CHICAGO—One hundred sixty-two games: how do you measure a baseball season? In pitches thrown, in runs that score, in diving catches, maybe more?
How do you measure a baseball season? From April into fall? In each clutch at-bat and in the memories shared by all?
For some Cubs fanatics, a great season is measured by playoff appearances and trophies.
For others, it’s measured in moments.
A breathtaking catch in center field, a ball disappearing into the bleachers against a cross-town rival, or a player pounding his chest after a diving grab with 40,000 fans roaring behind him. The feeling that, almost every day, for one unforgettable summer, a player captured the personality of an entire city.
Pete Crow-Armstrong gave Cubs fans plenty of those moments in 2026.
The 24-year-old’s MVP season became the defining story of the Cubs year and for four particularly devoted fans, it became something more personal.
Sam Olber, co-host of the Locked On Cubs podcast; Jeff Gorski, known around Wrigley Field as “Bleacher Jeff”; Jonah Fialkow, better known as “Jewish Jonah,” a die-hard Cubs fan who also works as a beer vendor at Wrigley Field; and Sam Goldsmith, also known as A Trip Around The Bases on social media, a lifelong Cubs fan walking around Wrigley and listening to games to lose weight for his wedding day.
Each die-hard fan experienced Crow-Armstrong’s breakout from a different vantage point.
All four reflected remarkably similar sentiments; this was no ordinary Cubs season.
This was the breakout season for a player who has become a part of the fabric of Chicago.
“PCA’s season means everything”
Crow-Armstrong’s season became an emotional anchor for so many fans, including Sam Goldsmith, during a year filled with peaks and valleys that have long defined being a Cubs fan.
“This Cubs team had so many ups and downs throughout the year, but PCA kept me sane in the down times,” Goldsmith said. “Even as this team struggled, I knew we could count on him to keep them afloat.”
A turbulent Chicago season that included two 10-game winning streaks (4/14-4/24 & 4/28-5/8), a 10-game losing streak (5/16-5/26), and numerous injuries to pitchers and position players.
Goldsmith has always viewed fandom as something that is shared between the players and the people in the stands. To him, Crow-Armstrong seemed to understand that relationship.
“He’s such a polarizing figure because he wears his heart on his sleeve and shows so much emotion,” Goldsmith said. “I feel like he experienced the season the way fans do. Wins make our day and losses bring us down. We feel like we’re part of the team and he consistently shows he’s with us.”
For Olber, that emotional connection was just as important as the numbers.
Crow-Armstrong’s production didn’t merely make for compelling daily podcast material. Olber believed it helped rescue the Cubs season and carry them into the postseason.
“It meant a lot, I would say,” Olber said. “Mainly because it essentially saved the season and took them to the playoffs.”
There was something else Olber noticed while covering Crow-Armstrong day in and day out: how much the player genuinely seemed to embrace being a Cub.
“It was very fun to cover on a daily basis. It was so electric,” Olber said. “I think what meant the most is how much he loves being a Cub and how much he loves the city of Chicago. You can feel it when he plays and when he talks.”
Fialkow sees that connection from a unique vantage point: inside Wrigley Field, carrying beer, hot dogs and other refreshments through the stands while watching the game with thousands of fans.
“Pete’s season was so electric,” Fialkow echoed. “Just a full 360-degree baseball player; does everything well. Personifies the team and the city.”
For Fialkow, though, Crow-Armstrong’s success also has a very practical effect.
“He cares about winning games and when the Cubs win, the stadium is more packed and people are in a good mood, which leads to more beer sales,” he said. “Very good for me personally.”
But the quip comes with a genuine appreciation for what Crow-Armstrong has meant to the people inside the ballpark.
“As a die-hard Cubs fan myself, it has just been so fun,” Fialkow said.
That is perhaps what made Crow-Armstrong’s season so compelling and different from a typical breakout year.
He wasn’t simply producing.
He was connecting.
The moment the game slowed down
Every great season eventually becomes a collection of signature moments.
For Goldsmith, one of those moments came in May when Crow-Armstrong hit a game-tying home run in the ninth inning against the Reds.
The home run itself was memorable. But what Goldsmith saw in the at-bat was even more significant.
A year earlier, he felt Crow-Armstrong sometimes appeared overwhelmed by the biggest moments. The expectations, the crowd and the anticipation could become too much.
This time, something had changed.
“Last year, it felt like PCA would let the moment overtake him,” Goldsmith said. “Big spots with the crowd on their feet chanting his name would often end with an ugly swinging strikeout.”
Against Cincinnati, Goldsmith saw the opposite.
“This home run against Cincy showed me his mentality had completely flipped,” Goldsmith said. “He was no longer a prisoner of the moment. Instead, he owned the moment.”
That became a recurring theme as the season progressed.
“He (Crow-Armstrong) continued to do so time and time again as the season went on,” Goldsmith added.
The center fielder hit 45 home runs (tied for first in Major League Baseball with former Cub, Kyle Schwarber) recording a .280/.372/.570 slash line, with 107 runs batted in, scoring 119 runs and 41 stolen bases. Crow-Armstrong was one of seven MLB players to play in all 162 games (Bryce Harper, Matt Olson, Ozzie Albies, Bryan Reynolds, Junior Caminero and Sal Stewart) and one of seven players to have at least 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a season (Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano, Ronald Acuña Jr and Shohei Ohtani).
Gorski remembers a different game, one that encapsulated just how extraordinary Crow-Armstrong had become.
His favorite memory was a game in which Crow-Armstrong led off with a home run and then hit a walk-off home run to end it.
That was the moment when “Bleacher Jeff” said it became real to him.
“We’re looking at the MVP and a special season from a special player,” Gorski said.
Fialkow has the same moment at the top of his list.
“Hands down, the walk-off home run on that Monday night against the White Sox,” he said. “Never a doubt.”
It was the kind of moment that makes sense from the vendor’s perspective. He wasn’t watching the game from a couch or following it through a podcast microphone. He was inside Wrigley, surrounded by the immediate reaction of thousands of Cubs fans.
One swing changed the mood of the entire ballpark.
Olber has a longer list of favorite memories: The walk-off against the White Sox, the two-homer game alongside Shohei Ohtani, or the three-home-run performance against the Cincinnati Reds.
The MVP’s production had an added benefit for Olber personally.
“PCA single-handedly won me a fantasy baseball title,” he said.
Ultimately, even with all those individual highlights, Olber said the season’s significance went beyond statistics.
It was about watching Crow-Armstrong become a player who seemed to thrive under the weight of Chicago’s expectations.
Where does it rank?
Trying to place one Cubs season alongside the franchise’s greatest individual performance is difficult.
The Cubs have had no shortage of iconic stars and historic seasons.
Sammy Sosa’s late-1990s and early-2000s dominance immediately comes to mind. Derrek Lee’s 2005 season remains one of the most memorable offensive campaigns of the modern era. Kris Bryant’s 2016 season helped power the Cubs to their first World Series championship in 108 years.
And then there is Jake Arrieta.
For Olber, Crow-Armstrong’s season belongs in that conversation.
“It’s him or 2015 Arrieta,” Olber said. “2001 Sosa is there for sure, but I was seven.”
What separates Crow-Armstrong for Olber isn’t simply what he accomplished on the field. It is the person and personality attached to the performance.
“What made it special was just who he is as a person and his passion for being a Cub,” he said.
Gorski is even more emphatic about what he witnessed.
“This is the greatest individual performance I’ve seen all around,” Gorski said. “Simply the top.”
Goldsmith also places Crow-Armstrong at the top of his personal list, just ahead of Arrieta’s remarkable 2015-16 run.
He remembers watching Sosa’s historic 1998 season, but was only four years old. He loved Derrek Lee’s 2005 campaign and Kris Bryant’s 2016 MVP season.
Crow-Armstrong’s, though, feels different.
“Lee and Bryant didn’t have the massive personality and curb appeal that PCA has now,” Goldsmith said.
To Goldsmith, Crow-Armstrong’s reach seemed to extend beyond the Cubs themselves.
“PCA felt bigger than the Cubs this year and I haven’t seen that before from a Cubs player.”
Even Arrieta’s run was special, but unfortunately it only came every fifth day,” he said. “To see a guy go out and dominate the sport every single day on both sides of the ball was amazing.”
Fialkow puts Crow-Armstrong firmly in the upper echelon of Cubs seasons he has witnessed, while leaving room for what could still happen.
“It’s gotta be top three and probably not number three,” he said.
Fialkow wasn’t old enough to fully appreciate the Sosa years, so his comparisons are shaped by the Cubs teams he remembers most vividly.
For the Wrigley vendor, content creator, and Cubs fanatic, Kris Bryant’s 2016 MVP season holds a special place because of everything that surrounded it, most notably, the Cubs’ championship season.
“I think number one is Kris Bryant MVP season just because of the year it was associated with,” Fialkow said.
The 2026 season isn’t finished writing its history.
“If Pete keeps performing into the playoffs and the Cubs make a run, it’ll be solidly number one,” he said.
Through the first eight postseason games of his young career, however, Crow-Armstrong has yet to reproduce his regular-season production at the plate. The Cubs center fielder is hitting .185 with 12 strikeouts and no home runs, an early playoff struggle that has provided a stark contrast to the MVP-level performance the Cubs center fielder delivered during the 2026 regular season.
Then came the sentiment that perhaps best captures how quickly Crow-Armstrong has become a fixture in Chicago.
“I’m so stoked we locked him into a long-term deal,” Fialkow said. “Cub for life.”
More than an MVP season
There will be statistics attached to Crow-Armstrong’s 2026 season forever.
The 45 home runs and 41 stolen bases, defensive milestones, individual awards and comparisons to the Cubs players who came before him. Crow-Armstrong put together a season that Cubs manager Craig Counsell said fans will be telling their grandkids about someday.
But ask these four die-hard Cubs fans what they’ll remember and the answers go somewhere else.
They’ll remember the feeling of watching him play.
They’ll remember the emotion.
They’ll remember a player who appeared to feel the highs and the lows alongside the people watching him.
And they’ll remember the sense that something larger than a collection of numbers was happening at Wrigley Field.
For Fialkow, who experiences Cubs baseball from behind a beer bin while simultaneously rooting for the team, Crow-Armstrong’s season was “electric and good for the wallet.”
For Olber, it has been a season to cover, talk about and relive every day.
For Gorski, who is a Wrigley regular in the left field bleachers, this has been the greatest all-around individual performance the “bleacher bum” has seen.
And for Goldsmith, it has been something that transcends the traditional definition of a great season.
“I truly believe people will talk about this 2026 PCA campaign for the rest of time,” he said.
The die-hard Cubs fan summed up what Crow-Armstrong’s season has come to represent for him, not only as a baseball player, but as a Chicago sports figure.
“It’s one of the all-time great seasons by an individual. Platinum glove defense, 40/40 offense and the true heart of the city.”
The 24-year-old may not have stars dyed in his hair anymore, but in 2026, Pete Crow-Armstrong has become the star of the Cubs and one of the defining faces of Chicago sports. A player who has blossomed in front of our eyes, from a promising prospect to the kind of superstar a city can call its own.
