‘Coolest thing ever’: Pete Crow-Armstrong becoming a folk hero in Chicago

When he got to center field Tuesday night, they were already chanting his name.

“P-C-A! P-C-A!”

Pete Crow-Armstrong waved and tipped his cap before playing a little pregame catch with right fielder Kyle Tucker.

As San Francisco leadoff hitter Mike Yastrzemski approached the plate, Crow-Armstrong turned to the crowd with the ball in his hand, and on command, the fans in the center-field bleachers all stood, grasping in the air for a connection. He surveyed the stands and tossed a ball into the crowd before turning around to work.

Pete Crow-Armstrong has found a home in center at Wrigley Field.

“It’s my favorite time of the day, being able to go out there before the game,” he told me Tuesday. “It’s the coolest thing ever.”

When Crow-Armstrong arrived in Chicago at the end of the 2023 season, veteran Ian Happ taught him the etiquette of playing outfield for the Cubs. You must acknowledge the fans. You must thank them after a win. At Wrigley you tip your cap and your beer vendors.

“Everybody’s encouraged me to build a little relationship with my people in the outfield, and that’s all I’ve tried doing before the game and, you know, it’s just the coolest s—,” he said.

Cubs fans are building a little relationship with him, too. He’s starting to see people wearing his new and old numbers, along with that hyphenated surname that goes from armpit to armpit on their backs.

“The jerseys is kind of when I’m like, wow,” he said. “Because I’m seeing 52 out there, I’m seeing 4 out there, and that’s the freaking coolest thing ever.”

Crow-Armstrong isn’t short on enthusiasm. Playing on a good Cubs team has been like his own little baseball fantasy. He said he comes to the park every day, eager to see what Kyle Tucker or Carson Kelly or whoever’s on the mound has in store. And if he can help, even better.

“I think it’s the coolest thing in baseball to be able to say you’re a part of something like this,” he said.

You might’ve noticed a trend here. He might as well change his name to Pete Cool-Armstrong, because everything is just the coolest when you’re 23 years old, hitting bombs, stealing bags, playing Gold Glove center field and the Cubs are winning.

With each passing day, you don’t just see Crow-Armstrong becoming a star. You can hear it.

“PCA” is as easy to chant as “MVP.” For the fans, there is a positive communal reaction when he walks up to the plate, makes a leaping catch at the ivy or sends a low fastball over the fence. It reminds me of Derrick Rose’s third year in the league when the fans started chanting “MVP” early on, as if they were willing it to happen.

The chants came up again in the bottom of the 10th inning when Crow-Armstrong walked to the plate with the winning run on third and one out. It would’ve made for a perfect anecdote for this column, but this time, the mighty PCA struck out and the run didn’t score. The Giants took advantage and scored a whopping nine runs in the top of the 11th to win 14-5.

Ah, well, you can’t be the hero every night.

Before the loss I asked Crow-Armstrong if this was all starting to feel real.

“A lot of people bring up like the chants and whatnot, but nobody’s actually asked if it’s really hit me yet,” he said. “No, I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet. I think it still kind of makes me slightly embarrassed in a good way, where I’m kind of bashful about it. They’re chanting my name so much out there, I want to be like, ‘Guys, I got to focus on the game.’”

But he said he would never do that. He feeds off the enthusiasm. He wants to thank the fans after every game, because that means the Cubs won.

“There’s not many places where the fans are right on top of you, and you can hear conversations behind you during the game and all that stuff,” he said. “It becomes personal, and if I was sitting in the bleachers, I would expect a freaking thank you, too, because they’re here all the freaking time. They make this place so fun.”

He hasn’t yet learned to tune out a noisy world.

“I just got out the car today in the parking lot, and dudes are on the roof like, ‘You guys got something special going on here,’” he said. “I’m like, yeah, we absolutely do.”

After a night game last week, I was walking to my car when I heard a small group of fans start chanting his name by the players’ parking lot. He walked over and started signing autographs.

“I definitely try and run over there for at least a couple, and I like focusing on the kids mostly,” he said. “I mean, I appreciate everybody that waits, but I just think being able to stick in a kid’s memory, that’s always going to be my first point of action. But people are waiting an hour, hour and a half until you’re out of the clubhouse just to get a little moment. And that’s about as cool as this job gets. It’s as rewarding as it gets.”

Cubs fans have been waiting impatiently for a guy like this. So have the Cubs, who have lacked star power since the World Series core broke up four years ago. This city gets giggly for a young athlete, particularly one with a little personality and a lot of production.

The production is key.

People knew PCA had talent, but few expected him to hit like he has. Going into Tuesday’s game, he was in the top 10 in baseball in home runs (9) and stolen bases (12). The walks aren’t there, but the hits are falling. His 2.1 fWAR was the sixth-best in baseball. Steve Goodman would love him because he’s got the power and the speed.

Pat Murphy, Milwaukee’s manager, put it colorfully over the weekend when he said, “The blue-haired kid is kind of a freak right now with the way that he’s playing.”

Crow-Armstrong’s hair is brown (currently), but the point remains.

“I’m surprised at the homers,” he said. “I’m also surprised I got 30 punchies already. So like, you know, that’s frustrating. I’m just proud of myself that I have helped impact (the team) in some shape or form. And I’m, honestly, I’m mostly proud of the production I was giving when I wasn’t hitting.”

On Tuesday night, he didn’t have any hits, though he walked for just the seventh time this season and scored a run as the Cubs tied the score in the ninth. He also made a leaping catch at the wall and a running, sliding-on-his-butt catch at the warning track.

Crow-Armstrong isn’t the bashful type, but he admits needing a little prodding to let loose last year as he tried to get his bearings. While the defense was there from the beginning, it took him a few months to click at the plate.

“Willie Harris last year was big in like getting me to just kind of say, f — it,” PCA said of the former Cubs coach. “But I finally got there. I think I just grew up a little bit and had a full year to be a little wishy-washy, one foot in, one foot out in terms of how I wanted to present myself when I wasn’t feeling like I had earned it. And I think what Willie was trying to get at was if you just go out and be yourself, you will have earned it because nobody could ask anything else of you other than to be yourself, especially in this place.”

Now, he has “the space and the freedom to just go.” That includes on the bases, where he’s become a threat every time he gets on. His speed unnerves opponents, and he’s realizing now what a weapon it can be.

“I didn’t know how to steal a base until recently,” he said. “In high school, in the minor leagues and amateur ball, you can get away with stealing bags just based on athleticism, so it’s kind of always how I did it.”

He looked raw running the bases when he first came up in 2023, but last year, he went 27-for-30 on stolen base attempts. He’s 12-for-14 so far this year. Former Cubs coaches Andy Green and Mike Napoli taught him some strategy, and he credited the team’s new baserunning guru, Matt Talarico, for helping him refine his approach.

“That’s kind of a natural progression for a player like Pete, and also a mistake we kind of make is when you see a player with really good physical tools, well, he should know how to do everything immediately, and it’s not that easy,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said.

Baseball is a game of failure, and the guys who stay use that to their advantage.

“Failure is the best teacher,” Counsell said. “He’s the best coach. I think Pete’s done a great job of just taking the experiences and applying them to the next time it happens, and that’s a credit to him.”

It’s only May. The Cubs have already been tested with pitching health and a hole at third base. PCA will slump, and he’ll have to adjust as the league scouts him better. He will strike out with the winning run at third. But Wrigley Field is rocking again, and the Cubs are once again feared. Summer will be here before you know it, and for the first time in years, everyone is looking forward to seeing what this team can do.

“I’m just excited to see our midseason form,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I can’t imagine what this place is going to look like.”

But surely he can imagine what it will sound like.

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