Doug Glanville’s Cubs praise meets Crow-Armstrong’s edge

Doug Glanville, speaking Sunday at Busch Stadium, praised Pete Crow-Armstrong for a rare combination: perspective beyond his years and a fiercely emotional style that can also land him trouble. From comparing their early debuts to referencing the Rate Field in

ST. LOUIS — Sunday afternoon at Busch Stadium. Doug Glanville sat in the visitors’ dugout and talked about center field like he had something personal at stake. He’s played the position at the highest level. he’s worn Cubs blue. and now he was in town as an analyst for an ESPN radio broadcast for the Cubs-Cardinals game.

“I’ve had a lot of chances to talk to him,” Glanville said. “I’m always very impressed and blown away by his perspective that is well beyond his years. He just feels like somebody who has been around the block.”

Glanville’s admiration comes with a clear caveat: Crow-Armstrong’s intensity can cut both ways. “There’s a thoughtfulness to him. although he got in trouble recently because he’s also really emotional and plays that way.” Glanville said he was particularly struck by how Crow-Armstrong described what happened “on the back end. ” including the idea that he “has to be better.”.

Their shared path runs through early careers, even if it doesn’t line up after that. Glanville was four years older than Crow-Armstrong when he debuted for the Cubs in 1996. Glanville was 25; Crow-Armstrong was 21 when he made his big-league debut in 2023. Both were first-round draft picks: Glanville was taken 12th overall by the Cubs in 1991. while Crow-Armstrong was taken by the Mets with the 19th pick overall in 2020.

But the comparisons change once the careers start to diverge. Glanville played one full season with the Cubs in 1997. then was traded that December to the Phillies for infielder Mickey Morandini. Only after that trade did he become an everyday center fielder and one of the best defenders in the league. Still, he never won a Gold Glove or was named to an All-Star team.

Crow-Armstrong. meanwhile. is already in his third full season with the Cubs after coming to Chicago in the Javy Baez deal. He has been an All-Star and has won a Gold Glove. And this spring. he signed a six-year. $115 million contract—something Glanville pointed to as proof that Crow-Armstrong’s career has been rising quickly.

“He is the face of the franchise,” Glanville said.

Glanville also offered a portrait of why fans see something bigger than athletic output when they watch him. “I see why he’s the Pied Piper. ” Glanville said. adding that he believes kids connect with him because he has “that generational transcendent personality.” He described Crow-Armstrong’s passion as something that would travel anywhere—“on the sandlots”—not just in major league lights.

“When you become an oldhead, you want to see examples that the game you played is still here,” Glanville said. “There’s an old-school to him that makes it feel like the game is still in good hands. There’s a purity to that. He deserves everything that people are saying about him.”

That “something” people are seeing includes the way Crow-Armstrong handles pressure when it turns personal. Several days after an incident at Rate Field. Crow-Armstrong was fined $5. 000 for the vulgar language he directed at a woman who was taunting him from a ground-level section in the outfield. Glanville said he doesn’t think the moment is the only explanation for what happened on the field afterward.

“Sure, and because of the standard he set by how he responded to it later, it should be,” Glanville said. “It will be because he cares about it. He knows that was not how he wanted to portray himself, and sometimes, yes, it carries out to the field.”

He framed it as a mind-body link that can blur during frustration. “Sometimes you just have bad days, for sure. But he knows the interconnection between what you call distraction or frustration or trying to balance this intensity with not going so far that you can’t focus.” Glanville said that intensity comes with the territory for someone who is outwardly passionate—and therefore outwardly upset. too.

He offered an example from his own life. “I remember my dad had a stroke in 2000, and I was completely distracted. Like, I forgot how many outs there were. I was totally in another place. I get it.”

A few nights later, Glanville pointed to a different kind of response—one that comes out as performance. On Saturday night, Crow-Armstrong hit the longest home run of his career: a 444-foot blast, driving it directly into the shirtless “Tarps Off” crowd chanting “Overrated” at him.

“He’s freelancing, improvising; it’s just sort of the notes to play into the scene because that fires him up,” Glanville said. “To me, yesterday was a game that he kind of said, ‘OK, that’s another way to deal with it. There’s another way to challenge.’”

Glanville said there’s another side to his appreciation, too—the craft itself, the way one player studies another while watching center field from every angle.

“Talking center field with him is a joy,” Glanville said. He described Crow-Armstrong’s approach to strengths and the decision-making that goes into the position: “how he thinks about his strengths and where he wants to start and comfort and jumps.”

Glanville said he’s also taken note of Crow-Armstrong’s ability to gather information in the air and then decide what matters. “How he understands what information to gather and what information to discard or test,” Glanville said. “I found his aptitude is off the charts.”

The details, in Glanville’s view, are what keep adding up: the precision of his angles, his fearlessness at the wall, how he takes charge, and how he has gotten better.

He also pushed back on the way some people reduce excellence to quick statistical labels. “The thing that I appreciate is. sometimes with metrics and analytics or data. people are like. ‘Give him the Gold Glove. ’ before they even play 10 games. He’s leading those categories, but I feel like his excellence transcends the numbers.”.

“Measurable, for sure,” Glanville said, then paused before adding what he thinks sustains Crow-Armstrong through the good days and the messy ones. “But there’s something else, and I think that, to me, sustains him.”

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