NL Central
Chicago Cubs—Brizzo
Despite the playoff loss by the Cubs this season, Cubs fans can still be thankful for their 2016 World Series championship. When you go as long as they did without a title, you can let the thankfulness carry over to another year, and no one will judge you.
Those fans who have put the 2016 title behind them can still be thankful for two crucial pieces of that team that continued to excel this year, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo (Brizzo!).
Based on Fangraphs WAR, the only player better than Kris Bryant over the last three years is Mike Trout. Rizzo is ranked 14th in WAR during that time, but he makes up for some of the deficit as the unofficial team leader.
Joe Maddon isn’t a big fan of naming someone a team captain, but if he were to do so, it would likely be Rizzo. If it ever happens, maybe Bryant can be his right-hand man.
Cincinnati Reds—Joey Votto
Despite what Marty Brennaman thinks, Joey Votto is awesome. He’s astonishing. He’s amazing. He’s incredible. Pick a superlative, and that’s Joey Votto. Mr. Personality of the MLB. Don’t listen to Reds announcer Marty Brennaman. He’s wrong. He went on the Reds Hot Stove show in Cincinnati last January and railed about Votto.
You could practically hear the blood boiling in Marty Brennaman’s veins. He thinks Joey Votto is overpaid, that he walks too often, that he isn’t clutch, and doesn’t drive in enough runs, but mostly that he’s overpaid.
Votto then went out and had a terrific season. He led the league in walks and on-base percentage and was an All-Star for the fifth time. He scored 106 runs, drove in 100 runs, and hit 36 dingers.
It was an MVP-caliber season. He didn’t win the NL MVP Award, but he was about as close as you can get. He lost it by two points.
On top of all that, he won the Esurance MLB Award for Best Player-Fan Interaction. In a game last August, Votto hit a home run in the seventh inning, then gave a six-year-old fan named Walter Herbert a high-five and the jersey off his back.
The fan, nicknamed “Superbubz” was battling cancer and his smile was seen around the world after the interaction with Votto. He later came back to be an honorary team captain. Sadly, he died on October 6. Votto was among the many mourners.
Milwaukee Brewers—Bob Uecker
Bob Uecker has been an announcer with the Brewers for nearly as long as the team has existed. After a six-year career in the major leagues during which he hit .200/.298/.287 and was worth exactly 0.5 Wins Above Replacement, Uecker began announcing Brewers games on the radio in 1971. He’s been there ever since.
He also became a nationally-known personality through Miller Lite commercials in the 1980s (“I must be in the front rowwwww”) and over 100 appearances on The Tonight Show.
He was one of Johnny Carson’s all-time favorite guests. He was on the sitcom Mr. Belvedere for six years in the late-1980s and appeared on other TV shows and in the movie Major League (“Juuuussssst a bit outside”).
One of the greatest Wrestlemania’s of all time was Wrestlemania III in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1987. Uecker was the ring announcer for the epic Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant main event.
He’s now in the celebrity wing of the WWE Hall of Fame. He is also in the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame and the National Radio Hall of Fame.
The Brewers have honored him with the number 50 in their “Ring of Honor,” put his name on the Wall of Honor inside Miller Park and erected a statue outside the park. When Uecker received the Ford C. Frick Award by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2003, he went up there without any notes and gave one of the best speeches ever at the ceremony.
Pittsburgh Pirates—PNC Park
After three straight MLB playoff seasons from 2013 to 2015, the Pirates haven’t had a winning record in each of the last two years. They do have PNC Park, though, and it’s the best ballpark in baseball.
The ballpark has only two decks, so it feels old-school but with all of the modern amenities. The view of the Pittsburgh skyline is incredible. Pirates rooters can be very thankful for PNC Park.
Fans can stay in a hotel downtown and walk across Roberto Clemente Bridge for a ballgame (which I’ve done). They also have terrific seats right on the field down the first and third base lines for fans with disabilities.
Many MLB stadiums have accessible seating in the very last row, with a noisy walkway full of people right behind them. PNC did it right. Even when the team isn’t winning, Pirates fans can enjoy the best park in the game.
St. Louis Cardinals—The Uniform
Cardinals fans will tell you that the thing they have most to be thankful for is themselves (“the best fans in baseball”). They have some support for this assertion.
Forbes ranked MLB’s best fans using quantitative data, including hometown crowd reach, television ratings, attendance, merchandise sales and social media reach. St. Louis Cardinals fans finished at the top of the rankings.
According to Nielsen Scarborough, 76 percent of St. Louisans watched, attended, or listened to a game last year, tops in baseball for the fourth year in a row. They’ve been at the top 11 times in the previous 15 years and were second in the other four years. This city loves its team.
Still, this is Thanksgiving, and it would come off as conceited to declare that the thing St. Louis Cardinals fans have to be most thankful for is themselves, even if they would all smugly agree. So the Cardinals uniform is the pick.
The overlapping and interlocking STL on the hat is classic, and the team’s signature bird perched on the bat is a reminder that the Cardinals have the most World Series titles of any NL team.