A white pickup truck was traveling north Saturday in the 4600 block of North Milwaukee Avenue when it struck two parked Toyota vehicles.

No one was injured when a vehicle crashed into a Chicago Fire Department station Saturday in Jefferson Park on the Northwest Side.

A white pickup truck was traveling north about 7:50 p.m. in the 4600 block of North Milwaukee Avenue when it struck two parked Toyota vehicles, Chicago police said.

One of the Toyota vehicles then struck a fire station and a CFD vehicle that was parked inside the building, police said.

The driver of the pickup left the scene, according to police. No injuries were reported.

No one was in custody.

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He was on the sidewalk about 9 p.m., when he was approached by a vehicle in the 3700 block of West McLean Avenue, a person got out and fired shots.

A 29-year-old man was critically wounded Saturday night in a shooting in Logan Square on the Northwest Side.

He was on the sidewalk about 9 p.m., when he was approached by a vehicle in the 3700 block of West McLean Avenue, a person got out and fired shots, Chicago police said.

The shooting happened in front of an apartment complex located in the middle of the residential street, and as officers searched for evidence, including a possible weapon, neighbors watched from their porches and open windows.

At least four shell casings could be seen inside the crime scene, which stretched for half a block.

A married couple said they were returning home when they saw commotion.

“We usually hear about shootings about a block away from here, or in the alleys a block away, it has never made it to our front yard like this,” the man said.

“I can’t say I’m shocked, as soon as it gets warm the shooters come outside,” the woman said.

The 29-year-old man was shot in the leg and armpit and was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition.

No one was in custody Saturday night as police investigated.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

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A Justice for Anthony Alvarez rally Saturday in Jefferson Park that drew counter protesters with pro-police signs fueled heated exchanges between the two sides.

A rally to bring attention to the fatal police shooting of Anthony Alvarez drew counterprotesters Saturday, leading to one arrest amid verbal sparring between the two groups outside a police station in Jefferson Park.

Protesters, including members of Alvarez’s family, held their rally outside the Jefferson Park district station, at 5152 N. Milwaukee Ave., to call for greater police oversight and for charges to be filed against the officer who fatally shot the 22-year-old man in March.

“All we want is justice for [Alvarez] and they saw this as a threat and decided to rally their troops to try to counter us,” said Shabbir Manjee, a member of Party for Socialism and Liberation, who helped organize the protest. “Well, we’re not going to accept that, we’re not going to be silenced, and we’re not going to be intimidated.”

Northwest Side Alds. Anthony Napolitano (41st), Nick Sposato (38th) and Jim Gardiner (45th) organized the counterprotest to the rally.

“It’s not a [counter] protest … it’s just our rally to show [police officers] that this world is not about these people,” Sposato said about people who protest police. “It’s about our kind of people.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Both sides drew around 100 supporters, with Milwaukee Avenue serving as a porous barrier between the two groups. On at least three occasions, members of the Back the Blue rally crossed police barricades put in place to keep them off the street and got into verbal altercations with members of the protest.

A man, who had a confederate flag patched on his leather vest, blared a loud horn as he repeatedly rode his motorcycle by the group supporting the Alvarez family. After several passes by the protesters, some began throwing water at him.

Brian Ceja, 19, was taken into custody after he allegedly hurled a blue Gatorade bottle at the motorcyclist and was charged with misdemeanor counts of battery and reckless conduct, police said.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Video of the Alvarez shooting released last month by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which investigates police shootings, shows an officer shoot Alvarez in the back as he ran from police while holding a gun in his hand.

Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara stood alongside the police supporters, occasionally mocking the opposing crowd from across the street.

“They’re out here with a narrative that police kill people, it’s bulls—-,” Catanzara said.

Protesters also pointed to a recent altercation involving the same officer after he was recorded on video last week pulling a gun on a motorist during an apparent road rage incident in Logan Square.

The officer, whom the Sun-Times is not naming because he hasn’t been charged, is being investigated in both incidents.

Manjee said the second incident showed the officer’s conduct was part of a pattern of behavior and that he should be fired and charged in both cases.

Alvarez’s cousin, Roxana Figueroa, said she was angry when she saw video of the officer’s encounter with the motorist.

“I’m in shock that they still have a person like that working with a badge and a gun,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to me why you want somebody like that working for our city and to protect our city.

“We need him to get arrested and we need to finally get some peace in our family, and for Anthony to finally rest in peace because I know for a fact that he is not resting in peace right now,” she added.

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Thomas, who announced in March that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer, died from complications of the disease Saturday at his home in Arlington.

B.J. Thomas, the Grammy-winning singer who enjoyed success on the pop, country and gospel charts with such hits as “I Just Can’t Help Believing,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” and “Hooked on a Feeling,” has died. He was 78.

Thomas, who announced in March that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer, died from complications of the disease Saturday at his home in Arlington, Texas, his publicist Jeremy Westby said in a statement.

A Hugo, Oklahoma-native who grew up in Houston, Billy Joe Thomas broke through in 1966 with a gospel-styled cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and went on to sell millions of records and have dozens of hits across genres. He reached No. 1 with pop, adult contemporary and country listeners in 1976 with ″(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song.” The same year, his “Home Where I Belong” became one of the first gospel albums to be certified platinum for selling more than 1 million copies.

His signature recording was “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head,” a No. 1 pop hit and an Oscar winner for best original song as part of the soundtrack to one of the biggest movies of 1969, the irreverent Western “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” Thomas wasn’t the first choice to perform the whimsical ballad composed by Burt Bacharach and Hal David; Ray Stevens turned the songwriters down. But his warm, soulful tenor fit the song’s easygoing mood, immortalized on film during the scene when Butch (Paul Newman) shows off his new bicycle to Etta Place (Katharine Ross), the girlfriend of the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford).

“Raindrops” has since been heard everywhere from “The Simpsons” to “Forrest Gump” and was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2013. But, at first, not everyone was satisfied. Thomas was recovering from laryngitis while recording the soundtrack version and his vocals are raspier than for the track released on its own. Redford, meanwhile, doubted the song even belonged in “Butch Cassidy.”

“When the film was released, I was highly critical — how did the song fit with the film? There was no rain,” Redford told USA Today in 2019. “At the time, it seemed like a dumb idea. How wrong I was.”

Thomas would later say the phenomenon of “Raindrops” exacerbated an addiction to pills and alcohol which dated back to his teens, when a record producer in Houston suggested he take amphetamines to keep his energy up. He was touring and recording constantly and taking dozens of pills a day. By 1976, while ″(Hey Won’t You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song” was hitting No. 1, he felt like he was “number 1,000.”

“I was at the bottom with my addictions and my problems,” he said in 2020 on “The Debby Campbell Goodtime Show.” He cited a “spiritual awakening,” shared with his wife, Gloria Richardson, with helping him to get clean.

Thomas had few pop hits after the mid-1970s, but he continued to score on the country charts with such No. 1 songs as “Whatever Happened to Old-Fashioned Love” and “New Looks from an Old Lover.” In the late 1970s and early ’80s, he was also a top gospel and inspirational singer, winning two Dove awards and five Grammys, including a Grammy in 1979 for best gospel performance for “The Lord’s Prayer.”

Fans of the 1980s sitcom “Growing Pains” heard him as the singer of the show’s theme song. He also acted in a handful of movies, including “Jory” and “Jake’s Corner” and toured often. Recent recordings included “Living Room Music,” featuring cameos from Lyle Lovett, Vince Gill and Richard Marx. He had planned to record in 2020 in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, but the sessions were delayed because of the pandemic.

Thomas married Richardson in 1968, and had three daughters: Paige, Nora and Erin. He and his wife worked on the 1982 memoir “In Tune: Finding How Good Life Can Be.” His book “Home Where I Belong” came out in 1978 and was co-authored by Jerry B. Jenkins, later famous for the million-selling “Left Behind” religious novels written with Tim LaHaye.

Besides music, Thomas loved baseball as a kid and started calling himself B.J. because so many Little League teammates also were named Billy Joe. By his teens, he was singing in church and had joined a local rock band, the Triumphs, whom he would stay with into his 20s. He enjoyed Ernest Tubbs, Hank Williams and other country performers his parents liked, but on his own he was inspired by the soul and rhythm and blues singers he heard on the radio or saw on stage, notably Jackie Wilson, whose hit ballad “To Be Loved” Thomas later covered and adopted as a kind of guide to his life.

“I was raised in a fairly dysfunctional situation and I went through years of intense alcoholism and drug addiction so the song was always a touchstone for me. When you open yourself up to drugs and alcohol at such a young age it becomes something you have to deal with the rest of your life,” he told the Huffington Post in 2014.

“What a road block and heartbreak and times of failure these addictions have caused me. But I had that little piece of lightning from that song. That’s the essence of the whole thing. To love and be loved. And that takes a lifetime to accomplish. It’s always been an important part of my emotions.”

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On Friday, fan capacity at Wrigley increased to 60% from 25%, reflecting the gradual return to normalcy that’s happening in society as a whole.

Seeing those extra fans in the stands has been a boost for the players.

“It was a lot of fun to play in that environment when you look out and you see a lot of people enjoying themselves,” Ian Happ said of the Cubs’ recent series in St. Louis, where fan capacity is at 64%. “We’re just hoping as a baseball community that we can continue to safely work together and hope that some of these protocols will reflect what the rest of the public is seeing as well.”

Most teams are at or will soon cross the 85% threshold of vaccinated players and staff, which is good news for loosening restrictions for much of the league. But the Cubs are among about a third of teams who are not there yet.

Cubs manager David Ross and general manager Jed Hoyer have said that they are not very optimistic about the team getting to 85%, and Happ doesn’t plan to prod anyone.

“I respect my teammates a lot, and I obviously wouldn’t push anybody to do anything that they’re not comfortable with,” he said.

Happ was one of the first on the team to get his shot; his was during spring training in Arizona.

There haven’t been talks between the league and the players’ union about loosening restrictions for individual players who are vaccinated, but like other guys around the league, Happ hopes that might happen.

For instance, if a fully vaccinated player tests positive, he still would have to miss time under the current protocols, but Happ and others would like to see that change. If they’re fully vaccinated and asymptomatic, they should be allowed to keep playing.

“As someone who is vaccinated, if I were to test positive, I would be very happy to be able to continue playing and not have to watch the games — that would be a tough one,” Happ said.

Mound MVPs

The Cubs are 18-7 in May and they have won eight one-run games this month, thanks largely to their pitching.

The bullpen pitched 38.1 shutout innings between May 15 and the sixth inning Saturday. The starting staff had a 3.31 May ERA going into Saturday’s game. The offense has stepped up since April too, but they’re giving all praise to the pitchers.

“I think what our pitching staff has done, both starting and the bullpen, has been massive for us,” Happ said. “To be able to hold on to a couple of tight leads and really feel like all we have to do is get ahead, I think that is a massive confidence builder for this offense.”

After hitting .216 in April, the Cubs lineup has improved to .265 this month.

“At some point this year, we’re going to have to support the pitching staff and the bullpen, but right now they’re carrying us, and we really appreciate that,” Happ said.

Infirmary report

Alec Mills pitched a rehab start in Triple-A Iowa Friday and is slated for another in five days. In the fourth inning Saturday, David Bote separated his left shoulder sliding into second and had to leave the game. He will undergo further evaluation in the next couple of days.

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Lori Lightfoot, take a page out of your predecessor Jane Byrne’s political playbook and move to where the bullets are flying

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By Bonnie McGrath,
today at 3:34 pm

Last weekend: 55 shootings. 11 dead. That was the score the weekend before this Memorial Day weekend. 

Few pay any attention. It’s just a number happening somewhere else. Unless a bullet goes though your window.  Or though a loved one’s heart. Or….

Lori Lightfoot, you must do something. And I have an idea.  

You can take a page out of your only female predecessor’s political playbook:  While you can’t  move to an apartment in Cabrini-Green because they’re gone, you can move to some other place where the bullets are flying. Like fighting Jane did. Temporarily.

I have just the place for you.  My good friend has a beautifully renovated apartment for rent on the first floor of a two-flat that she bought in Englewood–and she lives upstairs.  Her tenants are leaving. Too dangerous to stay, they say.  Because their son was riding his bike a fraction of an inch and a fraction of a second from where bullets flew and a murder took place.  His father did take a bullet, though. He lived. He was not the intended target—but he was shot in the hand by a stray.

Jane Byrne calmed things down when she moved into Cabrini in the Spring of 1981, where there’d been 37 shootings and 11 murders over a three month period. Because she was there and the residents knew she meant business. I know because I was with her on a daily basis back then.  I was working as a new reporter for the famous City News Bureau of Chicago–where every reporter worth his/her salt worked a stint to learn how to be the best.

And they assigned me to the morning Cabrini/Jane beat while she lived there. I had to be there early in the day when she came out in one piece (that was news) and I had to ask her a few questions to make sure there wasn’t a bullet she was hiding anywhere on her person.  Like, how’d ya sleep, mayor?  Or, how was your breakfast?  Or, what’d you make for your husband Jay for dinner last night?

One morning, the limo waiting for her at Cabrini was scheduled to take her to O’Hare Airport where she and Jay were taking a plane to New York for a wedding. The union of Hugh Carey, Governor of New York and Evangeline Gouletas, semi-sleazy Chicago real estate developer. (The scoop was that he needed her money for his third campaign for governor of New York, which never came about. And they divorced a few years later.)

“Mayor, what are you giving them for a wedding present?” I asked.

“Oh!“ she demurred.  “We’re going to wait till we get there and check where she’s registered and then decide.”

Seemed reasonable to me–and I loved the girl talk.

My future husband–we wouldn’t be married until the summer of 1982–the late esteemed journalist Paul McGrath had left the profession and was Jane’s personal political advisor at that time. 

He had been Deputy Mayor briefly after she was elected in 1979, as he’d advised her right into office. And she felt she owed him. And she didn’t want to lose his wisdom and instincts, which were considerable.

Later in 1979, though, he decided politics really wasn’t for him and he took a job at Chicago Magazine as their political columnist.  Late in 1980, Jane begged him to come back to work for her personally, not in City Hall. And to entice him, she gave him three years of salary in advance that was intended to last through the election of 1983. He said yes (I didn’t think it was a good idea at all to leave Chicago magazine) and moved into an office and furnished it nicely–all at Jane’s expense.

We were both right. It was a terrible idea. In a very short time, he and Jane didn’t see eye to eye, and a few months into 1981, he quit. But he got to keep the the money because he shrewdly foresaw what could happen.

One day Eddie Vrodolyak called and asked if he could take over Paul’s vacated office.

The irony overtook us.

This was exactly what Paul couldn’t stand. Jane having anything to do with aldermen like Eddie Vrodolyak and Eddie Burke–and that’s what basically caused the rift. She got there fighting against them and he felt she should continue to fight against them.

He’d insisted on those contractual terms with her (having all the money in advance) because he knew he wouldn’t like being back if the Eddies were hanging out around her.

I seem to remember Paul advising Jane to make the move to Cabrini.  However, at the moment it all happened, Paul and I were in the middle of a big breakup and we weren’t communicating–so I never had a conversation with him about it in real time.

I recently asked my step-daughter if she remembered if he thought of the idea. Who else? She couldn’t remember either. But she did say sneeringly, “I hope not.” Which surprised me. It was a headline grabbing moment. Yes, full of show. But it seemed to calm things down. It was bravado. Which was a good thing.

Shortly after Jane left Cabrini Green and I was off that beat, in the late Spring, of 1981, I began working nights.  Paul and I were still in the middle of our several weeks-long break-up. And one Wednesday afternoon I decided to see the play, “Evita” at the Schubert Theater because  the matinee was playing just a few blocks from the City New Bureau office where I picked up my assignments for the evening shift, before heading to police headquarters at 11th and State. And the timing was perfect.

For some reason, all during the play, I kept thinking about Paul. I missed him. And afterwards, I kept singing “Don’t cry for me, Argentina” in my head as I made my way through the Loop to check in before heading over to police headquarters. I kept hoping I’d see Paul on the street. The office Jane had him ensconced in was at Wells and Lake. City News was at Wells and Randolph.

As the music went through my head louder and louder, making me more and more emotional and drama-queen-like, I kept thinking about what a mistake this breakup was. And suddenly, there he stood. Right smack in front of me at Madison and LaSalle.

I stood there excited and stunned. And he said, “I saw a lot of you on TV on the morning news when you were out there every day talking to Jane. And I liked seeing you.”

I knew him so well and I knew as he said that, that he missed me, too. But neither of us admitted it. At that moment. Instead, we said goodbye. And we went in opposite directions. But I knew it wasn’t over.

When I got to 11th and State and entered the 7th floor press room–with some of the legends of the journalism world at the time, the now all deceased Henry Wood; and Phil Wattley, who had just finishing his day shift and was walking out the door, both from the Tribune; and Tom Seibel from the Suntimes, a little “schicker” as my grandmother used to say (drunk). The first of a night’s worth of cigarette smoke was creating the first cigarette haze of the night.

One of the many phones on my desk was ringing. It was the personal phone that was installed for us City News reporters to use for our personal conversations, if need be. All the other myriad phones on all of our desks had special purposes and were for various kinds of conversations: police business, the medical examiner cases, fires, certain kinds of crimes, phones that connected us to our respective news rooms and phones that related in some ways to sources for certain police stories. You had to use the right phone for the right story.

But the personal phone was ringing and I wondered if, and hoped and prayed that it was Paul. I picked it up and it was him. We called each other our pet names right off the bat. And our several weeks’ big breakup was over. And we were on again. And I was walking on air. And I think he was, too.

We moved in together a few months later, and married several months after that. And we had a daughter who is 38-years-old now. We divorced after 20 yeas and he died 11 years later, nine years ago.

A lot happened over the next 40 years, after we talked on that personal phone at Chicago’s police headquarters.

But to make a very long story short, the reason for that brief breakup that happened just before Jane moved to Cabrini-Green was that we were both married to other people, and things were getting complicated. We were both in marriages that no longer worked and we were very ready to fall in love with someone new. And we did in October of 1980. But no one was supposed to know.

As we talked that evening, I organized my paperwork for my shift, getting ready to go downstairs in a bit and talk to the big brass–the cops that were on that night–to see what was going on and what there was to write about. It was just about time to check the special typewriter downstairs that that detailed the murders in the City as they happened. A cop sat there recording the basic details–who, what, when and where–so the reporters could get to work. Doing their gruesome job.

I kept thinking of the murders being listed downstairs and kept saying I’d better go, but we kept talking. And then Henry Wood said, “Get off the phone, it’s time for us to eat dinner. I ordered the food. And it will be here in a minute.” We reporters took turns every night. And we always ate together in the newsroom.

Henry shouted again, “Get off that phone, it’s time to eat. The food is on its way up the elevator now.” One of his phones had rung from downstairs to make sure the delivery guy was for real and not sneaking into the hallowed halls of the coppers.

When I didn’t hang up immediately, Henry came over and grabbed the phone out of my hand and he said, “Mr. McGrath, we’re eating now.” And he hung up.

I was astounded. Completely stunned. “Henry,” I said, “how did you know I was talking to Paul McGrath? Nobody knows about him and me.”

“Everyone knows,” he scowled.

And that was that. The Evita song stopped playing in my head. We ate our dinner together. And I went down to the 6th floor to see what was new and what murders had been committed since my shift started.

And I wonder now, Memorial Day weekend of 2021, were there less murders that night than there would have been if Jane Byrne hadn’t lived for that brief period in the Spring of 1981 at Cabrini-Green?

But I didn’t wonder about it that night after Paul and I were back together. Even though the proof one way or the other would have been right before my eyes if I’d looked back a few weeks at the record that was right there for me to see.

But I’d had too much excitement for the day. The murder rate was the last thing on my mind. I just studied what murders were there and went back upstairs to make calls and write things up.

But I do wonder now, if Lori Lightfoot moves to Englewood, would the number of shootings and murders in Chicago go down?

It’s worth a try.

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During the pandemic, the Army Nurse Corps vet, who died at 100, told family, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’ They planted flags at her grave this Memorial Day weekend.

In the final days of World War II, an enemy plane flew over the field hospital Helen L. McCormick was setting up in Germany.

The Army nurse was known for keeping a cool head even when she had to tend to masses of soldiers wounded on Utah Beach in the D-Day invasion. But the plane was flying low.

“She thought they were going to be attacked,” said her nephew Mike Frost.

Instead, it landed.

“The Germans got out, and they surrendered — to a bunch of nurses,” said Jerry Frost, another nephew. “They didn’t want to surrender to the Russians. She said they were waving the white flag.”

The nurses “just took the guns and gave them a cup of coffee.”

Back home, Ms. McCormick — one of the few remaining Army nurses to have cared for soldiers from World War II through the Vietnam war and beyond — would visit St. Mary Cemetery in Evergreen Park every Memorial Day to spruce up her family’s plot and plant American flags.

For this Memorial Day weekend, her relatives gathered Saturday to tend to her headstone, which was laid at St. Mary’s last month after her death in December at 100 years old at St. Joseph Hospital.

Provided

During WWII, she helped set up field hospitals and cared for wounded soldiers in Germany, Luxembourg and France. She then worked for five years at the Hines VA Hospital before being called into the reserves. During the Korean war, she served stateside at Army bases and hospitals in Indiana, Michigan and Colorado.

In the late 1960s, she cared for wounded soldiers from Vietnam at a hospital in Yokohama, Japan.

“The nurses were often working seven days a week, 12 hours a day,” Mike Frost said.

Her relative Deb Frost Baker once asked her which conflict was the worst–World War II, the Korean war or the Vietnam war. Ms. McCormick didn’t hesitate: “ ‘Nam was the worst because, when the boys came home, their injuries were far more than what you could see.”

Kim Frost

Amid antiwar sentiment in Japan, she was grateful for an anonymous gift sent each week to her hospital: flowers, always accompanied by a note thanking the Americans and signed “A Japanese.”

In 1970, Ms. McCormick was promoted to colonel. Stationed in Honolulu from 1972 to 1975, she became a chief nurse for the Pacific Rim, helping to oversee operations at Army health facilities in Japan, Guam, South Korea and Thailand.

Pat Nabong / Sun-Times

Pat Nabong / Sun-Times

Pat Nabong / Sun-Times

After retiring in 1978, she moved to the Brookdale senior living community on Lake Shore Drive.

Ms. McCormick, who never married, always looked forward to visits from her four nieces and nephews and their kids and grandkids. But, in the past year, the pandemic limited contact.

Her family wanted to take her out for a picnic for her 100th birthday.

Instead, “We had to stand on the top of the parking garage at St. Joseph’s and just wave,” according to her niece Kathleen Frost Roth. “It was such a sad end to such a great life.”

They were able to see her last summer, Roth said, “with masks and separated by a Plexiglas barrier.”

“I’ve been in three wars,” her aunt told her. “I’ve never been locked up before, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Provided

Her nieces and nephews remember vacations with her when they were kids.

“All of our summers were spent wherever she was stationed, and we did the funnest, coolest things,” Roth said. “When she was in Colorado, we went up to Pikes Peak. We went to a dude ranch, and we had a campfire dinner.”

Young Helen grew up a bricklayer’s daughter in Bridgeport. She went to Englewood High School, then South Shore Hospital’s nursing school.

Provided

She was a White Sox fan till the day she died. For her 99th birthday, her family threw her a Sox-themed party.

Ms. McCormick used to knit blankets and hats for preemies at St. Joseph Hospital. For her family, she made beautiful quilts. At Christmas, she gave them ornaments — each with a $100 bill hidden inside.

Nurses she supervised remember her fondly.

“She was the boss, but what a gracious and supportive leader she was,” said Tom Stenvig, 72, an associate professor at South Dakota State University’s college of nursing who worked with her at Reynolds Army Hospital in Oklahoma and Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu.

The colonel’s recommendations helped him get into graduate school.

Mary Ann Swenson, now 89, of Sioux Falls, S.D., recalls Ms. McCormick’s compassion when she was a nurse at Reynolds.

“When my mother died suddenly in South Dakota, she just came running up the stairs to the fourth floor to tell me, and she helped me as much as she could to help me get squared away and get home,” Swenson said.

Pat Nabong / Sun-Times

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Daily Cubs Minors Recap: More injuries; Aliendo with 4th straight multi-hit performance; Made reaches three times; Ueckert extends no-hit streak

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By Michael Ernst,
today at 9:07 am

AAA

St. Paul 4, Iowa 0

Game Recap

You know how I said yesterday morning how Iowa was going to struggle to score given the number of injuries and promotions to Chicago they are facing?

Yeah, they got one hit last night.

But Alec Mills did look sharper in his second rehab stint. His secondaries looked more crisp and his control was much improved. The bullpen also had a nice rebound game even though Ryan Meisinger did give up a pair of runs in the 8th. He combined with Dakota Mekkes to punch out nine guys over the final five innings.

The Cubs and I-Cubs came into the season with deeper rosters than they have in a long time. The way almost every call-up to Chicago has provided a boost in at least one game shows that. But the lineup in Iowa has been gutted and the pitching staff thinned. After opening the year 9-5, the I-Cubs have now dropped 6 straight games, being outscored by a combined 43-17. They’ve scored 3 or less in 4 of 6 and surrendered more than 4 runs in all 6.

Top Performers

• Alec Mills: 4 IP, 5 H, 2 R, BB, 5 K (L, 0-2, 11.12)
• Dakota Mekkes: 3 IP, H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K (2.61)
• Vance Vizcaino: 1-3, 2B, SB (1) (.455)

Injuries, Updates, and Trends

No new injuries! If only the rest of the system was so lucky…

AA

Tennessee 5, Chattanooga 4

Game Recap

Andy Weber and D.J. Wilson both contributed early extra base hits to help spark run scoring innings, but each would end up exiting with injuries before the end of the night. The Smokies emptied their bench of healthy players (Levi Jordan remained, but he hasn’t played in a while) as they scrambled to fill important defensive holes at SS and CF.

Wilson’s triple in the 4th drive in a run. He’d score on a Miguel Amaya single. With runners on 1st and 2nd in the 7th, Wilson attempted a sac bunt. A throwing error by the third baseman went wild. Both runners scored. Unfortunately, Wilson appeared to pull his hammy trying to beat out the play at 1st.

Cam Sanders and the Smokies pen made it stand up. Although he didn’t rack up the same kind of strikeout numbers he has so far, Sanders held the Lookouts to three runs (two earned) over the first five. Ethan Roberts followed with two strong shutout innings. Cayne Ueckert kept his 0.00 ERA intact with a scoreless 9th for his first save in Tennessee.

Top Performers

Injuries, Updates, and Trends

Boy, Cayne Ueckert keeps on dealing. His fastball has been impossible for guys to hit so far this year (looks like he is throwing mostly two-seamers, but maybe his four seamer has natural arm side run), and the slider is pretty good too. He touched 98 last night as he extended his streak to 5 no-hit appearances in a row. Season line: 11.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 18 K

Weber appeared to injure himself on a swing while striking out to end the 3rd. Chris Morel (seven position versatility!) slid over from 2B to SS. Grayson Byrd continues to prove his worth by moving to 2B from 3B. Backup catcher Erick Castillo (who started at 1B, was forced across the diamond to 3B).

The hole in CF created by Wilson’s exit is easier to cover for the Smokies. All of their outfielders on the current roster are natural center fielders. It will be interesting to see how the Smokies fill out their lineup if Weber, Jordan and Wilson remain out today. The 9 position players who finished the game are the only 9 they have, and 3 of them are catchers.

High-A

Fort Wayne 6, South Bend 0

Game Recap

They stayed healthy. That’s the best I can say about the Cubs last night.

That’s not true. Eury Ramos and his upper-90s heater continues to impress out of the South Bend pen. He punched out three over 2.1 perfect innings.

Top Performers

• Eury Ramos: 2.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K (1.74)
• Samuel Reyes: 2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K (5.84)
• Cole Roederer: 1-3, BB, SB (4) (.229)
• Tyler Durna: 1-3, BB (.188)
• Bradlee Beesley: 1-3 (.333)

Injuries, Updates, and Trends

I’m not sure South Bend can send any injury replacement help up to Tennessee. South Bend has 4 infielders (Cam Balego, Luis Vazquez, Aramis Ademan, Scott McKeon) on the IL. And another IF capable player (Yonathan Perlaza) is suspended for his part in the bench clearing brawl the other day.

UDFA from 2020, Bradlee Beesley recorded a hit in his first professional at bat. Beesley is an undersized, but athletic centerfielder who was rated among the top players unchosen in the abbreviated 5 round draft last year.

The Cubs have already seen great returns on several hard throwing UDFA relievers from last year (Ben Leeper, Scott Kobos, Graham Lawson, Bailey Reid), but their position player signings (Beesley, McKeon, Matt Mervis, Jacob Wetzel) have yet to contribute much yet.

Low-A

Myrtle Beach 10, Salem 9

Game Recap

It ended up closer than it ever should have been, but Myrtle Beach held out in the end to return to the .500 mark on the year.

Down 3-2, Myrtle Beach exploded for seven runs as they batted around in the top of the 6th. The red-hot Pablo Aliendo started it off with a leadoff single, and then capped off the scoring when he drove in a pair with a double. In between the Pelicans scored via single, walk, sacrifice fly, groundout and on fielder’s choice (with an error). They used just about every method to score besides power.

With a 9-3 lead heading into the bottom of the 9th they should have walked away with an easy win. But after opening the year without allowing an earned run in his first 4 appearances, Jake Reindl has struggled with his control of late. Even coming off giving up 4 runs over 3.1 innings in his last appearance, Myrtle Beach had to feel secure giving him a 6 run cushion.

Reindl got the leadoff man to pop out, but then it fell apart. A walk, followed by three singles, and finally another walk was enough for Manager Buddy Bailey. Reindl was replaced by Tyler Sullentrop, who entered with the bases loaded, one out and four run lead. Sullentrop struggled even more than Reindle though. He walked three straight batters (with a lengthy stadium power delay thrown in the mix) to force in three runs. He finally delivered a huge K to record the second out, and then induced the final batter to ground out to preserve the victory.

Top Performers

• Pablo Aliendo: 3-4, 2B, 2 R, 2 RBI, BB (.292)
• Kevin Made: 2-4, 2B, R, BB (.250)
• Edmond Americaan: 1-4, R, 2 RBI, BB (.244)
• Jonathan Sierra: 1-3, 2 R, 2 BB (.220)
• Jacob Wetzel: 1-2, R, RBI (.182)
• Reivaj Garcia: 1-4, R, BB (.212)
• Ethan Hearn: 1-4, 2 RBI, SF (.113)
• Jose Miguel Gonzalez: 3.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 3 K (W, 2-0, 2.19)

Injuries, Updates, and Trends

Edmond Americaan (.244/.311/.439) extended his hitting streak to 7 games. He’s recorded 11 hits and 4 walks during this stretch, with a double and two triples, and is 3-for-4 in stolen base attempts.

Americaan has been great of late, maybe the second hottest hitter in the Cubs entire org (Patrick Wisdom has an argument despite inconsistent playing time since being summoned to Chicago). Americaan isn’t even the hottest hitter on his team though. That honor goes to catcher Pablo Aliendo (.292/.382/.354). His hitting streak stands at a more modest 4 games, but all 4 have been of the multi-hit variety, going 10-for-16 with a walk thrown in.

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Recent Comments

• 

  wthomson

  9 minutes ago

  Thanks for another excellent report, Michael.
  Read the story | Reply to this comment
• 

  Michael Ernst

  59 minutes ago

  In reply to ronvet69:

  IFA signed in 2017-18 class. An slightly undersized but very athletic catcher. Similar to Bryce Windham in South Bend in…
  Read the story | Reply to this comment
• 

  ronvet69

  1 hour, 25 minutes ago

  Hello Michael, What’s the history on Pablo Aliendo ! Was he drafted, picked up as a free agent ?
  Read the story | Reply to this comment
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  44slug

  3 hours, 11 minutes ago

  In reply to Jonathan Friedman:

  True. Fans need to keep in mind though, that it is only May. Right now, Jed looks like the mvp…
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  Jonathan Friedman

  11 hours, 24 minutes ago

  In reply to Good Captain:

  For ronvet69 I certainly do remember that, and GC I agree, Marisnick was having a great year. Jed has done…
  Read the story | Reply to this comment

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Dial it back? Rein it in? This guy? Please.

On May 17 in Minneapolis, White Sox rookie Yermin Mercedes stepped in it with manager Tony La Russa, a man who holds fast to a baseball code that might be described as primeval, antediluvian or, at best, old-school in a sometimes uncharming way. Perhaps you heard about the flap that ensued, with the cocksure La Russa, 76, publicly taking his ebullient, 28-year-old designated hitter to task for his irreverence.

That was sarcasm, folks. Of course you heard about it. You probably squawked about it, one way or the other. Everybody picked a side after Mercedes missed a take sign with the Sox leading 15-4 in the ninth inning and whaled on a 3-0 pitch from Twins position player Willians Astudillo, prompting a highly controversial apology to the Twins from La Russa that some fed-up Sox fans have no intention of letting the Hall of Fame skipper live down.

But we’re not here to relitigate the past. Maybe La Russa is correct and Mercedes essentially will adopt his manager’s views on what constitutes good and bad sportsmanship. Or maybe six words from Mercedes speak to just how unlikely that is:

“I am — all the time — Yermin,” he says.

And who is that?

A boy who loved to play baseball from age 4 in the Dominican Republic because it meant being with his father and grandfather, but who secretly loved basketball even more and still fancies himself a shooting guard with unlimited, if completely uncorroborated, range.

An 18-year-old in 2011 who signed with the Nationals as an international free agent, saw bright lights and dollar signs in his future and then, the day he was released after three seasons in the organization, told his father he was quitting the sport. The elder Yermin promised him: “Your moment is coming.” Mercedes picked up the pieces for a year in independent ball before, in 2015, beginning a steady, if at times painfully slow, ascent through the Orioles’ and Sox’ organizations.

And these days, a recently married man — to Alejandra last year — who happens to have a Valentine’s Day birthday and won’t argue with the notion that he must be a born romantic.

“You get, like, double the gifts, too,” he says.

Photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images

Mercedes has a smile that makes others smile, a laugh that makes others laugh, a warmth that makes others feel warm and, at 5-11 and 245 pounds, a wonderful, terrifying penchant for jumping on the backs of teammates in celebration of Sox victories. And before we forget to mention it, there’s also his seemingly magical bat. A suddenly enormously popular Sox player, Mercedes — who entered the weekend atop the American League batting race at .340 — hasn’t stopped raking since Opening Day, when he became the first major-leaguer in 88 years to collect five hits in his first career start.

“I was so happy and excited to go 5-for-5,” he says. “It was like: ‘I am in the majors. It’s real. We can believe that.’

“And now I’m always trying to be happy. People say: ‘Look at Yermin. Yermin is really happy. Yermin is so excited.’ That’s what I want every day. That’s what I want all the time.”

Dial it back? Rein it in? This guy?

Please.

Don’t try selling that to Sox tone-setting star Tim Anderson, who fully approved of Mercedes lingering at the plate and watching a 485-foot home run fly a week into his torrid start to the season.

“He’s authentic; he’s being himself,” Anderson said at the time. “You hit it a mile, it’s OK to pimp it. It’s OK to watch it. It’s cool.”

Everyone’s got a story

Anderson understands how Mercedes ticks. La Russa might have a ways to go. General manager Rick Hahn’s first taste of Mercedes came in 2017, heading into the Rule 5 draft in December. Senior director of baseball operations Dan Fabian popped into Hahn’s office with reports on a catcher in the Orioles’ system who was in Double-A and would be left unprotected. It would cost the Sox only $24,000 to snare Mercedes, and they needed organizational depth at the position.

Scout John Tumminia had raved about Mercedes after seeing him play during the past season for the Bowie (Maryland) Baysox. Later, in the Dominican, senior adviser to scouting operations Doug Laumann went to see Mercedes play with his winter-ball team, Tigres del Licey, and was impressed by his skills. In Hahn’s office, Fabian pulled up a YouTube video of a “mammoth” winter-league homer, as Hahn remembers it now, followed by a “colossal” bat flip.

Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images

“I just want to be sure you know this is what we’re getting,” Fabian told Hahn.

The reports on Mercedes included concerns about instances when he had turned off teams — starting in the Nats’ system — with what might be described as a combination of overconfidence and a tendency to take his foot off the gas pedal and coast.

“Our guys were aware of some of the question marks that were on him,” Hahn says. “They seemed to all be rooted in questions of maturity and the seriousness with which he took his craft.”

The Sox sent Mercedes to High-A Winston-Salem for the 2018 season and put him under the watchful eye of former big-league catcher Guillermo Quiroz, who was just breaking into coaching. Quiroz — since named manager at Low-A Kannapolis — took to the prospect and vice versa. Quiroz told Mercedes some point-blank things he needed to hear, and a trust developed.

“There had probably been some things that happened, whether it was unprofessionalism, a lack of diligence, maybe attention to the demands of the sport not being up to par,” Sox assistant general manager/player development Chris Getz says. “But we don’t really care about the past, and we want our players to feel that. Some guys just need more structure and help than others.”

Mercedes has been used almost strictly in a DH role, his catching still rough around the edges and certainly the area where his younger self cut a few corners. But the Sox haven’t given up on him behind the plate. They like his framing and throwing more than his pitch-blocking and focus. Getz says he thinks Mercedes will catch for the Sox “at some point.”

As for any other concerns?

“I can’t say there haven’t been a couple of side conversations, a couple of closed-door meetings, but that’s OK — that’s our job,” Getz says. “If players didn’t need those conversations, perhaps we wouldn’t need our jobs. I’m proud of the development of Yermin, without question. It certainly hasn’t been push-button, but it has worked so far.”

Notably, Mercedes has been suspended twice by Tigres del Licey during his time under the Sox’ umbrella: in 2019 for leaving unannounced before a game and in 2020 for violating COVID-19 protocols. He also arrived late before a game at Guaranteed Rate Field this season and was pulled from the starting lineup. All the while, though, he has taken advantage of every opportunity the Sox have given him, rising from Winston-Salem to Double-A Birmingham and then Triple-A Charlotte in 2019.

Along the way, he has charmed those in his path by being — who else? — Yermin. For Getz, a memorable, hilarious interaction occurred shortly after Mercedes arrived in Arizona for his first Sox spring training. Getz approached with a handshake and a friendly reminder of whom he was. Mercedes replied as perhaps only he would: “Can you help me get my Instagram verified?”

“That was the first time someone had come to me and asked if I could help certify him,” Getz recalls mirthfully. “I said, ‘Yermin, I have no idea about that.’ That definitely shed some light on Yermin out of the gate on what we were potentially dealing with here.”

Hahn has a Mercedes story — this one more observational — that might be even funnier and, frankly, is kind of adorable. Early in the abbreviated 2020 season, the Sox played a doubleheader in Cleveland. Teams traveled with their taxi squads, so Mercedes was there to work out with the team, take batting practice and eventually watch the action from a designated area in the stands at Progressive Field.

Before Game 1, Hahn hit a concession stand and looked into the stands where taxi-squad players were seated. All were in street clothes except for one — Mercedes — who donned the same gray road jersey the team on the field was wearing. For Game 2, the Sox wore their road blacks, and guess what Hahn saw as he grabbed dinner? Mercedes had swapped jerseys, too.

“I mean, that innocence combined with enthusiasm for being part of the team?” Hahn says. “That was his first time traveling with the club, and it said a lot.”

‘Best moments are coming’

There’s a sizable list of major-leaguers from La Romana — including ex-Cubs Antonio Alfonseca and Felix Pie and ex-Sox Danny Richar — but Mercedes’ favorite was a slugger 10 years his senior: Edwin Encarnacion. When the Aguilas Cibaenas, Encarnacion’s winter-league team, were in town at Estadio Francisco Micheli, the Yermins — father and son — never missed it.

Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images

So imagine the excitement Mercedes felt in his first big-league game on Aug. 2, 2020, at Kansas City. Encarnacion was the DH and had one of his mere five multihit games during a terrible season. Mercedes got his first at-bat and grounded out. Stealing the show was rookie Nick Madrigal, who collected the first four hits of his career. Mercedes was reunited with the taxi squad in Schaumburg when it was over, his one-at-bat season finished as though it hadn’t even happened.

“It was hard,” Mercedes says, “because we try to stay [in the majors] all the time. But they told me, and I was like, ‘Oh.’ It was weird.

“But I was in the dugout, and I see Madrigal go 4-for-4? That’s really great because, you know, when you do that, you’re so excited in that time. I’m proud because I saw him connect for the four hits.”

How wild that Mercedes one-upped that performance a year later with five hits in his starting debut? And that he started 8-for-8 this season, the only player to do that in the modern era? And that he has stepped into the DH shoes of Encarnacion, his idol, and given the Sox 10 times the fun and excitement of an occasional “Parrot” home-run trot?

After his monster debut in Anaheim, California, which also included four runs driven in, Mercedes’ head was swimming. In the clubhouse, he thought about — among other things, seemingly all at once — his release from the Nationals. He thought about how worth it all the years trying to make it to the big leagues had been.

“I thought one day I was going to be a good player, but things happen all the time,” he says. “They gave me my release, and I just continued working hard. Don’t put the head down. Just be prepared and keep working hard for everything.”

He has swung his way to prominence, become as important to this Sox season as any hitter in the lineup and found a home full of promise.

Mercedes met Alejandra in New York a few years back. He went to Orlando, Florida, to meet her family. Her family traveled to meet his. They got married in a boat on the Atlantic and found a sweet place in Chicago.

“It’s very nice in Chicago,” he says. “A little cold, but Chicago is beautiful. I love Chicago. We’ve got a beautiful thing here, a beautiful place to enjoy, and we’re feeling great here.”

All that’s left to do is keep being, well, who else?

“I just want to keep working hard, do what I’m doing, and be Yermin,” he says. “Keep doing what I’m doing all day, every time, every moment. The key is to believe in yourself and do whatever you’ve got to do to be great. Keep dreaming. Just keep working hard. If you’re working hard, the best moments are coming to you.”

Like a 3-0 meatball against a division rival. But just wait until the stakes are higher for the first-place Sox.

“The big moment?” Mercedes says. “Oh, yeah. That’s always for me.”

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