27 Oct Getting to know…..CHICAGO CUBS WORLD SERIES 3RD BASEMAN KRIS BRYANT

Name: Kristopher Lee Bryant

Born: January 4, 1992 (age 24), Las Vegas, NV

Height: 6’ 5”

Position:3rd Baseman

Bats: Right

Throws: Right

Salary: $652,000  (2016)

Who has been your biggest influence? Definitely my dad.(Mike Bryant, Kris’s dad, was drafted by the Red Sox and spent a couple years in the Minors).  He didn’t push me to play the game — it was always me going up to him and asking him to throw to me in the cage. He owned his own furniture store, but he decided to sell it to be more hands-on with me and my brother. He wanted to set his own hours for us. Not too many people have dads like that. Most people work 9-to-5 jobs, and my dad was fortunate to make his own hours. He was in the cage pitching to me and hitting ground balls at me and my mom was making sure my education was important. The Cubs gave you a multi-million dollar signing bonus when they drafted you. What was your first splurge after signing your professional contract? The universal thing that everyone does is buy a car, and that’s what I did. I got an Audi A4. It’s the smaller one. I like small cars. I don’t know why. Now I drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee. What’s your guilty pleasure? I eat a lot of bad food. Ice cream. Chocolate. At movies, I always get sour candy or Junior Mints. I usually make sure I have my own dessert. I don’t share well. Toughest pitcher you’ve faced so far would be? Chris Sale Your favorite athlete who doesn’t play baseball? I kind of change it up all the time. I’ve been watching a lot of golf right now, so Jordan Spieth is pretty fun to watch. How do you like playing for your manager Joe Maddon? He’s great and he’s different. He does a lot of things in the clubhouse, bringing in a magician, zoo animals, that kind of thing. He’s fun. He’s fun to play for, he knows what he’s talking about, so I’d say he’s intelligent, too. How does it feel to be playing in a packed Wrigley field? How excited are you right now? You can’t ask for anything else. It gets you going. You play at so many other places where the energy isn’t there, but at Wrigley they bring it every day. It makes it easy to go out there and play every day. It’s crazy but it’s been over 100 years since the Cubs won the World Series. After they finally win how will you celebrate? My teammates and I actually talk about this a lot because, in order to win, you have to talk about winning and what you’re going to do when you do win. You have to establish that mentality. If that happens, it’ll be pretty crazy in all of Chicago and rightfully so. We’ve said we’ll take a helicopter off the field as a team and go somewhere. I don’t know where though.