Bryant on mark left by World Series core: ‘Legends in Chicago'

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MESA, Ariz — If this year is it for Kris Bryant as a Cub, how will his seven years in Chicago be remembered? How does he want that run to be remembered?

“Honestly, it might sound a little cocky, but I think we’re legends in Chicago. We really are,” Bryant, the National League MVP during that 2016 Cubs championship run, said during a conversation with NBC Sports Chicago. “Me included in that. Because regardless of what we’ve done before or after, we won the most iconic championship in the history of sports.

“Me personally I had my best year ever that year, so pretty legendary stuff right there.”

He’s certainly not wrong. Books already have been written to document the story of the team and players that ended the famed Billy Goat Curse and 108-year championship drought on the North Side.

Five core hitters and a pitcher remain from the 2016 World Series (while two pitchers left and then returned this winter) — three of them pending free agents this year: Anthony Rizzo, Javy Báez and Bryant.

Bryant might be the least likely of the three to sign an extension and seems “more at peace” these days with all things baseball and life, including the inconvenient truth that this could be his final year as a Cub.

Few would try to deny his lofty place in franchise history, alongside Rizzo, Báez and the rest — whether his run with the club is over in seven months or seven years.

But as quickly as Bryant mentions the “legends” part of the likely legacy, he adds that it might not be what’s most important to him when people look back years from now on the third baseman who went from the second pick in the draft in 2013 to World Series champ and MVP in 29 months flat.

“At the end of the day, it’s not that stuff that necessarily I would love to be remembered for, he said. “It’s more just the person I am and what I represent and what I’ve brought to this team and the city. There’s never been a problem with me off the field or at home or on the field. Honestly, that’s what I would really like to be — “

He stops in mid-sentence.

“It’s weird that we’re talking like this, because I still have a season and who knows after this,” he said. “But as of right now, I’d want to be remembered in that way, just the type of person I was, but I brought it to the field, too.”

(Listen to the whole conversation on the Cubs Talk Podcast).

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