Chicago Cubs infielder Tommy La Stella has been engaged in an amusing prank war with the front office during training camp. Evidently, there’s no end in sight to the silliness.
On Friday, La Stella upped the ante significantly — and in a fantastic, over-the-top manner — by erecting a gigantic bounce house in the parking spaces for president of baseball operations Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer at the Cubs’ Sloan Park spring training facility in Mesa, Ariz.
The bounce house is especially apropos because it piggybacked upon something La Stella did earlier this spring training to antagonize Epstein and Hoyer.
La Stella parked in Epstein’s spot, then Hoyer’s previously this spring. The bosses responded with a counterattack of their own, albeit having nothing to do with parking spaces.
Epstein and Hoyer earlier this week replaced La Stella’s uniform with a much more casual outfit, highlighted by a pair of khakis.
“They were a little too tight,” La Stella said of the khakis, via The Athletic, by way of Big League Stew. “I took scissors to the back. I think my glutes are a little too big for the pants. It was definitely a little snug in the back. I’d like to blame it on my package, but that’s not true. It’s got to be my glutes.”
That may be just a little too much information from La Stella right there. Still, the prank war is emblematic of the kind of shenanigans that typify a ball club managed by Joe Maddon, a true baseball eccentric.
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