PHOENIX — I arrived at Chicago Cubs camp in good time the other day to discover an email on my phone with the headline “What did you do last week?”
After checking to confirm it wasn’t from a chainsaw-wielding, fascist billionaire with nothing better to do than bullying and firing hard-working, middle-class Americans, I proceeded to open the email with caution.
Fortunately, it was just a request from an old baseball industry friend, asking for approximately five bullet points of what I had accomplished last week at Cubs camp in Arizona. My friend did not ask me to copy my manager and said it was not only OK to send any classified information, links or attachments, but strongly encouraged it.
So with Monday’s deadline looming, here are five things I accomplished last week during work hours.
1. Observed the Counsell Wars.
In every spring training camp I’ve ever covered, the question of who will start on opening day is the easiest to answer. But camp is long, and managers usually hem and haw until the big reveal, which tends to happen on a slow news day.
It’s an easy camp story and usually merits a headline. For many years we even had a local writer who traditionally asked it on the first day of Cubs camp, and most every other day after. He since has been optioned to Cincinnati to ask manager Terry Francona the same question.
This year came a twist in Cubs camp. Manager Craig Counsell declined to answer the question whenever he was asked by local beat writers but then told the Japanese media it would be Shota Imanaga.
It was no surprise, but the media read the news on a Cubs social media account during MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s news conference in Phoenix and had to credit that account for the information.
Asked later if he had ever announced his opening day starter on social media before, Counsell admitted he inadvertently spilled the beans to the Japanese media a few days earlier. The Cubs’ social media department then decided to post the news before Counsell could make his “official” announcement.
When informed how much money Chicago media outlets spend to cover his team, Counsell noted that the Japanese media spends more. It’s going to be a fun season.
2. Discussed socks with Shota Imanaga.
Imanaga told a bipartisan collection of American and Japanese reporters he was shopping for socks when he ran into someone close to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Los Angeles Dodgers starter whom he’ll face on opening day in Tokyo.
The next day, I asked Imanaga, through his interpreter, why he was out buying socks when the Cubs could supply him with all the socks he needed. Imanaga replied that the late Apple innovator Steve Jobs always said “God is in the details.” He added that he believed in Jobs’ credo and that otherwise minor things like a perfect pair of socks were important to his performance.
It’s hard to know when Imanaga is serious. But we do know he likes his socks.
3. Revisited Justin Turner’s walk-off home run off John Lackey in Game 2 of the 2017 National League Championship Series.
Of all the crushing blows off Cubs pitchers in team history, Justin Turner’s walk-off home run off John Lackey in the 2017 NLCS never got the same respect as similarly memorable heartbreakers like Willie Stargell’s home run off Phil Regan in 1969, Steve Garvey’s homer off Lee Smith in the 1984 NLCS, or the 1989 NLCS that included Will Clark’s Game 1 grand slam off Greg Maddux or Clark’s eighth-inning, two-run single off Mitch Williams that helped clinch the decisive Game 5.
When Hoyer signed the 40-year-old Turner last week, it was a chance to revisit his famous home run. Had the Cubs won Game 2, the series would’ve been tied 1-1 heading back to Chicago with Yu Darvish and Jake Arrieta starting Games 3 and 4.
Lackey’s only relief appearance in 2017 came in the final game of the regular season. The Cubs didn’t need him to start in the NLCS but decided he would be available out of the bullpen in what would serve as the last call on a successful, 15-year career.
Pitching on 13 days’ rest, Lackey tossed 1 ⅔ scoreless innings in the Cubs 5-2 loss in Game 1 at Dodger Stadium. He gave up an RBI single to Turner, but the run was charged to Mike Montgomery. One day later, instead of going to closer Wade Davis, manager Joe Maddon inserted Lackey into a 1-1 tie in the ninth inning of Game 2 with the winning run on second and two outs. Lackey walked Chris Taylor, then served up the three-run, game-winning home run to Turner.
The Cubs lost the game and their mojo. Darvish won Game 3, but they lost in five games and blew a chance to get back to the World Series. There would be no Cubs’ repeat. There would be no Cubs’ dynasty.
Turner’s home run was the beginning of the end of the “sustained success” era that Cubs fans had been promised.
When asked about the moment last Thursday, Turner was ready.
“I always said I’ve made a lot of outs (against the Cubs), and the years before you guys beat us (in the NLCS) and won a World Series,” Turner said. “So it’s give and take a little, right?”
Over his career, Turner hit .244 off Cubs’ pitchers in the regular season, with six home runs. None of those affected the course of Cubs history like his shot off Lackey.
4. Learned that the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
When former president Theo Epstein and then general manager Jed Hoyer were introduced as the new executive brain trust in 2011, I asked Epstein what kind of team he felt was best suited to succeed at Wrigley Field.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a magic bullet because any time a park plays differently on different days, to the extent that Wrigley does, it sort of limits the ultimate advantage that you can have,” he said. “Wrigley is so unpredictable.”
The wind factor was one of the main reasons for the unpredictability. Epstein said the Cubs would do some extensive research on the subject.
“Executives here have thought of these things for decades,” he said. “The day games, the nightlife in Chicago, the way the field plays when the wind is blowing in, blowing out, the cut of the grass, the lack of foul territory, the outfielders having to deal with brick walls with fans on top of them, a big media market … We’re not going to reinvent the wheel, but we’ll try to be thorough and have a thoughtful approach to all issues.”
Hoyer, now the president, finally revealed his answer last week when discussing the in-blowing winds of 2024.
“In my 14 years (in Chicago), playing as a hitters’ park (or as) a pitchers’ park, Wrigley is everything,” Hoyer said Tuesday. “In 2023 we were the seventh-best run-scoring environment. Last year we were 29th. It’s really a random collection of fates — wind blowing in, wind blowing out. We have no control over that. So Wrigley is a place you don’t actually build around the ballpark. You build the best team possible — an athletic team — realizing that day to day it’s going to change.”
So Wrigley is unpredictable. Now we know.
5. Discovered you’re only as old as you feel.
A colleague pointed out this was the 30th anniversary of my first spring training — when I covered the 1995 White Sox camp in Sarasota, Fla. Major-league players were still on strike, and the owners’ solution was to use scabs and minor-leaguers.
On the opening day of camp in ’95, Sox officials refused to allow the media inside to interview players, or even step onto their grounds. Chicago baseball writer Dave Van Dyck then called up the league office, who forced the Sox to let us do our jobs. On opening day of Sox camp this year, the media was inadvertently locked out of the Camelback Ranch press box, but only because someone forgot to open it.
That’s a sign of progress.
Being the oldest writer this camp helped me relate to the arrival of Turner, baseball’s oldest position player, and made me wonder which current Cub would be the most likely to keep playing when he’s 40.
“Wouldn’t that be special?” Ian Happ said.
OK, maybe not Ian Happ.
Counsell, who played at the age of 40 in Milwaukee in 2011, insisted every player would want to continue playing that long because “it’s the greatest job in the world.” So why did he stop?
“I was not good enough anymore,” he said. “You know when you know (it’s over), but people not calling reinforced it.”
Fact check: Confirmed.
Counsell hit .178 with 9 RBI and a .503 OPS in 107 games with the 2011 Brewers, when he made $1.4 million. He went on to the Brewers’ front office before managing and currently makes $8 million per year as a 54-year-old Cubs manager. And he still doesn’t look old.
Anyway, thanks for asking what I did last week.
I hope this answers your question.
