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South Bend Cubs Hoist Second Midwest League Championship In Three Seasons

By: Brendan King

Stop us if you have heard this one before, a Cubs championship performance and celebration on a rainy Wednesday night in Cleveland.

The 2016 Chicago Cubs made that story famous with the first World Series Championship for the organization since 1908; beating the Cleveland Indians in seven games and capping off the Fall Classic with an extra innings duel to take home a ring. Six years later, the South Bend Cubs pulled off their own version of that tale on September 21, 2022, securing the club’s second championship in three seasons. In Eastlake, Ohio, against the Lake County Captains, South Bend was once again on top of the Midwest League.

Most will remember the sights, sounds, photos, and celebration of that cool fall night last year. But there was so much that went into the lead-up to that evening. Of course, most of it started at the Chicago Cubs Spring Training Complex in Mesa, Arizona. Early morning practices, sweltering exhibition games in the desert sun, and a team flying to South Bend to play on a snowy Opening Night at Four Winds Field.

This is the story of the 2022 South Bend Cubs, a group that always had a sense of the moment.

Like most, if not all, Minor League Baseball teams, the group that you begin the season with in early April will mostly be gone by the time you get to September. Most of the reasoning is due to call-ups to higher levels. In some cases injuries happen or a player may be traded.

South Bend in 2022 experienced it all.

61 total players suited up in either the home white uniforms with the blue pinstripes all over or the road grays with the blue numbers on the back trimmed in red. Last summer’s team almost felt like different stages of the roster passed through.

To begin the year, the team was highlighted by the likes of future Chicago Cubs Minor League Player of the Year Matt Mervis, hard-throwing right-hander Jeremiah Estrada (who made his big-league debut with Chicago later in the season), power-hitting outfielder Alexander Canario, and former Cubs firstround pick Ed Howard. Mervis, Estrada, and Canario went on a terror of High-A competition and were quickly promoted, while Howard suffered an injury that kept him out for the rest of the season.

There were many players that stuck around for much of the campaign though. The likes of Owen Caissie, Luis Verdugo, Yohendrick Pinango, Fabian Pertuz, Kohl Franklin, Pablo Aliendo, and Caleb Knight all were in a South Bend uniform for the entire season, often times acting as the heartbeat of the team.

Those departures in turn led to key arrivals. Pete Crow-Armstrong, B.J. Murray, Kevin Made, Porter Hodge, Luis Devers, and Sheldon Reed all were midseason promotions