CHICAGO — The chants have followed Pete Crow-Armstrong from the Tokyo Dome in Japan in March, across road ballparks throughout the country all season and persistently within Wrigley Field from the Cubs’ faithful who regularly pack the place.
On Friday afternoon, they were more deafening than usual as Crow-Armstrong headed out to center field.
As those repeated cries of “P-C-A!” rained down from the stands, the dynamic Cubs center fielder raised his cap to another roar. Crow-Armstrong then repeatedly patted his heart, offering gratitude for the crowd’s raucous recognition of him joining franchise icon Sammy Sosa as the only players in team history with 30 homers and 30 steals in a season.
In the fourth inning against the Cardinals, Crow-Armstrong connected with Miles Mikolas’ curveball that dropped right into the heart of the zone. The powerful swing that had gone missing in recent weeks was back in full force, launching the baseball into the right-field bleacher seats for a two-run souvenir.
Crow-Armstrong watched the ball in flight for a moment, but then he quickly turned to his teammates in the third-base dugout and flipped his bat away. The blast was the All-Star’s first since Sept. 15, and only his second going back to Aug. 23. And with that home run, Crow-Armstrong finally reached this anticipated milestone moment.
Sosa stood alone as the only member of the 30-30 club for the Cubs, having done so in 1993 and ‘95 en route to becoming the franchise’s home run king. Sosa was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame earlier this summer and Crow-Armstrong snapped his photo with the Cubs legend when he made his long-awaited return to the Friendly Confines earlier this year.
Crow-Armstrong also carved out a distinct place in Cubs history with the blast, too. He became the only player in the team’s storied annals to collect at least 30 homers, 30 doubles and 30 stolen bases in a single campaign. That has been done 55 times overall in baseball history since at least 1901.
On top of that, Crow-Armstrong became the MLB-record sixth player with a 30-30 showing this year, joining Juan Soto, Corbin Carroll, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Francisco Lindor and José Ramirez. The previous record was four such performances in a single Major League season (accomplished five times).
