CHICAGO -- There is no truth to the rumor that Chicago Cubs president Theo Epstein made Kris Bryant show him “paint the fence, sand the floor and wax the car” before he knew the young slugger was really ready.
Perhaps Epstein just wanted to see if the 23-year-old Bryant could hit New Orleans Zephyrs reliever Pat Urckfitz's best stuff before he called the third baseman up.
One three-run homer later, and Epstein was convinced Bryant was worthy of playing for the first-place (OK, 5-3) Cubs. Right?
It’s funny how Bryant’s development dovetailed with that much-debated service-time clock. It's one of those coincidences people mistake for irony.
In the biggest bit of Cubs news since people waited in line for the bathroom in the season opener, Bryant, the team’s top prospect and perfect ideal of a human, is set to report to Wrigley Field on Friday, likely to start at third base for the injured Mike Olt.
The word is that local sportswriters are begging the Associated Press to relax its style rules on the usage of "dinger" for home run. Because Bryant is going to hit some dingers. Some long balls and taters, too. How will we be able to describe them? We'll need new words!
For his own myth’s sake, anything less than hitting a baseball through the video board in left will be a disappointment this weekend. The Cubs marketing department might ask Bryant to aim for a couple rooftops in right. Just don't hit the unfinished bleachers. Steel costs money, kid.
Bryant’s timely call-up before the NBA playoffs have even begun makes a spring’s worth of grousing about service time a little silly. It was a fun conversation to have during baseball practice, but those 12 days sure went quickly.
I didn't blame anyone who was upset about Bryant's "demotion," even if they were just being contrarian. When a major league team spends three years directing everyone to the future, well, it’s easy to get a little eager when the future is here and there is more waiting.
Who likes to wait?
First, it was the sell-off of the old Cubs, as fans imagined how Epstein and friends would fleece the rest of baseball.
Then it was the acquisition of young talent, and some real fleecing. Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel for Addison Russell is one for the books. The Scott Feldman-for-Jake Arrieta paperwork should be framed and auctioned off.
Then it was the delays, legislative and construction, in the Wrigley Field renovation saga, as yokels actually imagined the Cubs would move to Rosemont.
And then there was the obfuscation and frustration that went along with the entire process. It isn't often to see an established major-market franchise rebuild like the Cubs did.
But that’s all in the past now. As with much of the Cubs’ history, the trauma of the past serves to make fans stronger. Crazier, a little twisted, but yeah, also stronger.
It was nice to see Javier Baez and Jorge Soler, among others, come up last season. Hiring Joe Maddon legitimized the team. Signing Jon Lester showed the Cubs were ready to win.
But Bryant's ascension will be the big reward. “The Plan" matured over the years, taking shape as some opportunities presented themselves and other doors closed.
As a Cubs executive told me last year, if the team had, say, gotten Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes before the 2012 season, maybe the Cubs don’t get Bryant.
There was risk in the Cubs' plan, and the rewards are coming.
It took 101 losses in 2012 for the Cubs to finish second in the 2013 draft order, where they nabbed Bryant, a hard-hitting infielder out of the University of San Diego.
Bryant hasn't missed a beat from tearing up college pitching. In 648 at-bats over 181 minor league games, he hit 55 home runs, 49 doubles and walked 99 times. He collected 212 hits and compiled a .327 batting average.
Last season, in 138 games between Double- and Triple-A, he hit 43 homers and had a 1.098 OPS. Every at-bat was tweeted about, and when it was over, Bryant was named minor league player of the year by every person in the world with an MILB.com password.
He became the most famous minor league athlete in North America. Yes, even more famous than those hockey guys.
That led to all the attention in the spring about the Cubs' plans for keeping him down in the minors for service time. The Cubs denied that service time had anything to do with it, of course, but we all knew better.
Maybe there’s a Kris Bryant Rule in the next collective bargaining agreement. Certainly his agent, Scott Boras, has reason to push for it.
With his high draft status and quick rise, Bryant is the most awaited Cubs prospect since Mark Prior.
That’s not a knock. Prior was awesome until he, you know, wasn’t. He had real health issues.
But it was Prior and Kerry Wood who embodied all the Cubs' bad mojo after 2003, back when the Cubs broke your hearts in standard definition.
But it’s a different time, and by all metrics, Bryant is a special player. Mature, focused and talented.
His debut will be a big deal. His rookie season will be full of attention and adjustments. Yes, there will be pressure, but that's the nature of sport.
But normalcy will set in soon. Bryant doesn’t have to homer every other at-bat. He doesn't have to be Paul Bunyan in Adidas cleats. We can have our fun joking about his legend, but Bryant just has to be himself, a big piece of a larger puzzle that Cubs fans have waited forever to see completed.
Now it's time to for Cubs fans to sit back, watch Bryant sock some dingers and ask the most important remaining question: "When is Addison Russell coming up?"
