Position Players Report and Other Bullets

Day Three of “Feeling Crappy” continues, unabated. Actually, I guess I do feel modestly better.

  • Today is the reporting date for all position players at Chicago Cubs camp, and the first full squad workout is tomorrow. The only players not yet in camp, however, are Starlin Castro, Alfonso Soriano, Blake DeWitt and Jae-Hoon Ha.
  • The big event of the day will be the “first annual” bunt tournament, complete with 64 seeded competitors (including Dale Sveum, who gets Kerry Wood in the first round – Wood calls the matchup “a layup”). Bruce Miles snapped a picture of the full bracket so you can see who is facing whom, if you’re so inclined.
  • Some fluff on the man expected to be the Cubs’ first baseman for at least the first part of 2012, Bryan LaHair. A particularly nice quote from LaHair: “It’s a good feeling [to get a chance to start]. I plan on working harder than I did before to keep it. I don’t want this to be a one-year thing, I want it to be more than one. I want to be part of something and build toward something. This is probably, right now, the best franchise in all of sports as far as wanting to win. This is the place to do it if you’re going to do it, so it’s definitely a great opportunity.”
  • And then some fluff on the man hoping to take the Cubs’ first baseman job from LaHair, Anthony Rizzo. A quote from Rizzo: “[It’s] ‘when’ not ‘if’ [we win a championship]. If you’re saying ‘if,’ who knows if it’s going to happen. You’re going to have to have that mindset that we’re going to do it and we’re going to win. Wherever I am I want to win every day and make the playoffs with that team and be an All-Star and go to the playoffs. That’s got to be the mindset from Game 1 to Game 162. No, I’m sorry, Game 173, or however many it takes.”
  • Sveum is a fan of his veterans, calling Ryan Dempster, Kerry Wood, Matt Garza, and Geovany Soto “special human beings,” who have bought into turning things around.
  • Brett Jackson used to work out with Jeremy Lin, apparently. Or, at least, in the same gym. Any excuse to talk about Lin, eh?
  • John Gaub, a lefty hoping to make the Cubs’ pen out of Spring Training, is expected to resume workouts today, after missing some time with back spasms.
  • The expectation remains that the addition of two more Wild Cards will happen this season.
  • Finally, someone in Boston blows a gasket about getting “only” Chris Carpenter as compensation for Theo Epstein (one year of Epstein, a guy the writer admits needed to go). It’s good for a smile.
  • A reminder about comments: we have a great commenting community, and I’m glad that we’re able to self-police without the heavy-handed implementation of a bunch of rules (though they do exist, as you can see in the Terms of Service at the bottom of the page). That said, there are a number of things that will never fly, and will get you bounced. All should be obvious to you – racism, sexism, homophobia, threats, excessive vulgarity (a little is fine), obvious trolling, etc.
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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