Long Home Run

Cub prospect Anthony Rizzo looks like a future star and by my calendar, he should be in Chicago playing 1B every day by Labor Day at the latest. Hopefully earlier. Here he hits his first HR in a Cub uniform an estimated 460 feet over the bullpen and on top of a restaurant. A massive shot. The Giants RF never moved, never even looked.

Back at the Ballpark

After the morning at the minor league camp, it was back to the ballgame as the Cubs visited the Giants. Chris Volstad was the starting pitcher, and prospect Josh Vitters played third base.

Famous Name

A mid-round 2011 draft choice, Trevor Gretzky is working on earning a first base/outfield spot in the Cubs system. During the drill I saw, he was not asked to throw the ball, but just toss it to a teammate, but he looked smooth near first in fielding grounders or taking throws. Certainly one of the more famous athletic names in the Cub system, Trevor is the son of hockey great Wayne Gretzky.

Future Pitchers

Up close, two future Cub pitchers working out at the minor league camp. Rob Whitenack is listed among the top prospects for the team, and lefty Gerardo Concepcion was working out only three days after signing his first professional contract. Concepcion was a star on the Cuban National team a year ago.

Jeff Samardzija fires a fastball on his way to earning a spot in the 2012 Cubs' rotation, while Starling Castro avoids an interfering slide while try to turn a double play. The runner should be within reach of second base but he is trying to slide into Castro. The umpire could well have called the interference and it would have been a double play, though this is rarely called.

Arizona Dreaming

Future Cub IF Junior Lake, soon to be on the major league roster, rips a line drive. A few innings later, three young ballplayers watch and wait for their turn. I see stardom coming for Rizzo and Szczur (pronounced 'Caesar.')

Old and Young

OF Brett Jackson, soon to be a young Cub star, races for second after a solid hit. Three batters later, veteran LF Alfonso Soriano blasts a line drive off the scoreboard.

Hope Springs Eternal

Hope Springs Eternal, and Cub fans follow hope to the Sonoran Desert to see the new season as a tiny seedling. Three games in three days and a nice collection of photography. Here we see P Paul Maholm and 1B Bryan LaHair.

Lots of Action

When LaTroy Hawkins was with the Cubs, he was prone up late-inning failures that sent him out of town. Now with the Brewers, he came in for the 8th inning and was touched up for 4 runs, enough for the Cubs to pull out a win. With action heating up on the field, the rooftops began to buzz with excitement and the cheers resounded together with the fans across Sheffield Ave. inside the ballpark.

Up on the Roof

The second game of the season at Wrigley Field this week, I was on a mission to enjoy a game from one of the Rooftops on Sheffield Avenue. Since I go back to the distant time where people lived across the street from the ball games and could actually see a bit of the field from their apartments, I have read about the growth of these buildings and the thousands of fans who enjoy the games from there.
The result of an offering on Groupon, a wonderful Chicago web site that offers daily "group coupons" with great offers for various attractions in the city and around the area.
Waiting in line until one hour prior to the game, I grabbed a couple of shots of the building. Upcoming posts will take us literally up on the roof.

Retired Numbers

The Cubs have honored six players by retiring the five numbers they wore during their Cub tenure. First of course was Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, with his #14. He was not in Mesa during my visit, but I saw all five of the other honorees. Fergie Jenkins wore #31 and Billy Williams #26 in the Fergie & Friends game and Ryne Sandberg was suited up in #23 for the Cub games before he heads off to manage the Iowa Cubs. And on the final morning, with Billy Williams in uniform working with the batters, I saw the other #31, Greg Maddux, working with the pitchers.
All I needed was Ernie to have had a full house!

Batting Practice

When the Cubs are playing away games in the afternoon, the ballpark is open early in the morning for fans to walk in and enjoy batting practice. Few people are there and it is easy to walk down to the front row and get a good closeup look at the batters at work. After the last group has hit, the players head to the clubhouse for a bit of lunch and walk out to board a bus to drive to the game. Fans line up at a sawhorse barricade and are able to get several autographs from various players and coaches as they leave.
Here we see manager Lou Piniella talking baseball with Senior Adviser & Hall-of-Famer Billy Williams on the field. The other photo shows Hall-of-Famer Ryne Sandberg, working as a major league coach in spring training, signing autographs before jumping on the bus.
I took pictures, jumped in the rental car, and followed along. Pictures from the away game in the next post.

Future Cubs?

One of the highlights of the practices and games at Fitch Park is the up-close view you get of the players who will be the Cubs of the future. Three of them, seen here, are young 3B Josh Vitters (a former first-round draft choice), P Todd Blackford, and the young catcher seen here with the shortest name in Cub history. If you say the two or three times in a row, it will also be the funniest.
Once I watch players up close this way, I tend to look for their names in minor league box scores and I root for them to climb the ladder to Wrigley Field.
Good luck, Josh and Todd; I will be waiting when you get there, guys!

Fitch Park

Spring Training games are generally at bargain prices, with box seats affordable and berm locations quite inexpensive. But on a morning of a day when no game was scheduled, I went by the minor league camp a half-mile away at Fitch Park. I knew I could get some close shots of pitcher Jeff Samardzija who would start a minor league squad game just to get his work in. While I was at it, I got some shots of pitcher Carlos Zambrano, enjoying his day off by practicing one of his favorite hobbies: batting.

Recruits Seen

Every team has new members each season, and two of the 'recruits' seen in Cubs camp are about as opposite as could be. Carlos Silva was a solid pitcher three or four years ago in Minnesota, then signed a big contract with Seattle and was not the same player. The Cubs took him in exchange for one of their problems, Milton Bradley, and are willing to endure a non-productive player just to be shed of Bradley. But other than his first outing, Silva has looked capable of being a decent starter or a helpful bullpen pitcher. Fingers crossed, we wait and see.
At the other end of the spectrum, shortstop Starlin Castro was in minor league camp last year and was not attracting all that much attention. But he skyrocketed up three notches last season, helped Tennessee in the playoffs, and starred in the Arizona Fall League. Although he has been sent to the Smokies again at the AA level, he seems on a fast track to Chicago. I assume we will see him around Labor Day and he might be a major leaguer for 2011.

Good View of the Ballplayers

HoHoKam Park is a wonderful place for fans to get that closeup look at the action as we see in these shots of LF Alfonso Soriano and new 3B Chad Tracy at the plate. Soriano is on the way back from injury, while Tracy is trying to win a spot as backup to Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee.

Cub Stars

Cub Stars are always represented at HoHoKam Park, of course. Downstairs in the main concourse are a set of five banners to represent the five most famous modern-era Cub Hall-of-Famers. Andre Dawson is the most recent addition to the list.
Upstairs in the grandstand, Cub fans line up before the game to speak to and ask autographs from Ron Santo, who most certainly belongs in that group.

Jersey Name and Number?

Hall-of-Famer Fergie Jenkins hosted his second annual Fergie & Friends baseball game, featuring several baseball greats in a game against Phoenix-area TV and Radio personalities. With a VIP ticket, we were invited down on the field for pictures and a chance to talk to Billy Williams (who got a hit in the game; I had not seen him get one in 35 years!), Ron Santo, Harmon Killebrew, Juan Marichal -- and Meadowlark Lemon, who was Fergie's teammate for three winters on the Harlem Globetrotters. We were on the field for nearly three hours.

Unless there is a young man named FINALLY! including the exclamation point, the jersey seen here was a comment on this year's Cub team ending the 101-year drought of World Championships.

HOPEFULLY!

Cubs Win in Mesa

My first day of my first spring training was fantastic. Perfect weather, a nice seat in the shade, lots of runs leading to a Cub win (even though the games don't count, it is fun to win when you flew four hours to get here). Pre-season baseball is more enjoyable than I pictured it: the field is in perfect shape, the fans are friendly and knowledgeable, and no one appears to be there to be seen or to be drinking too much. Everyone seems to be celebrating the end of a tough season called winter and the start of the following season called baseball.

Alfonso Soriano lead off the Cub first with a shot down the line as he had two hits and two walks. Several Cubs had hits and several pitchers did reasonably well. After the game, the traffic is minimal and a short stop at the souvenir shop will get you to a fairly empty parking lot. Empty of most cars, as you can see, but not empty. I watched this Dad and his son play catch in 2009 and I remembered my son and me in 1979. Baseball. Always and forever, the national pastime and the perfect game.

Next post will be about another ballfield I visited later that night. A surprise located on the Internet, visited in hopes it would even be open on a March night, and ending with (of all things) a hit.