Cub Tracks is buying an NFT

Happy February 1, Cubs fans! Tomorrow we’ll learn if a giant rodent has seen its own shadow, and whether or not spring will come early. Spoiler alert if you live in Chicago: it will not.

That said, we’ve survived January, a new month is upon us, and hopefully sooner rather than later we’ll get some good news about when baseball is poised to start.

It was a quiet weekend for most news so we’ve got some fun Twitter content to lead things off, and no, don’t ask me to explain NFTs, I know what they are but they still befuddle me.

Marcus Stroman is the latest celeb to buy into the Bored Ape NFT craze. I’m not sure how much he paid, but for some comparison, Justin Beiber just paid over $1 million for his.

• Keith Law has his annual top 100 prospects list out now if you want to take a gander. (The Athletic subscription required)
• Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney expand on Law’s list by looking at some up-and-coming Cubs poised to break into the Top 100 next year. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Since this is more general you might see it pop up in tomorrow’s Outside The Confines as well, but Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich try to assess where the biggest gaps are between the two sides of the lockout coming together. (The Athletic subscription required.)
• Jake Misener at Cubbies Crib looks at what kind of role Jason Heyward might be moved into this coming season.
• And since Jake is such a hard-working guy, here’s another post that spotlights Kerry Wood’s 1998 rookie card.
• Manny Randhawa shows us the newly unveiled cover of MLB The Show 22 featuring Shohei Ohtani, if video games are your thing.
• Mitch Dudek at the Chicago Sun-Times gives some more information on the removal of the statues of Ron Santo and Billy Williams and where we’ll eventually see them again.

Cubs birthdays: Brett Anderson; Austin Jackson; Phil Norton; Kent Mercker; Eddie Zambrano; Vince Barton; Carl Reynolds; Walt Golvin; and Lew Brown. Also worth noting, though we missed it by one day, Ernie Banks’ birthday was January 31. (Note: January 31 seems to be a lucky day to be born if you want to get into the Hall of Fame, as Banks is joined by both Nolan Ryan and Jackie Robinson for Jan 31 birthdays)

Food for Thought:

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