MESA, Arizona — Every spring, each major-league team puts all its players and coaches in full uniform to have their pictures taken by both team photographers and photographers from other photo services. These photos are used on official team releases, on the Cubs website and other baseball websites, and various other places. Here at BCB I have official access to photos from Getty Images and USA Today Sports -- those are the photos you see on the top of most posts here, and the source for the 35 photos in this gallery.
As you can see, photographers can get quite "arty" with these photos at times. As you can further see from the shadows, they brought the players out at sunrise, at 7 a.m., to begin the photo shoot. Can't imagine they enjoyed that part of it very much, though they did seem to have fun with it in general.
I've written a caption for each photo, but I also thought you'd like to have some fun by writing your own captions. I've picked some of the regulars, some bench players, some pitchers and at least one prospect, just a random selection from the approximately 240 photos that were available to me.
Enjoy this trip through Cubs photo day. Just another example of how you might think baseball is a glamorous life, but it really isn't.