They’re all gone. All three of them. They’re gone. There’s a diaspora now, and it extends, of course—Yu Darvish is in San Diego, Kyle Schwarber’s in Boston, Jon Lester’s in St. Louis of all places—but the core of it is in San Francisco and New York and a different part of New York, and I can’t stop picturing them looking out plane windows while the country floats by far below, and they look so alone, and the Cubs look so alone picturing them in Washington tonight without those three. They’re the Cubs, without the Cubs.
Joe will have more tomorrow (and has had some on Twitter) about where this leaves the Cubs’ farm system, what they got back in each trade, etc., but for the moment, I mean…
My sister-in-law said something yesterday, when the Rizzo news broke, about a part of her wanting all three to go then. Not having to have a favorite of the three. And I think that’s how a part of me felt too. They were so different, so wonderful in their own ways, so fun…SO fun. Man. They were so fun. 2015 was so fun. 2016 was so fun. 2017 was so fun. 2018 and ’19 and ’20 and ’21 had their moments. And there was never anything from one of the three of them that made you say, “This guy’s a bad dude.” (Except for Javy Báez, who was a bad dude in the way that means he was the best dude.) Kris Bryant was always class. Anthony Rizzo was always charm. Javy Báez was a bad dude. They’re going to some strange places—outside-looking-in place for Rizzo, can-they-really-do-this-and-what-about-the-Dodgers places for Báez and Bryant. Báez will get to play with his good friend Francisco Lindor. Rizzo will get to play near his ancestral roots (post-Italy). Bryant will get to play for a very fun baseball team over on his native side of the country. We’ll pull for their teams to different degrees, and pull for all of them individually, and we’ll do that forever, I guess, with the added sadness of knowing each of them really is past their peak. But what a peak it was.
In the meantime, it’s going to feel so foreign and empty and also heartbreakingly familiar to watch the Cubs without them. It’s 2012 again, not that bad, but 2012 in that we don’t know who here to hold onto.
Again, Joe will have more tomorrow about where this leaves the Cubs as a franchise, and I suppose that means I’ll have something next week on how it feels to watch a rebuild once he’s told me where the window is, but right now…it’s going to be a strange weekend. A strange, strange weekend. And in a weird way, it feels kind of nice to have the Nationals in such a similar boat. This treading water stage, waiting for the roster to fill back up, waiting for the rebuild to start, waiting for a baseball game that feels like a baseball game and not like an inconvenient distraction that cannot distract from the sadness. Maybe next week it might start to feel ok. Maybe by spring it could feel almost normal. But this weekend…ugh.
The Cubs will play again tonight. Just without the Cubs.
They all still SEEM so young–it’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that “nothing lasts forever.” It feels like it should have at least lasted longer.