's too busy managing a baseball team to iron out the details of how it would work, but Cubs manager Joe Maddon wishes we could bifurcate social media somehow. Separate the positive from the negative, never shall the two mingle. The problem is, as Maddon sees it and as many others would agree, for whatever positive intentions there might have been at the founding of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, the bad outweighs the good. Social media can seem more often like a source of narcissism and neg

23rd August 2019

Keston Hiura has the poise Brewers need for playoff push

People usually aren't known for their poise at age 23, no matter the profession. It's a weird stage, out of college, testing the waters of true adulthood, and often facing grown-up challenges for the first time. But Brewers rookie second baseman Keston Hiura is an anomaly. He already performs and carries himself like he's been in the majors for years. And on a team that's locked in a tight division race with the Cardinals and Cubs, Hiura is bound to play an important role in getting Milwaukee b

15th August 2019

A's eye playoffs and unfinished business as sting of 2018 wild card game lingers

In May, NASA announced via Twitter its plan to get astronauts back on the moon by 2024. For a four-year stretch beginning in 1969, the United States sent six manned missions to the moon and a total of 12 men walked on its surface. The last of these left the moon in December 1972 and no one has set foot there since. Going back now is about unfinished work; the plan is to make it so that people can stay on the moon and eventually get to Mars. On a recent Saturday in the visitors clubhouse at Guar

31st July 2019

'He's just a natural': Jeff McNeil sparks Mets with throwback approach

A few hours before a game against the White Sox, Todd Frazier sat in the visitors' clubhouse at Guaranteed Rate Field catching up with White Sox radio broadcaster Ed Farmer. Frazier spent 2016 and part of 2017 in Chicago, and the two of them joked about each others' golf games and their respective golf handicaps. As they talked, Frazier looked over at utilityman and leadoff hitter Jeff McNeil and called him over. "This guy," Frazier said to Farmer, gesturing toward his teammate as McNeil came t

17th July 2019

'Hard work pays off': The making of Pirates slugger Josh Bell

There's usually that one home run. The one in Little League when the coach or the parents realize a kid's got something extra. Or the one in high school that gets the first scout to write down his name. Or the one that locals talk about for years afterward. But for Josh Bell, there isn't one. Ask his mother or his high school baseball coach and it's apparent pretty quickly that there isn't one because there are actually so many that it gets hard to single one out. For his mother, Myrtle Bell,

8th July 2019

Cubs' All-Stars Baez and Contreras provide spark despite off-field challenges

CHICAGO - The All-Star Game on Tuesday night will be a special night for all the players involved, and especially so for the Cubs' Javy Baez and Willson Contreras. They will both start for the National League for the second year in a row; the last Cubs player to start consecutive All-Star games was Sammy Sosa close to two decades ago, and they have not had two players in the starting lineup in back-to-back years since Andre Dawson and Ryne Sandberg in 1990 and 1991. The Cubs have not had a catc

2nd July 2019

How Nelson Cruz and other new faces changed the course for the Twins

A year ago at the start of July, the Twins were 11 games below .500 and effectively out of their division race. After looking like a team on the rise at the end of the 2017 season, they finished last season 13 games behind the Indians in the AL Central. A shift in direction was in order. During the 2018-2019 offseason, they replaced manager Paul Molitor with 37-year-old Rocco Baldelli, who had no major league managing experience, and from November to February they acquired C.J. Cron, Jonathan S

2nd July 2019

Little League parents left with uncertainty about helmet safety

Mark Wright still remembers vividly watching his son Trevor, who was 12 at the time, take a pitch to the cheek and drop to the ground in the batter's box. The video is still hard for him to watch, but he keeps it on his phone because his son was lucky. A "C-flap" that had been added to his son's helmet limited the injury to a wire from his braces poking into his cheek. If not for the flap, Mark shudders to imagine what would have happened to Trevor. "I mean, just drilled and dropped," Wright t