Cubs’ Contreras, Red Sox’s Sale show they get it with recent fan interactions
Signing autographs is the most obvious and timehonored method of appeasing fans, and some Cubs, such as Ben Zobrist, make a habit of it. Others don’t do it — for various reasons — and even the ones who do sign sometimes get grief if they have to leave and miss some fans.
One day during the 1997 season, Cubs third baseman Kevin Orie was sitting in the dugout a couple of hours before a game when fans leaned over and shouted at him: “Can you go get Sammy? . Can you go get Ryno?” — referring to stars Sammy Sosa and Ryne Sandberg.
Orie patiently listened to pleas for autographs before sarcastically asking: “Anything else I can get you? How about a steak?”
“Yeah,” one fan replied. “I’ll take a hot dog.”
Orie went to the clubhouse, returned a few minutes later and motioned to the fan, handing him a hot dog and cup of pop.
The fan laughed at Orie’s gesture — then ate the hot dog. Orie gained a fan for life.
It seems so simple, interacting with fans on a whim without the ulterior motive of drawing media attention.
Red Sox ace Chris Sale did just that last month at Fenway Park, spending five minutes with a 24-year-old fan in the stands before a Cubs-Red Sox game and showing him how he grips a slider. The fan, Patrick McKenna, is a righthanded pitcher who was set to report to an independent league team in Roswell, N.M.
Sahadev Sharma, who covers the Cubs for The Athletic website, happened to be standing nearby when the scene played out. Sharma posted a photo of Sale and McKenna on Twitter, and it drew more than 6,300 likes and 23,000 retweets. Sale created a fan for life.
He was just helping out an aspiring pitcher; Contreras and Orie were just having some fun — brief moments in a marathon season quickly forgotten.
But the lesson to be learned from these stories is simple.
Baseball doesn’t need to speed up the game to appeal to young fans. It just needs more players who get it.