The Professor

Joe Maddon's poetic, prophetic spring training manifesto has served as a guidebook for the Cubs’ historic season. Here’s a decoder ring for the manager’s message.

- Steve Wulf

THE CIRCLE IS perfect. Like a target. Or the Cubs’ logo, which, come to think of it, looks like a target.

The crowded diagram (see opposite page), drawn on Joe Maddon’s iPad, embodies the talk the manager gave to the Cubs on Feb. 24, the first full day of spring training in Mesa, Arizona. The handwriting is striking—“the product of a Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Catholic school education,” he says—and so is the arrow that pierces the circle, with feathers looking like the seams of a baseball and an arrowhead that could very well be a hell-bent trip around the bases. The method to the madness can be seen scribbled at the very top: Pressure [Is] a Motivator, a Positive, an Indicator You Are in the Right Place.

The circle might also stand for the sun that has been shining on the Cubs this season. With the exception of one day, April 8, when they trailed the 4–0 Pirates by one game, Chicago has been on the north side of the NL Central standings.

Winning is nothing new for Maddon’s Cubs: They made it to the NLCS last year in his first season at the helm, only to be swept by the Mets. But heading into the final three weeks of the season, they were on pace to win 104 games, which would be their highest regular-season total since 1910, which is two years after they won their last ... all right, we won’t mention it.

What’s most fascinating is what Maddon wrote inside and around the circle. Almost everything seems prescient now, which is one reason the glyph has become a popular fan T-shirt emblazoned with horn-rimmed glasses on the front, diagram on the back.