Sometimes, you just get bored. Sometimes it happens when you’re forced, by dint of an iron-clad social convention and a pronounced lack of anything else to talk about, to ask about your co-workers’ Memorial Day plans for the umpteenth time, and sometimes it happens when you suddenly find that you’ve written the same piece for your Baseball Site one too many times. As you might have guessed, I’ve experienced both such instances of this the most indifferent of emotions over the last few days. And so today, I’ve decided to break the cycle.
In this edition of “That’s So Cub,” instead of cataloging this month’s top performers—which is what I’ve done for each of the last seven months—I’m going to highlight the month’s top moments. Warning: there will be dingers. There will be high socks. And there might be unicorns. It’ll be more fun this way, I think. In any event, it’ll almost certainly clear the low bar established by earlier editions of this series, when it was essentially an annotated WAR leaderboard. So, let’s proceed. Here’s the fifth-biggest moment of this month, as measured by WPA:
(5) Anthony Rizzo Lockes in three runs against the Pirates, May 14th (+0.271)
There are three fun things about this video, I think. The first thing is Jeff Locke’s socks. High socks are great. They should be mandated throughout baseball and, indeed, throughout life. They didn’t help Locke out here, though. The second is how cold it clearly was in Chicago a mere two and a bit weeks ago. Is there such a thing as schadenfreude directed at a past self? If so, I feel it now. The third, and perhaps most fun thing, is the little man in what looks suspiciously like a blue and red Cub onesie, making his debut right around the 0:21 mark.
(4) Addison Russell breaks the tie against the Nationals, May 7th (+0.283)
Just a few weeks ago, I stood next to Shawn Kelley in the Nationals’ home locker room, talked about Dusty Baker, and asked him how he felt his season was going. At that time, he felt it was going pretty well. A few days later, Addison Russell did this to him. Sorry, Shawn Kelley. You’re a friendly and personable man, and despite a beard more luxuriant than any I could possibly imagine, you’re only eight years older than I am. Trigger warnings: seagulls; replay review; Bryce Harper running into a wall.
(3) Ben Zobrist celebrates Star Wars Day in style, May 4th (+0.297)
In this video, Juan Nicasio continues a tradition presumably begun by Jeff Locke, his Pirates’ teammate, and sports a truly superb pair of high socks. Also in this video, Ben Zobrist makes his debut as the Chosen One for the month of May. He may be old (in a baseball sense), but he’s hardly washed up, triple-slashing .418/.496/.673 for the month, if you’re keeping track. You are.
(2) Ryan Kalish clears the bases against Sammy Solis, May 7th (+0.316)
Sometimes it’s the guys you expect. Sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s Ryan Kalish, who you once expected to do this kind of thing a lot, but who then hurt his neck and was never really the same since. For my money, it’s fun when this sort of thing happens to and around this sort of player. Kalish may never be a big contributor to the Cubs, in the long term, but on May 7th, for a brief moment, he was the most important man on the field. Even though it all might have been different if Danny Espinosa dove a little farther.
(1) Javy Baez wins it, May 8th.
Some balls aren’t meant to stay in the ballpark. They must, instead, roam free. On May the 8th, Javy Baez helped one special baseball do exactly that. Thanks, Javy. You’re the man. Keep being the beautiful, beautiful, baseball-rat unicorn that you are.
Lead photo courtesy David Banks—USA Today Sports.