Chicago Cubs leadoff man Ian Happ received a standing ovation from the 35,391 announced crowd at Wrigley Field before his first at-bat against the San Diego Padres on Saturday, in honor of his 1,000th career game played, all with the North Siders.

Nick Pivetta then fired the first pitch of his outing, a 91 MPH fastball up and in, forcing Happ to duck out of the way of it and earning boos from the crowd. Happ responded two pitches later with a 105 MPH exit velocity double off the center field wall. He later made an incredible catch in left field to rob Gavin Sheets of a hit.

The double was a good microcosm of the Cubs longest tenured player’s career in the Windy City and his ability to weather adversity.

Happ was the ninth overall pick in the 2015 draft, taken in the top 10 alongside future Cubs teammates Dansby Swanson (first overall pick) and Kyle Tucker (No. 5 pick), and made his debut in the 2017 season, smashing 24 homers and posting a 113 OPS+ in 115 games. Happ hammered the first homer of the MLB season in 2018 and played in 142 games that season and seemed prime for a breakthrough in 2019.

Then came adversity. After hitting just .135 in spring training in 2019, the Cubs made the decision to option Happ to Triple-A Iowa, citing his high strikeout rate as part of the reason for his demotion. The path towards Happ becoming the 21st player to play his first 1,000 games with Cubs seemed a long ways off.

Happ responded to a late July call up with 11 homers and a 128 OPS+ over 58 games to close the 2019 season and never looked back. After receiving MVP votes during the shortened 2020 season, Happ set a new career high in homers in 2021, albeit with some adversity then, too. 

He was the team’s Opening Day center fielder, but really struggled in the first half of the season before the trade deadline. In July, he was relegated to part-time duties at one point, starting seven games over an 18-game stretch. Happ was slashing .181/.296/.332 (.628 OPS) at the deadline when the Cubs sold off the nucleus of their 2016 World Series winning core. The Cubs put Happ back into the starting lineup after the deadline and he flourished.

The switch-hitter slashed .282/.358/.563 (.921 OPS) with 15 home runs and 40 RBI over the final 57 games of the year, solidifying his place on the Cubs moving forward.

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The next year was Happ’s coming out party. In his first season as a full-time left fielder, Happ made his first All-Star Game appearance and won the first of three consecutive Gold Glove awards in left field. Happ is the only Cub in franchise history with three consecutive Gold Gloves and is one of four Cubs with 150+ career home runs and three Gold Gloves, alongside Cubs legends Ron Santo, Ryne Sandberg and his former teammate Anthony Rizzo.

Happ is now the longest tenured Cub, the last link to the championship core. He is the Cubs leader in career home runs by a switch-hitter and is just 10 home runs from passing Kris Bryant on the Cubs all-time home run list. 

“The big significance for me is 1,000 games with the same team, that’s what makes it rare and worth talking about,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “In this era of baseball it’s not happening, it’s just not happening. And that speaks a lot about how Ian’s gone about it I think. It’s hard to do, it’s rare.”

Happ has kept active beyond the field, too. He started his own podcast, The Compound, with co-hosts Zack Short and Dakota Mekkes, who he met in Triple-A Iowa in 2019. New episodes of the podcast air Thursdays at 6 p.m. on Marquee Sports Network.