They bowed to Andre Dawson in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Cubs fans in the right-field bleachers at Wrigley Field did. Salaams en masse, on the daily.
They chanted Sammy Sosa’s name for many years after that. Sosa ran out and saluted them, and in return came waves of, “Sammy! Sammy!”
Has the player been born who wouldn’t feel that sort of love and want to give some in return?
How will inhabitants of the bleachers in right reach out and connect with Kyle Tucker this season?
The fans wooing Tucker for six or seven months is only one tiny piece of what might keep the Cubs’ best player — potentially baseball’s next No. 1 free-agent prize — in Chicago for longer than one measly tease of a season.
“I think it’ll be cool,” Tucker said Friday before trotting out to right for the first time in his new home ballpark. “I’ll probably throw some baseballs up there for them. I’ll do my best to [connect] with them, and we’ll see what happens. Obviously, the fans love their Cubs, but we’ll see what happens with the free agency stuff.”
What happens could be that it takes upward of $400 million — or around half the total money Juan Soto signed for with the Mets — for the Cubs to remain in the Tucker business. At this point, that’s just a guess. Much as it’s just a guess that Cubs ownership won’t dig deep enough under its mattress for one of the best players in the game because of the various and vast conceits with which the team typically does business.
There’s nothing typical about Tucker, only 28 and with a skill set that screams “franchise cornerstone” for, oh, how does a full decade sound?
But the Cubs are the Cubs, and that eventually will make this the ultimate litmus test for the Ricketts regime. If president Jed Hoyer has to kick the can down the road all season rhetorically until it becomes obvious the Cubs are going to let some other, less-budget-conscious club shove in for Tucker, you’ll know once and for all how little of a priority it is on the North Side to win another World Series.
In the meantime, though, fans in those bleachers might want to think about out-gesturing their counterparts in Houston who donned gold paper crowns in support of “King Tuck” beginning in the 2022 playoffs. That was kind of cute, anyway.
“It was good,” Tucker said. “I’d just wave at them and stuff.”
At Wrigley, though, there’s more character. Make that more characters. Probably both, come to think of it.
“The bricks. The ivy. In the neighborhood and everything. Yeah, it’s different here,” Tucker said. “I think there is a special aura around this place.”
Time will tell if that means anything of significance to the player ranked 14th-best at any position by MLB Network heading into the season. No other Cub shows up on that list until ace Shota Imanaga at 64th. MLB Network even had Tucker as the second-best right fielder — after the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and just ahead of Soto.
Tucker showed up for the home opener already leading the majors in total WAR, already on a four-game home-run streak, already in double digits in RBI, already tickling the imagination.
Best Cubs hitter since?
Best Cubs player since?
He has lived and breathed postseason baseball, been a world champion, is a three-time All-Star, has won an RBI crown and a Gold Glove and even had a 30-stolen-base season. What else is there?
Tucker is the same age Kyle Schwarber was when he began his post-Cubs odyssey, the Cubs having decided he wasn’t worth even a modest re-investment. For one lefty-swinging corner outfielder, that was 166 home runs ago. Where will the other his own next 166?
Any schmo can tell you where that should happen.
Alas, the Cubs are the Cubs. The Tucker countdown is on. Enjoy him while you can.