Outgoing Chicago Cubs outfielder Jason Heyward met with the media at Wrigley Field for the first time since the group introduced in August that he would no longer be returning to play for them this season, or in 2023, the ultimate yr of his contract.
The state of affairs has been treated in addition to imaginable, all issues regarded as, and Heyward, himself, stated he preferred the Cubs’ transparency one what used to be going down, and what could be going down.
“I’ll say that I appreciate they’re real,” Heyward stated all through the 35-minute media consultation Thursday, according to NBC Sports Chicago. “I appreciate being able to have that. It’s tough when you don’t have those things, showing up for any job or living life. If people were kind of blowing smoke and not keeping it real with you, it’s tougher to get up every day and go to work or tougher to treat other people how you want to be treated. So, it was nice to have that in a sense.”
Among the different subjects of dialog …
Heyward’s Playing Plans for 2023
The Cubs will formally free up Heyward this offseason to permit him to hunt out a freelance for 2023, although together with his decline in manufacturing and his time away with the knee damage this yr, it’s arduous to look him discovering a assured giant league deal.
He advised that he may imagine a minor league deal if it had been the proper group in the proper state of affairs, however he’s no longer putting ’em up but.
“I know I have a lot to offer still for a winning baseball team,” Heyward stated, according to Cubs.com.
A Future in Baseball
Although Heyward is most effective 33, it’s most certainly no longer too early for him to be fascinated about a imaginable long term in baseball past his enjoying days, given how neatly he connects with fellow avid gamers.
That, in reality, speaks particularly to what he may see for himself in the long term. From The Athletic:
“I don’t know what capacity or what role — maybe it’s on the partial ownership side — but I want to bridge that gap,” Heyward stated. “There are a lot of things lost in translation from clubhouse to front office. I wouldn’t say there’s things lost in translation from ownership, but it’s having more perspectives like mine up above this, to be able to look down and say, ‘What can I really give to this group of guys?’ Even if it’s keeping it real with them and letting them know, ‘This is what it’s like here. This is what it’s like at the next spot. Be grateful for it.’ I think I can bridge that gap as far as helping everyone be on the same page.”
Jason Heyward as a minority proprietor of the Chicago Cubs? Hey, why no longer? It would appear a good suggestion to have a former participant like him in that more or less conduit/connection position.
Heyward’s “Bad” Contract
You don’t want me to re-hash why Jason Heyward’s eight-year, $184 million contract didn’t determine the means any individual had was hoping, from an on-field manufacturing point of view.
For his phase, Heyward has some ideas on why “it’s been an honor to wear that contract.”
From his feedback on the matter, according to NBC Sports Chicago:
“Well, I think like I’m an overly lucky particular person to be in a choose team of avid gamers that earn unhealthy contracts, as a result of there’s a large number of unhealthy contracts available in the market, if that’s how we’re having a look at it, proper?
“But to be able to show the value of myself as a person in probably one of the toughest times I’ve had on the the field and off the field in 2016, to still show I’m here for the team, to still play defense the way I play defense, run the bases and just to step in and step up at multiple times when I was needed to be who I am, to be Jason Heyward …
“We still got a ring, and it took every bit of that from me. It took that group. There was no other group that was going to get that done. So that’s fine. I understand why people say ‘bad contract’ and this and that. But I know I also had my hand in a lot of winning baseball here on the North Side of Chicago.”
I’m no longer positive how else he’s meant to take into accounts it, so I feel that’s all honest. Again, we all know the tale right here. It used to be disappointing. There had been some moments of super worth – and a large number of successful – nevertheless it’s all in the previous now, and also you kinda simply need to let it cross. At least that’s how I attempt to take into accounts it.
The Speech and the World Series Win
This used to be the maximum I’ve heard Heyward say, particularly, on the well-known rain extend speech in the clubhouse all through Game 7 of the 2016 World Series.
“I felt like that was probably the first time I have seen everyone just not really having much to say, everyone kind of being dumbfounded a little bit, being down,” Heyward stated of the sport being tied past due, according to Marquee. “And rightfully so. Because all of the weight of the curse, because it’s Game 7, because we’re not at Wrigley, because they have a lot of momentum. A lot of things did not go our way at one time. And it would have been very easy to just say, ‘all right, we gave it a hell of a run. Now let’s go see what happens.’ …
“To me, we had a moment. I didn’t know how long it was gonna be, but I saw it was raining. I was like, man, I gotta say something. I gotta remind these dudes like of how I see them because they’re amazing. They’re gladiators. And through every up and down in that season, it didn’t matter. We always had an answer. It was to laugh at it, have fun with it … see who will come out on top. And then praise the people that came through in that game that night, praise the guy that came through in the game the next night. It was someone different every night, every series for us. So we just needed a reminder.”
Grand speeches aren’t at all times Marc Antony in entrance of the electorate of Rome. Sometimes much less is extra, and I feel the charisma round Heyward’s speech has at all times been extra about the significance of the second, itself, reasonably than the contents of what he stated. At backside, it used to be easy: a reminder of simply how just right the group were, could be, and is.