Ex-Cub Kyle Hendricks in no rush to figure out what comes after baseball, says, 'Not knowing, it's awesome'
A year ago on April 13, Kyle Hendricks had his first rough go with his boyhood team, the Angels, taking it on the chin in Houston for his first loss of his only major league season pitching for anyone other than the Cubs.
There would be more games like that in the ensuing months, enough that when Hendricks hit the finish line with an 8-10 record and 4.76 ERA at age 35, he decided to shut it down for good, calling it a career with a 105-91 record that probably didn’t do justice to how excellent he’d been at his finest in 2016 and for four or five seasons after that.
But the whole lot was enough for him. Now 36, he’s enjoying what he calls a “transition stage” in Arizona, where he’s a stay-at-home dad to his and wife Emma’s 2-year-old son, Luca.
“I would love to grow the family, but right now, really it’s just nice to not have everything be crazy,” he told the Sun-Times. “Your whole life being baseball, it’s always just go, go, go. I feel so lucky, all the experiences I had.”
Those who covered “the Professor’s” Cubs tenure, which lasted 11 seasons, saw the bookish, whip-smart Ivy Leaguer as a natural to move into coaching or even onto a front-office track after his pitching days, but Hendricks isn’t sure that’s for him.
“It’s amazing to me that people even thought that, but my dream was to be a player,” he said. “You know the game comes to an end at some point. You’re still so young. At that point, you’re blessed with what you get.”
But maybe?
“I’m not writing anything off, for sure,” he said. “But I knew I was going to be a player. Now, not knowing, it is awesome. Of course I love baseball, love the game, loved pitching. But coaching? All those days away? I don’t want to do any of that. But I’m not closing any doors.”
One supposes Hendricks could always become an astronaut. That’s not him talking, but rather a writer who remembers him in 2016 — when he led the majors with a 2.13 ERA and took the mound for the Cubs in Game 7 of the World Series — reading diligently about outer space in between starts. He also was hopelessly hooked on the Netflix sci-fi show “Stranger Things.” A mish-mash of intellectual curiosity and regular-Joe-ness, he was.
As the Cubs celebrate their only championship since 1908 throughout this season, it’s worth remembering how vital a pitcher who overhauled his mechanics, adding a killer curveball and four-seam fastball to his previous mix, was to the whole 2016 shebang. Hendricks trailed Jon Lester, John Lackey and Jake Arrieta around like a puppy for much of that season — the dinners, none of which he dared take the lead on, were legendary — but he became one of them and more than held up his end.
And in Game 7 in Cleveland, when home starter Corey Kluber had a chance to become the first pitcher to win three starts in a World Series since Detroit’s Mickey Lolich in 1968, it was Hendricks who stared down what he’d called, the night before, the “ultimate dream” and delivered.
Cubs manager Joe Maddon infamously yanked Hendricks from that game in the fifth inning, even though the stoic righty was rolling along. Hendricks never has complained publicly about the missed chance at earning the win in the biggest Cubs game of ’em all, but now he’s kicking back with nothing to lose.
So how about it?
“Nah,” he said. “I’ve never changed with that, really never have. It was Game 7, the heat of the moment. It was how it was supposed to go. Who knows? If I would have stayed in the game, maybe a couple pitches here and there and then — boom — give up a homer.”
A gracious take. And very much in character, as ever.
Hendricks had an 18-start streak of allowing two or fewer earned runs that season, which boggles the mind. He outdueled Dodgers great Clayton Kershaw in the National League pennant clincher at Wrigley Field. He was automatic — and the most surprisingly great Cubs player of all in the year that changed everything.
One would hope he has put his feet up and watched his 26-year-old self do all that.
But no, not entirely.
“I did allow myself, I will say, to watch a lot of the World Series on MLB Network, the key moments I hadn’t watched,” he said. “I’ve sat around with my family and enjoyed that.
“But the whole season? No, I haven’t. I think it’s still too close. I haven’t gotten selfish in that way. But I think eventually I will. I’ll want to see that, especially with my son.”
The son of an astronaut? Probably not.
But there’s a stay-at-home dad with an other-worldly story to share.