This is how close Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman have become in just a few short months.
“He’s invited me to his house a few times,’’ Crow-Armstrong said, “I’ve spent time with his kids.’’
No, he’s not yet Uncle Pete or Uncle PCA. Knox is closing in on 4, Bennett just turned 1.
“Mostly he calls me PCA or Pete-Crow Armstrong,’’ he said of the toddler. “But anytime [Bregman] wants me to babysit, I’ll do it.’’
Bregman is a 32-year-old dad from Albuquerque, a budding entrepreneur whose district attorney father, Sam Bregman, is a Democratic candidate for governor of New Mexico.
Crow-Armstrong is 24 years old, single, a Southern California kid whose parents were both in the movie and TV industry.
What has drawn them together, Bregman said, is how much the two of them talk baseball. “He’s a throwback,’’ Bregman said. “He loves the game, he works his tail off, and we have a lot of similarities in that regard. So we talk baseball all the time.’’
Crow-Armstrong is not sure he’s a throwback. “I was that way back with my boys when we were growing up,’’ he said. “But we’re both maniacs.’’
One thing they agree on: The Cubs are winning and have the second-best record in the NL, even though neither Bregman nor Crow-Armstrong have gone off yet offensively.
“He may go off any time,’’ Crow-Armstrong said. “He hit three balls [Friday night] that combined to go over 300 miles an hour.’’
The explosion, when it comes, may have to wait a bit. On Saturday night, the White Sox were acting like throwbacks themselves, Bill Veeck’s South Side Hitmen of distant memory. Miguel Vargas, Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery made like Zisk, Gamble and Soderholm from a half-century ago, with four home runs and seven runs in the first five innings against Jameson Taillon. Two of the home runs were hit by the Japanese slugger, his first multi-homer game, giving him 17 for the season.
When Andrew Benintendi, who had homered jus
