JUST WHAT BASEBALL DEARLY NEEDS: PCA THREATENING OHTANI’S MVP SHOWCASE
It’s crazy Shohei could be one-upped despite his 26 home runs and 1.79 ERA, but when the Dodgers are foolishly loathed, consider the intense likability of Pete Crow-Armstrong and the smoking Cubs
PCA is AI. What else would we make of a marionette emerging at Wrigley Field in strings, with hair that changes colors as he prefers, when he’s merely 6 feet tall and weighs 184 pounds? Pete Crow-Armstrong might be the Most Valuable Player in the National League, which is bewitching when Shohei Ohtani is taller and larger with the same number of home runs along with an 8-2 record and a 1.79 earned-run average.
This is more shocking than Ippei Mizuhara. Ohtani could be blown out of his fifth award, though he slugs and also pitches, by someone who perks as a redhead with flowers on his cap.
The fact we are discussing a fierce possibility means baseball has a beloved star in Chicago. That’s happening when the sports world hates the Dodgers for acquiring Tarik Skubal and wonders about Ohtani’s imprisoned interpreter. PCA, the son of Hollywood people, is only 24 and grew up a few miles down the road from Chavez Ravine. That allows him to torch Los Angeles fans, such as when he told Chicago magazine: “I love Chicago more and more. It’s just an incredible city. The people are great. They give a (bleep). They aren’t just baseball fans who go to the game like Dodgers fans to take pictures and whatever. They are paying attention. They care.’’
His quote will linger until we see if the Cubs play the Dodgers in the playoffs. If they collide, Crow-Armstrong becomes the most detested enemy in L.A. since the Houston Astros. Wednesday, he hit two homers and drove in four runs in a sweep of a back-to-back champion that has lost six straight games — please do not call FanDuel to make betting changes. He did so while Ohtani was hitting two home runs with three RBIs. People want PCA to win because much of America is sick of the Dodgers, which is stupid. What I know, realistically, is that he’s the antithesis of Lou Brock.
In Cubdom, fans remember when Ernie Broglio was acquired from St. Louis for Brock, a Hall of Famer who became the sport’s best basestealer of his day. Broglio, a pitcher, finished his career with a 77-74 record. PCA means Cubs boss Jed Hoyer deserves an honor — briefly — for acquiring him in a deal for 2016 championship star Javier Baez. At the time, people thought Hoyer was wacko. Turns out he has changed history.
On a day when he reached 25 homers and 25 steals for the second straight season, Crow-Armstrong pointed at the rollicking fans and was thrilled to crush the Dodgers. He also said he’d love to be the MVP. Since the end of May, these are his numbers: .350/.453/.725, 20 homers, 45 RBI, 47 runs, 15 doubles, 5 triples, 16 stolen bases and 11 defensive runs saved.
“I would be crazy to say that I don’t want to win an MVP, but if we’re talking about having priorities straight, I think mine are pretty straight,” he said. “It’s not on the forefront of my mind. It’s fun to joke about and it’s fun to acknowledge and I think it’s absolutely OK to pay attention to. But it’s not following me up to the plate.
“If you guys want to talk about all this back and forth, like, I really should go get in the lab and start pitching. I really should.”
Yes, he would have to beat Ohtani. Will enough voters look past his double-edged performance as a hitter and pitcher? Have we reached the point where a new hero is needed from another franchise? I favor Ohtani. But PCA is floating in our minds.
“Simply put, just having your name in the same conversation as someone as profound as (Ohtani) feels, it’s awesome and it’s a nice nod,” Crow-Armstrong said. “It’s cool. But I would feel much more accomplished taking (the Dodgers) down at some point. I want to see our group in October because it’ll be a dangerous, dangerous group in the playoffs.”
The PCA cloud hasn’t entered Ohtani’s mind. “He’s a great player,” he said, “but I’m really focused on myself right now on the hitting side of things and I’m really working towards hopefully getting back on the (pitcher’s) mound. It’s still a little too far away to think about that.”
Do not tell Dave Roberts, who is on a unique six-pack of defeats, that PCA is in the running for Ohtani’s trophy. Last week, he said Ohtani would win again. Wednesday? “I haven’t followed the race,” the manager said. “I have followed what Pete’s doing, and he’s figured some things out with the bat. He’s having a heck of a year. And he has rightfully made it a lot closer than most expected. He’s had a tremendous season.”
But it wasn’t long ago when PCA was in a slump, after he agitated a female White Sox fan with vulgar words at Rate Field. “I think I just regret my choice of words the most, and who that affects in my life directly and indirectly,” he said in mid-May. “I don’t think that any of the women in my life would ever think that I would use those kinds of words regularly, especially referring to them. So, I’m just bummed out about the word choice, and that a bunch of little kids go and probably find their way to social media and see that as well. I am intense on the field and in a moment like that, I just let it get away from me a little bit.”
Since then, he has lifted the Cubs to a 66-49 record, only three games behind the Dodgers. Meanwhile, we’ve heard “The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani,” an ESPN podcast that continues to baffle me. How in the hell did Ohtani, a very close friend of Mizuhara, not realize the man had stolen almost $17 million from his bank account? Consider what bookmaker Mathew Bowyer said of Mizuhara’s gambling sickness.
“He was absolutely bananas, the amount of bets he was making,” Bowyer said on the podcast. “He was trying to dig out a hole, and that hole made him even more poor of a gambler because he’s betting big payout stuff. … Listen, I gambled bigger than most, right? I sleep, you know, I have a life too. He definitely was betting all night long, all the time. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
And Ohtani traveled the world with him for years, as a friend and a translator, and didn’t realize Mizuhara’s bad personal condition? Ohtani didn’t ask him about money? He didn’t check his bank account? Did he not realize any protection of his friend could land him in trouble with California, where sports betting is illegal? Please think. Please don’t let him off the hook.
If you haven’t noticed, most media people aren’t covering that angle. They are too busy gambling themselves. Ohtani will have to resume pitching in the regular season and proceed with his awesome numbers. Then he’ll win again. But if he falls short?
Watch PCA. Knowing him, he’ll locate his lab and start firing fastballs.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.