Sometimes good things happen when you least expect it, as occurred Friday at Wrigley Field after a long rain delay during the Cubs-Brewers game.
Catcher Willson Contreras decided to warm up before the game resumed by playing catch near the Cubs' dugout. But instead of throwing to a teammate, Contreras did so with a young fan instead.
Contreras and a boy standing in an aisle a few rows behind the dugout played catch for only about 30 seconds. Contreras motioned for the kid to keep the ball after the ninth throw between them, then turned and went back to work behind the plate in what turned out to be a Cubs loss.
It was no big deal to Contreras, who said he enjoys interacting with fans.
"I was just trying to have fun before the game started again, and I saw the kid asking for a baseball," he said. "I just called him down and we started playing catch."
Contreras said he hadn't planned to do it when he walked out of the dugout. Warming up with the fan just seemed natural.
"It was just spur of the moment," he said. "He came down by himself. He didn't plan on doing it. It turned out pretty good, and I just made the kid happy."
Contreras received a nice ovation from the fans who had waited out the rain delay, and because a Cubs' social media employee was filming the warmup and posted a video on Twitter, it quickly went viral.
Contreras went back to his job, and everyone moved on. But the gesture was a small reminder of how easy it is for players to create a bond with fans and make the game experience better than it already is.
Signing autographs is the most obvious and time-honored 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.
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 the fan 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.
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