Perhaps it was fitting Friday that the Wrigley Field ivy was, if you will, still in extended spring training, represented on the outfield walls only by serpentine, sepia-colored vines.
The ivy is not yet the ivy, and Kris Bryant is not yet Kris Bryant, this day anyway, his Chicago Cubs debut spoiled by strikeouts.
But here’s thinking that by the time the ivy sprouts next month, so will have Bryant.
The 23-year-old rookie third baseman moves the meter, gets our imagination break dancing. Very seldom in sports does a seismic-shifting, big-city savior ascend. Well, he’s supposed to be one anyway. This guy could be Mike Schmidt, or he could be Jack, um, you know. But that’s what makes sports magical and alive, like the Wrigley ivy. It’s hope that keeps us young.
“Kris Bryant is simply — what’s the word I’m looking for? — the symbol,” Denverite Jennifer LaBelle, raised in the Chicago area, said Friday at the Blake Street Tavern. “The symbol of the future. He just offers hope of breaking this curse. My grandma’s 98, still watches every game and has never seen a championship.”
Bryant is relevant because he’s in the National League, our town’s league, and because our town’s second-favorite team, if I may, is probably the Cubs. You, reading this, you’re either are a Cubs fan or know one, right? For much of last weekend, with thousands of Cubs fans crawling, Coors Field felt like Wrigley Field (with shorter bathroom lines).
On her lunch break Friday, LaBelle arrived at the bar in a Cubs jacket, atop a Cubs long-sleeved, warm-up shirt — and, for good, measure, atop a Cubs T-shirt. She’s one of so many with a heart forever broken but forever bleeding blue. She keeps track of the opposing starter’s pitch count and at home has the Cubs’ roster on her computer’s wallpaper. She moved here last October. When I wondered if she’d celebrate her one-year Denver anniversary by watching the Cubs win the pennant, she said: “Don’t even,” as if to imply the magnitude of the suggestion was too grand to comprehend.
We watched Bryant’s first at-bat together — there he was, Paul Bunyan’s son, this 6-foot-5 specimen with a dark beard.
“His swing is sweet. Gosh, I love his swing. He’s got a little Andre Dawson in him,” she gushed, even though his swing didn’t actually connect with the pitch. “I haven’t seen that many guys with that beautiful of a swing in a long time.”
Indeed, that swing glides aerodynamically like Nolan Arenado’s. Rockies and Cubs fans perhaps saw this during spring training, when Bryant, sure enough against Colorado, hit his first of nine Cactus League homers. Or that day when Bryant clobbered a double off Jon Gray, the Colorado (well, Albuquerque) pitcher, taken third overall in the 2013 draft, one spot after Bryant.
On Friday, Bryant batted fourth, the first Cub to make his debut in the cleanup spot since Heinz Becker in 1943. Alas, Bryant struck out all three times against San Diego Padres all-star James Shields and grounded out in his final at-bat. The Cubs lost 5-4 in a totally Cubs way. They left seven runners on base and then, after seemingly pitching strike three to end an inning, the ump called it a ball … and Wil Myers hit a three-run homer on the next pitch.
“He looks like the real deal, from what I’ve seen,” Rockies manager Walt Weiss said Friday. “When there are expectations like that, and then you go out and perform and fulfill those expectations, that’s tough to do.”
Bryant did make a few nifty plays in the field. He starting a double play in the first inning. On the Cubs radio broadcast, former ballplayer Ron Coomer said: “It’s not too often you get a standing ovation on your first groundball.”
Later that inning, his broadcasting partner asked Coomer to describe his major-league debut.
“You can’t describe it to anybody,” Coomer admitted. “You can’t give it justice.”
I like that.
Fans can’t feel the experience of playing in your first big-league game; it’s something you can’t buy or replicate. Bryant kind of stunk in his first game, but Friday will be a day forever tattooed to his memory. Maybe LaBelle will someday be the grandma, and her grandkids will talk about when LaBelle first got to see Kris Bryant, before he became Kris Bryant.
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or
