Chicago Cubs rookie outfielder and No. 1 prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong is getting a taste of the Cubs Convention this weekend in Chicago.
While Crow-Armstrong shows off a new haircut and mingles with Cubs fans all weekend, he got the chance to reflect on his handful of games in the Majors last season and, perhaps most importantly, his opportunity to play in iconic Wrigley Field.
“Loud and beautiful and picturesque,” Crow-Armstrong said of the Cubs’ home since 1912. “It’s like a movie scene, (there’s) nothing like it.”
The use of the word “movie scene” is apropos in the household. Both of Crow-Armstrong’s parents are actors, and his mother, Ashley, is well-known to baseball fans as Jenny Heywood from the 1994 film “Little Big League.” To science-fiction fans she is best known as Sandra Bennet from the television show “Heroes,” the mother of one of the show’s main characters, Claire Bennet, played by Hayden Panettiere.
Crow-Armstrong made his MLB debut last September, mostly as a late defensive replacement and flashed the glove that made him a 2022 Minor League Gold Glove winner. He didn’t get the chance to show off the bat, but he spent the month taking notes on everything.
He called his experience a “checkpoint” for his career.
“It was all I ever wanted, you know — I guess that’s the cookie-cutter answer,” he said. “But for me I’m looking at it as a checkpoint rather than some big thing because at the end of the day I just went and played 12 more baseball games. So, if anything, I think the people that I was around, the people that I’ve continued to be around, they make me want to stay up there. And I think if anything I took a lot of excitement into this year from last year.”
Armstrong made great progress at the plate last year in the minors.
With the Double-A Tennessee Smokies and the Triple-A Iowa Cubs last season he batted .283/.365/.511/.876 with 26 doubles, seven triples, 20 home runs and 82 RBI. He also stole 37 bases.
So far this offseason he’s been named a candidate for NL Rookie of the Year and MLB executives rated his fielding as the best of any prospect in baseball. He’ll have a chance to make the Opening-Day roster at Spring Training.
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