What top prospect Matt Shaw learned from some Cubs legends
MESA, Ariz. — Matt Shaw is a baseball junkie.
So much so that when he saw a congregation of Cubs legends gathered on the Agility Field at Sloan Park, he just knew he had to go pick their brain — even if only briefly.
Shaw approached a cohort that included baseball Hall of Famers Ryne Sandberg and Fergie Jenkins and Cubs Hall of Famers Shawon Dunston, Mark Grace and Rick Sutcliffe after morning stretch to see if any of their years of wisdom could rub off on him.
Dunston — a fellow 1st-round pick by the Cubs himself — gave him just that and more.
“He just basically said that when he was coming up, he went through something similar,” the 2023 1st-round pick said. “He was learning short and getting comfortable there.”
The 1st overall pick in the 1982 draft, Dunston faced some of the hype that Shaw has now — not nearly as much in the era of social media — but he experienced his own growing pains and struggles getting to and during his big-league career. But he became a two-time All-Star and a Cubs’ legend after spending 12 seasons in Chicago.
“It was really cool to have him talk about those experiences and then kind of just tell me he has a lot of belief in me, and he’s supporting me from behind the scenes,” Shaw said. “So that’s really cool.”
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That interaction was something that doesn’t go overlooked, either.
“It’s one of those little things just you notice, right?” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “And it makes you more confident in the person, absolutely. There was a little interaction that Fergie kind of initiated it. It was fun to watch, fun to see.”
All five of those players played and were teammates in a vastly different era than Shaw, but there’s still lessons beyond the field that he took, too. And that’s one thing he hopes to take from them.
“The game hasn’t changed in that sense, relationship wise,” Shaw said. “I mean at the end of the day, long after we’re all done playing the game, hopefully we still have the relationships we made. And those guys are just proving it that they do.
“It feels like it was just yesterday when they were all playing together. So, it was cool to talk to them and see the camaraderie and just kind of hang out with them for a little”