BCB After Dark: What was your favorite Cubs Convention Opening Ceremony moment?

There were some really good ones to choose from

Welcome night owls and early risers to the late week, late night, indie coffee shop where we are talking all things Cubs while we enjoy a bevy of beverages. If you’re looking to wind down with a glass of wine or a cocktail, we can take care of that for you. If you’re trying to stay up to power through the late night Cubs Convention conversation, we’ve got all the caffeine you need. Be sure you bus your own tables so we don’t leave a mess for Josh on Monday.

We’re opening a little bit later than normal tonight because I’ve been hanging around Cubs Convention chatting about all the things with some of my favorite Cubs friends and bloggers. There’s a lot to discuss from the Opening Ceremony. The newest Cubs star Kyle Tucker celebrated his birthday on stage to a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday from the crowd. Sammy Sosa returned for the first time in 21 years complete with a small American flag he ran around the stage with — the man has never failed as a showman.

It was a brilliant night in Chicago and one of my favorite moments was watching the players turn around to watch the montage from 2024 — which included a lot of great moments from players no longer on the team like Kyle Hendricks, Patrick Wisdom and Mike Tauchman. I thought that was a particularly nice touch. You can see an image of the players enthralled by their teammates and peers courtesy of Ken Schultz below:

Ken Schultz

There’s a lot to discuss and we’ll get to all of it, but first some tunes.

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The song that stole the stage at Cubs Convention this year was a Foo Fighters classic, My Hero:

My Hero begins with a strong drum riff followed by a classic late nineties alternative beat. The lyrics tell the story of ordinary heroes in our lives:

Too alarmin’ now to talk about
Take your pictures down and shake it out
Truth or consequence, say it aloud
Use that evidence, race it around

There goes my hero
Watch him as he goes
There goes my hero
He’s ordinary

It’s a classic song that the Foo Fighters are known for. But in 2022, it got an epic twist with Shane Hawkins, the son of late Foo Fighters’ guitarist Taylor Hawkins, taking the sticks to play My Hero during a concert that was a tribute to his dad:

My Hero indeed.

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The song had a prominent role at the Cubs Convention Opening Ceremony on Friday night as you’ll see in a moment, but before I get to that scene I wanted to share a few others.

It was the largest crowd I remember seeing at Cubs Convention since 2017, the first year I attended Cubs Convention. While I’m sure y’all can imagine what drove Cubs fans to brave the frigid January Chicago weather during that offseason, you can probably also imagine why the crowds have gotten progressively smaller since 2017. There was no Cubs Convention at all for a couple of years during the pandemic and when it returned in 2022 it was still a packed house, but one that required fewer of the ballrooms at the Sheraton be opened on Friday night. Even last year, the Marquee Sports Network booth was set up inside the ballroom where the players would take the stage.

This year the TV booth was set up outside the ballroom to allow for as many seats as possible and if you didn’t wind up with one of those seats within minutes of the ballroom opening 90 minutes before the festivities, you weren’t going to get one at all. There were a number of factors driving Cubs Convention turnout this offseason, let’s check out a few highlights below.

Kyle Tucker celebrated his 28th birthday at Cubs Convention and Marquee Sports Network’s number one hype man Cole Wright understood the assignment. This is what it looks like when you’re a new star welcomed to one of the most historic franchises in baseball on your birthday:

But even before that, things got real. Tom Ricketts introduced the 2025 Cubs Hall of Fame inductees and well, I’ll just let you experience this the way I did in the crowd:

This season the Cubs will induct Derrek Lee and Sammy Sosa into their Hall of Fame. Lee played on the Cubs for seven seasons accumulating 4021 plate appearances. He hit .298/.378/.524 during that time with 179 home runs and a wRC+ of 131. An absolute metronome at the plate and a stalwart at first base, Lee’s case for the Cubs Hall of Fame makes itself.

But he was overshadowed a bit by Sammy Sosa, who returned to his first Cubs Convention anything in 21 seasons. We don’t need to get into all the reasons the Cubs were waiting for an apology for Sammy because the fans in the crowd were certainly long over it. He ran out on stage with a small American flag, reminiscent of his run to the outfield for the Cubs first home game after 9/11. We all went wild. The crowd chanted Sammy as loud as I’ve ever heard them chant anything.

From 1992 to 2004 Sammy was the face of the Cubs. He had 7,898 plate appearances for the North Side after being traded to the team from the White Sox. During that time he set the franchise record for home runs with 545, eclipsing the mark Mr. Cub set of 512. Sosa slashed .284/.358/.569 during his time with the Cubs and managed to hit 60+ home runs in three separate seasons, 1998, 1999 and 2001 (he “only” managed 50 home runs during the 2000 campaign). No other baseball player in history has more 60+ home run seasons than Slammin’ Sammy.

And truly, going into the night I was sure we’d be talking about Sammy for this entire piece, but sometimes the universe has other plans. And on Friday night, the man who brought the entire room to a frenzy that eclipsed Sammy’s return was MLB Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg.

Sandberg walked out to My Hero and love from every corner of the room. He shook hands with the Hall of Famers and legends. Yes, he embraced Sammy Sosa on the stage even though it didn’t make that clip. I guess even the starkest divisions can be healed over the course of decades. He gave love to the crowd.

The former MVP, ten-time All Star, nine-time gold glover and seven-time silver slugger had announced earlier this offseason that the cancer he has been fighting had returned. I’m not sure I even expected he’d be at Cubs Convention this year given the circumstances. But I think all of us, both in the audience and on the stage, just cherished another opportunity to let this incredible baseball player know what he’s meant to all of us. I imagine there were many more watching on couches throughout Chicagoland and across the country who felt the same.

It was a brilliant opener for the weekend and I’ll have much more from Cubs Convention tomorrow. In the meantime, tell us, what was your favorite moment from the 2025 Cubs Convention Opening Ceremony?