![\"Pete](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2240009945-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nCHICAGO \u2014 Pete Crow-Armstrong enjoys performing in front of 40,000 fans and absorbing all that energy from the crowd. At 24, he\u2019s essentially spent half of his life as a sporting commodity, going back to his selection for USA Baseball\u2019s 12-and-under national team. He felt something different, though, while looking around the conference room at all the familiar faces.<\/p>\n
All these memories came rushing back Friday afternoon as he sat on the second floor of the Wrigley Field office building, where the Chicago Cubs trumpeted a six-year, $115 million contract extension for the new face of their franchise.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy hands are a little sweaty,\u201d Crow-Armstrong said near the end of the news conference. \u201cThis is more nerve-racking than going out and standing in center field.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Crow-Armstrong, this was both a pragmatic move and an emotional decision. His opening statement recognized the sacrifices made by his parents, Matt and Ashley, who raised their only child in Southern California while acting, teaching and chasing his baseball dream.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s time to get you to Chicago for good,\u201d Crow-Armstrong said. \u201cI\u2019m proud to have both of your names on my back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sitting next to his parents in the front row were his agents, Ryan Hamill and Ollie Linton of Creative Artists Agency. Linton had once called Hamill after watching Crow-Armstrong play varsity baseball as a freshman at Harvard-Westlake, a prestigious high school in Los Angeles: You got to see this kid.<\/p>\n
CAA\u2019s connections to the Harvard-Westlake program include Max Fried and Lucas Giolito, first-round picks in the 2012 draft. The agents watched Crow-Armstrong punctuate a double with a headfirst slide.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis helmet pops off and he\u2019s got long red curls down to his chin,\u201d Hamill recalled with a laugh. \u201cI go, \u2018Who is this kid?\u2019 He\u2019s playing like his hair\u2019s on fire. And his hair is on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cPCA\u201d experience had already begun, as he pounded his chest and tried to pump up his teammates: Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n
\u201cSame way he is now,\u201d Linton said with a smile.<\/p>\n
Leading to the 2020 draft, Matt Armstrong mused about how cool it would be if Pete got drafted by the Cubs. Matt had grown up in Naperville, Ill., and still followed the team closely. Imagine, someday, getting a place in Wrigleyville and walking over to watch your son play center field at the Friendly Confines.<\/p>\n
Crow-Armstrong\u2019s senior season was shut down during the pandemic, which likely lowered his draft stock. After the Cubs passed at No. 16, the New York Mets selected him with the 19th pick and bought out his college commitment to Vanderbilt with a $3.359 million signing bonus.<\/p>\n
And then on his first day in professional baseball, Crow-Armstrong overslept.<\/p>\n
As the Mets reviewed a round of COVID-19 intake testing at their Florida training complex, one name had not been checked off yet. Someone had to go wake up Crow-Armstrong in his hotel room. New York\u2019s farm director at that time, future Cubs executive Jared Banner, treated it as a learning experience.<\/p>\n
Before moving to Chicago, Banner saw Crow-Armstrong\u2019s unique athletic traits up close and got a better feel for his personality. Banner\u2019s perspective helped convince Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer to acquire Crow-Armstrong in the Javier B\u00e1ez deal at the 2021 trade deadline.<\/p>\n
At that point, Crow-Armstrong was still recovering from shoulder surgery, with only six A-ball games on his professional resume, a gap Crow-Armstrong acknowledged while giving Banner a shout-out during his opening remarks: \u201cI don\u2019t know if I would be in a Cubs uniform if it wasn\u2019t for you.<\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciate the tough love the very first day that I showed up late to Mets camp,\u201d Crow-Armstrong said. \u201cYou didn\u2019t care that I was a first-round pick and this guy that\u2019s walking in with his hair all bleached and an earring.\u201d<\/p>\n
Image isn\u2019t everything. Cubs officials quickly understood how much Crow-Armstrong cared. Two hitting instructors who had worked with him in the minors, Dustin Kelly and John Mallee, joined Chicago\u2019s major-league coaching staff, continuing to refine his daily routine, swing mechanics and mental approach.<\/p>\n
Their presence at the news conference \u2014 along with that of Cubs manager Craig Counsell, staff assistant AJ Lewis and first baseman Michael Busch \u2014 spoke to the group efforts that helped Crow-Armstrong blossom into an All-Star.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe never stops trying to get better,\u201d Banner said. \u201cHe\u2019s a cheerleader for his teammates. He represents the organization with class off the field. He\u2019s an inspiration to all the young players in our system. There\u2019s a reason you see his jersey on so many kids walking around Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Pete Crow-Armstrong had a hit, two RBIs and a stolen base in the Cubs\u2019 4-3 Game 3 win at Wrigley Field in the 2025 National League Division Series against the Milwaukee Brewers. (Geoff Stellfox \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
In the end, Crow-Armstrong couldn\u2019t picture himself playing anywhere else. With Marquee Sports Network broadcasting the press event, Crow-Armstrong praised Counsell, the manager who showed patience during his offensive struggles: \u201cHe really gives a s\u2014 about us as people.\u201d<\/p>\n
This will always be personal for Crow-Armstrong, who understands that small gestures and brief interactions can create lifetime memories for fans. In engaging CAA in on-and-off negotiations for over a year, Hoyer recognized how well Crow-Armstrong handles fame, and how valuable his persona is to the team\u2019s brand.<\/p>\n
Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts, president of business operations Crane Kenney and chief commercial officer Colin Faulkner all popped into the conference room inside the team\u2019s administrative building to watch Crow-Armstrong, whose marketing portfolio now includes deals with Gatorade, New Balance, Corona and Southwest Airlines.<\/p>\n
As an organization, the Cubs seem to have learned from the breakup of the 2016 World Series team, and how that transition may have gone smoother with the right contract extensions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t through lack of trying before,\u201d Hoyer said. \u201cWe definitely had these discussions, but this is one where it was pretty clear from the outset that there was mutual interest. That, sometimes, is the most important thing. There are times when the player is not interested, which I totally understand. That\u2019s their right.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this case, they made it clear that getting a deal done and staying here for a long time was a priority, so that made the conversation real easy. There was never a question of desire on either side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baseball is so unpredictable and the industry is too volatile to know how this will end in 2032. But for the Cubs and Crow-Armstrong, this moment was all about what it took to get here.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis city means everything to me,\u201d Crow-Armstrong said. \u201cIt really welcomed me. They\u2019ve been patient with me and my performance. That\u2019s definitely inspiring stuff when I wake up and I think about what I want to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2014 Pete Crow-Armstrong enjoys performing in front of 40,000 fans and absorbing all that energy from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[479,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-550364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-chicago-cubs","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}