Updated: January 9 – 7:18pm CST – The 28th Annual Cubs Convention (January 18 – January 20) kicks off on Friday, January 18 at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers and some of the details have surfaced. This year’s convention will be in a new location and the Cubs are promising changes to the familiar format.
The convention begins at 1:00pm CST on Friday with the Opening Ceremonies scheduled for 5:00pm CST. This year’s convention is supposed to feature a larger opening ceremony than in past years and the players will be introduced in more of a runway-type setting.
The convention weekend will kick-off with the DeJesus Family Foundation’s ‘Strike-A-Pose Celebrity Fashion Show’ and the second annual ‘Woody’s Winter Warm-Up’ is scheduled for Friday, January 18 at Harry Caray’s Navy Pier Tavern.
Here is a partial list of attendees as well as a small portion of the schedule. The full schedule should be released soon … but here is what is known at this point. The CCO will update when more information becomes available.
The top 10 prospects in the Cubs’ system are expected to attend and it appears the players will be more involved than in past years. The Cubs have a ‘Family Feud’ game and an autograph hunt with the players planned. There will also be a replica of the Cubs’ TV booth set up with video of two games. Fans will be able to call the action from one of the two games and then post their play-by-play call on YouTube or Facebook.
**NOTE: THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE SCHEDULE – SATURDAY IS A FULL DAY OF SESSIONS AND SUNDAY HAS BEEN A HALF DAY OF SESSIONS IN RECENT YEARS. THE CCO WILL POST THE FULL SCHEDULE ONCE IT IS RELEASED**
Partial 2013 Cubs Convention Schedule
Friday, January 18
5:00pm – 5:30pm – Opening Ceremonies
7:00pm – 9:30pm – Sports Night Live with Dave Kaplan – The two and a half hour show will be simulcast on 720 WGN
- – 7:00pm – 7:30pm – Dale Sveum and James Rowson
- – 7:30pm – 8:00pm – Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer
- – 8:00pm – 8:30pm – Jeff Samardzija, Matt Garza, Scott Baker and Scott Feldman
- – 8:30pm – 9:00pm – Darwin Barney, Anthony Rizzo and David DeJesus
- – 9:00pm – 9:30pm – Len Kasper, Jim Deshaies, Pat Hughes and Keith Moreland
Saturday, January 19
9:30am – 10:30am – WGN Radio’s Meet Cubs Baseball Management hosted by Dave Eanet – Jed Hoyer, Randy Bush and Dale Sveum
11:00am – 12:00pm – WGN Radio’s Cubs Minor Leaguers hosted by Garry Meier and Dave Eanet – Javier Baez, Dallas Beeler, Marcus Hatley, Barret Loux, Trey McNutt, Hector Rondon, Zac Rosscup, Nick Struck, Matt Szczur, Logan Watkins, Robert Whitenack and Tony Zych
12:30pm – 1:30pm – WGN Radio’s Kids Only Press Conference hosted by Bill Leff – Darwin Barney, David DeJesus, Brooks Raley, Anthony Rizzo and Chris Rusin
2:00pm – 3:00pm – WGN Radio’s Not Just for Women hosted by Carol Roth – Scott Baker, Shawn Camp, Matt Garza, James Russell and Travis Wood
4:00pm – 6:00pm – WGN Radio’s Sports Central Live Broadcast with Jim Memolo and Glen Kozlowski
- – 4:00pm – 4:30pm – David DeJesus and Matt Garza
- – 4:30pm – 5:00pm – Jeff Samardzija and Darwin Barney
- – 5:00pm – 5:30pm – Starlin Castro and Tony Campana
- – 5:30pm – 6:00pm – Brett Jackson, Anthony Rizzo and Edwin Jackson
Sunday, January 20
The CCO will have first hand daily recaps of this year’s convention … for the eighth consecutive year.
Scheduled attendees for the 28th Cubs Convention
- Javier Baez
- Scott Baker
- Ernie Banks
- Darwin Barney
- Dallas Beeler
- David Bell
- Joe Bohringer
- Mike Borzello
- Chris Bosio
- Michael Bowden
- Randy Bush
- Shawn Camp
- Starlin Castro
- Tony Campana
- Welington Castillo
- Steve Clevenger
- David DeJesus
- Rob Deer
- Jim Deshaies
- Theo Epstein
- Scott Feldman
- Kyuji Fujikawa
- Matt Garza
- Marcus Hatley
- Todd Hollandsworth
- Jed Hoyer
- Pat Hughes
- Randy Hundley
- Brett Jackson
- Edwin Jackson
- Ferguson Jenkins
- Len Kasper
- Andy Lane
- Barret Loux
- Carlos Marmol
- Dave McKay
- Jason McLeod
- Trey McNutt
- Keith Moreland
- Dioner Navarro
- Dave Otto
- Jamie Quirk
- Brooks Raley
- Shiraz Rehman
- Laura Ricketts
- Pete Ricketts
- Todd Ricketts
- Tom Ricketts
- Anthony Rizzo
- Hector Rondon
- Zac Rosscup
- James Rowson
- Chris Rusin
- James Russell
- Jeff Samardzija
- Dave Sappelt
- Judd Sirott
- Lee Smith
- Nick Struck
- Alfonso Soriano
- Ian Stewart
- Lester Strode
- Dale Sveum
- Matt Szczur
- Logan Watkins
- Robert Whitenack
- Billy Williams
- Tim Wilken
- Kerry Wood
- Travis Wood
- Tony Zych
Weekend passes are still available on Cubs.com and this year’s passes are baseball-shaped with the Cubs Convention logo in between the seams.
The CCO will post the complete schedule and list of attendees when they are made available.