This New CSN Doc on Game 7 is Fantastic, Cubs Face Tough April, and Other Bullets

It’s Spring Break week for The Wife and The Kiddos, which means we’ll hopefully have a chance to do some day-time family fun stuff. We aren’t taking a trip – my Arizona trip and Spring Break didn’t align this year, and with the new Littlest Girl in the fold, we thought it best to stick around home – but it can still be an enjoyable week.

I just have to type quickly …

  • CSN premiered its Game 7 World Series Doc, ‘Reign Men,’ last night, and the reception – based on my Twitter feed, at least – was overwhelmingly positive. The interviews are just fantastic, with new insights and so much additional color to the stories we already feel like we know. If you missed it, or are not a CSN viewer, you can watch the doc right here, albeit with the broadcast footage removed due to online licensing issues (you’ve seen the game a million times, so you won’t miss the highlights here – the interviews are the focus):
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  • The discussion of the stretch between the Rajai Davis home run, and the eventual scoring in the 10th … God it just takes me back, and the thoughts of, “Could this really happen? Could the Cubs get *this* far and *this* close only to have it all yanked away?” totally resonates with me.
  • ESPN dropped its initial power rankings for MLB’s 30 teams, and unsurprisingly, the Cubs are on top. What’s probably more interesting to you is that ESPN also noted the possible high and low points for the teams. For the Cubs, in a best case scenario, there is no low point, and they cruise to another 100+ win season. You don’t have to be a homer to say, yes, that’s absolutely possible. As for a low point, it could come early for the Cubs, as their toughest month on the schedule projects to be April (even still, the projected opponent winning percentage that month is just .506). In April, the Cubs face the Cardinals (road), Dodgers (home), Pirates twice (home and road), and Red Sox (road). So, yes, that’s among the tougher months they’ll see, but they do also get nine games against the Brewers and Reds.
  • To the extent there is any doubt, Kyle Schwarber is saying he feels 100 percent (Tribune). Elsewhere on the injury front, Ben Zobrist could return to game action today (neck), and Addison Russell is still coming along (back).
  • The must-watch player group at Cut4 includes Javy Baez at second base (because obviously). For the most part, I think it’s a great list in terms of the MLB players you just have to watch (Adrian Beltre at third, yes; Bartolo Colon at pitcher, yes). But how about Willson Contreras at catcher instead of Buster Posey? There’s a whole lot of fun-to-watch there.
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  • A day after learning that Yadier Molina would not negotiate an extension in-season with the Cardinals (he’s a free agent after this season, assuming he declines a mutual option), Jon Heyman reports that the two sides are making significant progress on an extension. It was always very difficult to envision Molina in another uniform, but here’s hoping his saber-rattling at least squeezes some more dollars out of the Cardinals than they are comfortable giving out.
  • If you missed it last night, the latest round of spring cuts for the Cubs included Ian Happ.
  • I like to think the people at my gym are always saying to themselves, “Man, that guy must really love the Cubs” (also my towel is usually a W towel, and I use a Cubs water bottle):
  • MLB is dropping new promo/hype videos for the upcoming season, and I cannot tell you how happy it makes me to see the Cubs used as the thing to which the whole video builds. A “the other guys want to be these guys” kind of thing.
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  • Tim Tebow faced Max Scherzer, and it went about as well as you would expect (which is to say, it was as bad as it could get – six pitches, six swings, six whiffs). More than that, the Nationals Twitter account had a little fun at Tebow’s expense. Peep the stat line:
  • If you missed it this morning, I talked about the Cubs’ poor Spring record, about Albert Almora’s defensive prowess and latest gem, and David Ross’s bust-a-move session on ‘Dancing with the Stars.’
  • Luis has your Bears TYL Bullets here, including the Super Bowl-winning-quarter comparison for Mike Glennon (mmkay), and why Colin Kaepernick is still unemployed.
  • You can get lost down a wormhole pretty easily in the “entertainment collectibles” section on Amazon. There are just so many things that you see and wonder about the story of the person who is like, “I MUST HAVE THAT.”
  • 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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