ts, was plus-12 and led the playoffs with

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This story appears in ESPN The Magazines October 3 Cubs Issue. Subscribe today!ITS LATE SUMMER, nearly 1 a.m. at Coors Field in Denver, and Cubs players are wandering around the visitors clubhouse. Food is being served in the back, and guys are showering and getting ready for the team buses that will soon leave for the hotel.Rain had delayed the start of the game by two hours. Then it went into extras, where an ill-timed two-base throwing error led to an 11th-inning walk-off for the Rockies.After taking the loss, closer Aroldis Chapman is stretched out on a couch in the middle of the locker room, bags of ice on his left shoulder and elbow. A couple of players huddle around a table as they eat. A few others talk to reporters.Anthony Rizzo, the Cubs first baseman, exits the shower with one towel wrapped around his waist and another draped across his shoulders. He ambles through the room, sits on the padded folding chair in front of his locker. He drops his head and checks some texts.Jon Lester emerges from the back a few moments later. He wont pitch for two more nights, so hes eager to leave, already dressed in a white polo shirt, blue jeans, cowboy boots and a camouflage backpack. As he makes his way toward the clubhouse door, he pulls himself a little closer to the lockers where Rizzo is sitting. Lesters chin is slightly tilted toward his chest, his eyes straight ahead, intense, as if hes looking out the top of his eyelids. Hes walking right toward Rizzo.Lester is a couple of yards away when the first baseman finally looks up from his phone. Rizzo gives a lopsided grin and silently watches his teammate brush past-a little clubhouse humor. Unless you were looking for it, youd never notice their camaraderie. Youd never know the story behind it.MAY 16, 2008, Fenway Park, gloves and bats in lockers, the nameplates fixed overhead: David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia, Manny Ramirez. Rain is falling outside, the game between the Red Sox and Brewers delayed.Anthony Rizzo enters the clubhouse with his father, John, and his older brother, John Jr., an offensive lineman at Florida Atlantic. The Rizzo boys are built like square blocks of concrete. Anthony is barely out of high school, 18 years old, 6-foot-3 and a solid 215. Boston took him in the sixth round of the 2007 draft as a 17-year-old--but paid him third-round money because of that body. This kid from Florida, people around the club think, could become a superstar.Right now, hes a scared teenager. A couple of weeks ago, his ankles started swelling. He stuffed his feet into his spikes before games for the Class-A Greenville (S.C.) Drive. A teammate told Anthonys father he thought something was wrong, and John took Anthony to a doctor in South Carolina. They called Theo Epstein, the Red Soxs general manager, who said the Rizzos needed to get to Boston. A couple of days later, the kid was sitting in a doctors office, hearing the words for the first time: Hodgkins lymphoma. You have cancer.The concept had been foreign to Rizzo. He used to think chemotherapy was cancer. Then he sat in a chair and watched the poison drain into his body.On May 16, he is Epsteins guest at Fenway. When the general manager sees Rizzo, he fights back tears. Were family, Epstein says, and he wraps the teenager in a hug. Well take care of you. He introduces Rizzo to Terry Francona, the Red Soxs manager. Just last week, Francona buried his mother-in-law after her battle with cancer, but he wants to know about the kid tearing up the minors. Thirty-one hits in 21 games; .373 average, .402 on-base percentage. How are you feeling? Keep your spirits up.Epstein spots Lester in the clubhouse. Two years earlier, the pitcher, then 22, survived his own fight with cancer-anaplastic large cell lymphoma-then came back the next year and started the World Series-clinching game against Colorado. Epstein had told Lester about the kid down in Greenville and asked the lefty if he could spare a few minutes.Of course, Lester said. Anything to help.Lester had gone through six chemo treatments before being declared cancer-free. Words had never sounded so liberating. The thought of an even younger kid going through this breaks Lesters heart.Epstein brings the two together in the clubhouse. Rizzo is wearing a gray T-shirt and a zip-up hoodie. Lester is in a red warm-up sweatshirt, his Red Sox hat slightly askew. He offers his hand.Im Jon.LESTER SHOWS THE?Rizzos around, takes them past the lockers to the training room. They talk in a hallway, just off the coaches offices. Actually, John Rizzo does most of the talking.How did you deal with the chemo? Rizzos father asks Lester. How sick did you get? How did your parents handle it? The questions pour out of John. His mother died of breast cancer when he was in eighth grade, and the loss still haunts him. The thought of his son-Ant, he calls him-dealing with this is almost too much for a father to bear.When did you pick up a baseball again? When did you start working out? How hard was it to return? What can I do? What should I ...?I was like, Slow down, Lester recalls.I was all over the place, John says.Lester wants to talk to Anthony like hes any other athlete, just a pro ballplayer in a tough situation. When Lester was diagnosed, he saw his cancer as a competition. It was like me going against a team, he tells Rizzo. Lester didnt want to know the survival rate, didnt want to know anything other than what he needed to do to win.I saw this just like Id gotten hurt, he says to Rizzo. Now what do I do to get better? Then I did it.It was everything I needed to hear, Rizzo says today. I was thinking the same thing: I have to do whatever it takes to get this out of me. He beat his cancer; I knew I could too.The thing that worked best for Lester, he tells Rizzo, was that he never let his treatments stop his life. Sure, there were times hed feel so nauseated that he wouldnt want to leave the house. Yes, his hair fell out. Sometimes, when Lester felt tired after chemo, hed let his mind wander to bad places. Were the treatments working? Would he play baseball again? That doubt is natural, he tells Rizzo, but you have to fight past it. When he could, Lester did the things he loved: hung out with his parents and friends, hunted deer and elk, threw a baseball.Lester turns to John. Let your son get settled into this stuff first, he says. And then see how he feels. When he feels up to it, let him go do his thing. John looks over at his son. Something isnt right. A moment later, Anthony Rizzo passes out.HE WAKES UP?on the floor seconds later.Lester helps the kid off the ground. Im OK, Im OK, Rizzo keeps repeating.I think everything just hit me at once, Rizzo recalls today. The weight of everything. At that moment, it all seemed very real.His father wants to freak out, to cry, to scream. I could see it on his face, Lester remembers.This is exactly what Im talking about, Lester tells John, the dads eyes wide and scared. Dont make a big deal of this. If something happens, keep moving.They take Rizzo into Franconas office. Rizzo sits on a couch, near his father and brother. Lester pulls up a chair. Rizzo takes a drink of water, and when Epstein and Francona join the group, Epstein tells Rizzo hell get the best treatment. Whenever Rizzo recovers, hell still be part of the teams plans. They wont forget him.After an hour, they break up their meeting. Lester promises Rizzo theyll see each other again. On the way out, John pulls out a camera and asks Lester to pose for a photo with his son. Lester puts his hand on the kids back. Rizzo smiles.In late summer that year, Rizzo learns that his cancer is in remission. Lester hears the news from Francona. It was like gratification, the pitcher says today, like maybe I had something to do with it. There was a sense of relief too, because Anthony was going to get back to playing.Rizzo has a five-day window during treatments when he feels like the old Anthony. He begs Red Sox management to get into a game. Boston has an instructional team in Fort Myers, Florida-140 miles from Rizzos home in Parkland. In early fall, hes told he can get an at-bat.Rizzos parents and Epstein are there when he digs in at the plate. It might as well be Game 7 of the World Series. Rizzo doubles, and he goes into the winter replaying that hit in his mind.Lester sees him a few months later in spring training, on the back fields in Fort Myers. Lester is throwing a minor league game when he spots the kid. Man, you look great, he tells Rizzo. They talk for a minute about how much Rizzo loves being back.They wont see each other again for five years. In December 2010, Rizzo is traded to San Diego in a deal that sends Adrian Gonzalez to Boston. Before Rizzo leaves for his new team, Epstein promises him that their paths will cross again. After making the majors with the Padres, Rizzo gets a call in January 2012 saying hes been traded to Chicago. New Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein finalizes the deal. Rizzo wins the fan- decided Final Vote and makes the All-Star Game in 2014. Lester, who has become Bostons ace, is there too.Before the game at Target Field in Minneapolis, Rizzo sees Lester in the outfield. He walks out, extends his hand.Im not sure if you remember me ...They talk. He was still the same good guy, Rizzo says today. He knows Lester is a free agent at the end of the season, and he makes a brief pitch. Chicago is a good place, Rizzo tells Lester. The Cubs are a great organization. We could use you. Anthonys a big part of why I came over here, Lester says. If Id have first met him just as a minor leaguer, without our connection, it wouldnt have been the same conversation. What we shared added the intrigue to it, knowing he wasnt just talking to me like, Hey, we would really like to have you as a pitcher. It was other things-deeper things.THE TWO HAVE had their moments. Much has been made of the Cubs clubhouse this year: the looseness, the fun. Visit enough times and you understand that these men truly enjoy one another.But a place like this can be brutal for anyone with a thin skin. Because Rizzo is the oldest of the younger players-he turned 27 in August-he usually gets the brunt of the trash-talking from the older veterans. Lester isnt shy about making a crack when Rizzo, or any of the other young guys, makes an error. And Rizzo isnt afraid to give it back to Lester. They jab at each other, but its always lighthearted, third baseman Kris Bryant says. Jon helped Anthony through a very tough time, so they have a relationship none us can have. Theyre leaders for this team, and their past experiences shaped that.Teammates say theyre like brothers: Lester is the serious one with the big heart; Rizzo is the fun one who doesnt want anyone left out.When Lester hit a home run during spring training this year-his first as a pro-Rizzo was the first player to meet him at the dugout steps. He pointed his fingers skyward in mock celebration. Then Lester laughed and did the same. When Lester dropped a game-winning squeeze bunt in the 12th inning against the Mariners this summer, Rizzo led the raucous celebration, jumping and hollering, helping rip Lesters jersey off his back.Those two have a bond that sets them apart, Cubs manager Joe Maddon says. None of us can truly say they know what the other guy has been through. They do.The two dont talk much about their first meeting, but they do marvel at how the road led them here, to this place, pulling toward a championship.Its like everything has come full circle, Lester says. Were in a completely different destination than where we met. Its awesome to have the two of us be part of this.MAY 4, 2016, almost eight years since their meeting at Fenway. This time its Lester whos in need of help.Hes pitching against the Pirates, and his 2-2 fastball to Francisco Cervelli is smoked up the middle. Its a hard one-hopper, the kind of hit that makes a pitcher instinctively drop his glove and do a little save-your-butt sidestep at the same time.Lester shoots his glove toward the Pittsburgh grass and spears the ball. He does a half-spin, reaches into the glove ... and nothing. The ball is stuck in the webbing between the gloves index and middle fingers. If youve followed the Cubs for the past two seasons, youve seen this before. The same thing happened 11 months earlier; the two plays add to the lore of the difficulty Lester has had in making throws to first base.But Lester isnt panicking. He bolts toward first, taking six or so strides. On the way, he tears off his glove, the ball still stuffed between the fingers. In front of him, Rizzo flashes to the bag. The glove is in Lesters left hand. He flips it underhand toward Rizzo.Rizzo shakes off his own glove. For a split second, its a beautiful, goofy ballet of athleticism and quick thinking. Lesters glove lands in Rizzos arms, the big first baseman scooping it toward his body.Out.Rizzo gives a lopsided grin. If you werent looking closely, youd miss it. Jose Quintana Jersey . Thats about all he can do right now, so hes trying not to think about when he might be able to play again for the Los Angeles Lakers. Willson Contreras Jersey . According to a report from the Winnipeg Free Press, the Bombers will name Acting GM Kyle Walters to the post full time. http://www.authenticcubsteamproshop.com ... rg-jersey/ .Y. - Nelson Mandela will be honoured by the New York Yankees with a plaque in Monument Park. Koji Uehara Jersey . -- Al Jefferson found a groove just in time for the Charlotte Bobcats. Anthony Rizzo Jersey .com) - The game was all punts and field goals before Kodi Whitfields catch.The Chicago Blackhawks stunned the Boston Bruins, scoring twice in the final 1:16 to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 win in decisive Game Six for the Chicago Blackhawks, giving Chicago their second Stanley Cup in four seasons. With their backs against the wall, Boston dominated play early, outshooting Chicago 12-6 (32-8 in shot attempts) in the first period, but only held a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes, on a goal by Chris Kelly. Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews evened the score in the second period and the Blackhawks started to turn the momentum. Despite Chicago holding a shooting edge in the third period, Bruins LW Milan Lucic broke the tie with 7:49 left in the third period and, at that point, it was looking like the series could be heading back to Chicago for Game Seven. With the game on the line, Toews and Patrick Kane created a scoring opportunity, with Toews feeding Bryan Bickell across the crease and Bickell fired it home to tie the game. Bickell, who had nine goals in 48 regular season games, scored his ninth goal of the playoffs in his 23rd game. Scoring with just more than a minute remaining sure made it look like overtime was coming, but the Blackhawks didnt get the memo. They quickly entered the Bruins zone and Dave Bolland banged in a rebound to suddenly flip the script. Bolland, who has been a stellar playoff performer in previous seasons, struggled at times in this playoff season as he was coming back from injury, scoring one point in his first dozen playoff games, then added five points in six games in the Stanley Cup Final. As the playoffs wounds down, it became a war of attrition between Boston and Chicago as injuries started to affect player availability and performance. Bruins RW Nathan Horton was playing with chronic shoulder injury that limited his effectiveness and had two assists and seven shots on goal in six games against Chicago. In Game Six, Bruins RW Jaromir Jagr was limited to just 6:27 of ice time, while C Patrice Bergeron, who left Game Five early, played 17:45 with a broken rib, torn cartilage and a separated shoulder. In Bergerons absence, David Krejci, the playoffs leading scorer with 26 points in 22 games, played 23:37 to lead all Boston forwards. Chicago had their own injuries to deal with. Toews was held out of action in the third period of Game Five, due to a suspected concussion, but he was vital to the Blackhawks effort in Game Six, playing 20:12 and scoring a goal and an assist to lead all Chicago forwards. Marian Hossa, who was playing in his fourth final in six years, missed Game Three of the Final before returning to play in a diminished state for the rest of the series despite a disc in his back pushing against a nerve, leaving his foot numb when he played. Then there was Bickell, who suffered a Grade Two knee sprain late in the Western Conference Final against Los Angeles, and injury that under normal circumstances might cause him to miss three-to-four weeks of action. Bickell, who had been a playoff beast, didnt record a point in the firsst three games of the Final, but contributed four points in the last three games.dddddddddddd Blackhawks RW Patrick Kane, who had 19 points and a plus-7 rating, was named the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as Playoff MVP, but there were no obvious choices on the Blackhawks side. Bickell had 17 points and was plus-11, Patrick Sharp had a playoff-leading 10 goals and 16 points and D Duncan Keith had 13 points and a plus-10 rating. G Corey Crawford probably had the best claim to the award among Blackhawks, with a .932 save percentage in the postseason. Even though the Bruins didnt win, G Tuukka Rask and his .940 save percentage would have been an entirely justifiable selection, as would Krejci, who was seven points clear of any other scorer in the postseason. Bruins LW Milan Lucic had 19 points, was plus-12 and led the playoffs with 102 hits. Bickell was second with 85. Part of the story for the Blackhawks were the contributions they received from players like Michal Handzus, the 36-year-old cast-off from San Jose who scored 11 points and had a plus-7 rating filling a second-line centre role for Chicago, while playing with a broken wrist and torn MCL. Michael Frolik (10 points) and Andrew Shaw (nine points) were also effective forwards on the lower half of the Blackhawks depth chart. Boston had contributions from the likes of Dan Paille (nine points) and received 17 goals from their defenceman, led by Johnny Boychuk with six (Boychuk scored one goal in 44 regular season games). At the same time, the Bruins needed more from offensive performers like Jagr, who had zero goals (and 10 assists) on 58 shots in the playoffs and Tyler Seguin, who set up Bostons first goal in Game six, but managed one goal and eight points in 22 playoff games. Its not that Jagr and Seguin didnt play well, both had shots and good possession numbers, but at some point, the shots have to turn into goals if its going to make a difference in playoff results. Toews, Hossa, Keith and rookie Brandon Saad were among those leading the Blackhawks in possession metrics for the postseason, and Toews could have been lumped in with Jagr and Seguin, except that Toews found the net in two of the last three games of the postseason, scoring a total of five points. Its such a thin line between winning and losing that a goal or two from underperforming players could have shifted the balance in the series. The Blackhawks got those goals and the Bruins didnt. In the end, the Blackhawks were the best team in the regular season and earned their favourite status going into the Final with excellent possession stats. In a series which had three overtime games and no game with a margin greater than two goals, Chicago outscored Boston 18-14 over the six games, for a well-deserved and hard-fought victory, if perhaps shocking in its sudden swerve ending. Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. 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