I recently had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Cubs’ slugger Kyle Schwarber’s old high school baseball coach, Jason Cave, with the intentions of trying to give fans a better picture of Kyle Schwarber the person as opposed to Kyle Schwarber the baseball player. Every baseball fan knows about Schwarber’s ability to absolutely murder a baseball but I wanted to get Cave’s insight as to why Theo Epstein tagged Schwarber as one of his “pillar players” for the Chicago Cubs and then proceeded to call Schwarber “untouchable” regarding potential trades when Schwarber’s name kept popping up last season.
In just over 85 big league games, Schwarber has emerged as one of faces of the franchise and was tabbed as one of the “pillar players” Epstein was looking for when he took over the Chicago Cubs in 2011. In case you’re unaware, Epstein’s “pillar players” are players that exude not only great baseball skill, but also have outstanding character which Epstein believed was necessary to change the entire culture of the Chicago Cubs. (Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, and Addison Russell are the other three in case you’re wondering)
Being a high school coach myself, I’m a firm believer in the impact that a coach can have on a high school athlete so I thought it’d be cool to reach out to Cave to see how Schwarber conducted himself as a regular high school kid from Middletown, Ohio before he turned into a legend in Cubs history.
