Cub Tracks’ on the road to temporary

Welcome to today’s edition of Cub Tracks news and notes™, a greatest-hits from Chicago-style beat writers and bloggers, ground around #Cubs, #MiLB, and #MLB baseball, and cold-brewed overnight for maximum flavor. We read all of the articles, so you don’t have to.

It’s a GOOD life.

The Cubs didn’t play Friday, as it was deemed a travel day between Dyersville and Cincinnati. So the last game they played was the Fields of Dreams Game. Speaking of dreams:

“I’ll be the first to acknowledge this is not the type of baseball Cubs fans deserve. Our decision last year to move away from Cubs players who brought us a World Series title was tough, but we have a plan to return to championship contention by building the next great Cubs team around a young core of players augmented by free agent signings — and we’re making progress.” — Tom Ricketts.

YMMV. Roster Jenga looms, and there are a lot of short-timers in the system. Whether or not the Cubs are on the road to competitiveness is an open question. Whether or not they can stay there if they get there is the real nasty poser.

Lots of people (I was one) said they’d be okay with one World Series Championship. This turns out not to be the case, by and large, and is the likely source of fan anomie.

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• TV Ratings for the Field of Dreams Game. “2.8 million total viewers and a 0.5 demo rating (per fast nationals), down sharply from last year‘s inaugural...”
• Sports Illustrated photo gallery.
• Jesse Rogers (ESPN*): As they take the Field of Dreams, where do the Chicago Cubs stand in their latest rebuild? ““It’s a fan base that deserves a winner because they do show up,” shortstop Nico Hoerner said.”
• Jack Baer (Yahoo Sports*): MLB Field of Dreams Game: People weren’t ready for ‘creepy’ Harry Caray hologram. “Fans ranged from horrified to confused to genuinely entertained...” Ricky O’Donnell (SB Nation) has thoughts.
• Tony Andracki (Marquee Sports Network*): Why Tom Ricketts is optimistic about the future of the Cubs. “I expect to be aggressive this winter,” Jed Hoyer said.
• Patrick Mooney (The Athletic {$}): Cubs are not ready for prime time, but ‘aggressive’ offseason plan could change that. “We hope that this is the last year that we’ll be obvious sellers at the deadline.”
• Paul Sullivan (Chicago Tribune* {$}): Kevin Costner’s absence, Chicago Cubs executive cameos and other observations on the Field of Dreams telecast. “At least Manfred had the sense to stay out of the TV booth and spare us his thoughts on the ghost runner and the expanded wild-card races.”
• Steve Greenberg (Chicago Sun-Times* {$}): A little late for a ‘Dreams’ state. “Cubs-Reds at Field of Dreams Stadium didn’t hook a grouchy grinch at first, but in the end it delivered.”
• Evan Altman (Cubs Insider*): Field of Dreams Game was baseball at Its most romantic, Cubs should take notes. “... MLB’s Field of Dreams Game remains one of the few things the league has gotten very right.”
• Jordan Bastian (MLB.com*): Unique setting in Iowa ‘hits home’ for Cubs. “It’s really special,” Justin Steele said. “I know that it hits home with a lot of people. It hits home for me.”
• Tim Stebbins (NBC Sports Chicago*): Field of Dreams win extra meaningful for Madrigal, Smyly. “I caught myself in between every inning when I wasn’t pitching, just staring out into the cornfields, just looking over to the left field wall,” Smyly said. “It’s just something I’ve never seen before.
• Brett Taylor (Bleacher Nation*): Carlos Correa is expected to opt out of his Twins deal this offseason. As Jon Heyman reports...
• Jim Callis, Sam Dykstra and Jonathan Mayo (MLB.com*): These prospects could make an impact down the stretch. “Though he got shelled in his first Triple-A start after coming over from the Yankees in the Scott Effross trade, Hayden Wesneski has little left to prove at that level after recording a 4.24 ERA and 85/30 K/BB ratio in 91⅓ innings.”
• Jeff Agrest (Chicago Sun-Times* {$}): Go behind the scenes of Fox’s production of the ‘Field of Dreams’ Game. “Fox staffed more than 225 people on site to produce the game. It took them Saturday and Sunday to run 7 and a half miles of fiber optic cable, and power providers ran about a mile of cable.”

Food for Thought:

• Victor Tangerman (The Byte): One of the brightest stars in the sky is acting bizarre, scientists say. Don’t say its name three times.
• Dr. Katie Spalding (IFL Science): Suck It, Schrödinger: 100-year-old math mistake corrected in new color study.
• Alexandra Witze (Science News*): How Mars rovers have evolved in 25 years of exploring the Red Planet. “Each rolling robot is more agile and independent.”

Please be reminded that Cub Tracks and Bleed Cubbie Blue do not necessarily endorse the opinions of writers whose work is linked to in this series of articles. Thanks for reading!