Chicago Cubs in Vine Line magazine

Posted on March 3, 2017

It’s been several months since I wrote about shooting the historical win by the Chicago Cubs in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series. When the Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians 8-7 in 10 innings to win their first title since 1908 fans went crazy, photographers made fabulous pictures, and I was a nervous wreck. My MLB Photos teammate Ron Vesely made a great photograph from the third base side that appeared on numerous magazine covers. I was over at first base and got one nice frame of Cubs MVP Kris Bryant celebrating before my camera stopped working. Since I am an old school guy and still love seeing my pictures in print I was pretty excited to see this picture get used on the January 2017 cover of Vine Line, the official magazine of the Cubs (see above). Not quite the incredible exposure that Ves got but I will take it! It’s all about helping out the ballclub, and seeing that frame in print is way more fun than seeing it on a website.

The extra cool thing about this winter is that I ended up getting THREE covers of Vine Line. Earlier I got the November 2016 cover with a team picture on the mound in San Francisco after the Cubs beat the Giants in the NLDS. Last month I nabbed the February 2017 cover with a picture of shortstop Addison Russell making a diving stop in Game 3 of the World Series at Wrigley Field. This picture received lots of play after the game online, but I thought it was way cooler seeing it on a magazine cover.

What does it all mean? Not much really in the big picture of shrinking budgets, corporate greed, and photo buyers settling for mediocre or shitty pictures because they are free or cheap. What it means to me is that my faith is renewed a bit knowing that there are still editors out there looking for good pictures to front their publications. And if they are smart enough to choose one of my images even better!