Before I begin, I want to make it clear that I’m kidding about all of this.
Mostly.
Let me set the scene as to why I feel the Cubs ought to do a grand ceremony if Pete Crow-Armstrong happens to steal his 40th base of the season in the next two days, while the Atlanta Braves are in town. PCA stole his 37th Monday night, so he needs three more. And the Braves are the second-worst team in throwing out baserunners this year, nabbing just 15 percent (19 of 128 attempts; by comparison, the Cubs catchers
are at 27 percent, 30 caught of 113 attempts).
For the reason I feel this way, let’s go back three years to September 2023. The Cubs are in Atlanta, desperately trying to hold on to a wild card spot that they ultimately missed by one game. They had lost the first game of the series 7-6 in excruciating fashion, in part because Seiya Suzuki dropped an easy fly ball that would have ended the eighth inning with the Cubs leading.
In the second game of the series, the Cubs led 3-1 going to the bottom of the seventh, but single runs by the Braves in that inning and the eighth tied the game. The Cubs took a 4-3 lead in the ninth on an RBI single by Yan Gomes, but Marcell Ozuna homered off Mark Leiter Jr. with one out in the bottom of the ninth to tie it 4-4.
The Cubs scored a run on a sacrifice fly in the top of the 10th and led 5-4.
Daniel Palencia, then a 23-year-old rookie, pitched the bottom of the 10th. Ronald Acuña Jr. singled in the placed runner to tie the game at 5-5.
Then Acuña stole second, his 70th steal of the 2023 season [VIDEO].
That clip, obviously, is from the Atlanta broadcast, and they made it sound like the most unbelievable, best thing in baseball history.
So let’s be honest here. Yes, 40/70 is an achievement, but it’s not really a “thing” in the way 30/30, 40/40 or even the 50/50 season Shohei Ohtani had in 2024. It’s a made-up milestone that… right at that moment, in a tense tie game in extra innings, the Braves decided to hold the game up for a ceremony, playing a scoreboard montage, giving Acuña the base, and…
On the Marquee Sports Network broadcast, Jon Sciambi and Jim Deshaies were less than thrilled:
And, know what? They were absolutely, positively correct. This was not the time for that sort of thing! Tie game, one team desperately trying to hold on to a postseason spot, AND a rookie pitcher on the mound. I mean… come on, Braves. Have your ceremony before the next day’s game! Go all out! Just don’t do what you did, don’t do THAT.
But they did THAT. And, sure enough, Palencia might have been a bit rattled as two pitches later, Ozzie Albies singled in Acuña and the Braves won 6-5.
Now, would the Cubs have won that game if not for the little Acuña ceremony? Probably not; after the steal Acuña thus represented the winning run in scoring position with nobody out and the Braves had Austin Riley and Matt Olson (in Olson’s 54-homer season) coming up after Albies. The game’s likely lost anyway.
But again, I think the Cubs broadcasters had it right. Don’t stop a game like this in that way. Period.
And so the Cubs have a chance for payback if PCA can steal three bases in the next two games. They ought to do it.
Petty? Oh heck yes, it would be tremendously petty.
But it would also be fun, wouldn’t it? Like I said, I’m kidding about all of this.
Mostly.
