It was a great night for Jake Arrieta (49) and the Cubs. Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
LOS ANGELES — Without a doubt, Chicago Cubs right-hander Jake Arrieta is the first pitcher in baseball history to throw a no-hitter and then show up for his postgame press conference in “onesie” pajamas.
The pajamas were mandatory travel attire for the Cubs’ flight home from California after a six-game road trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles. The Cubs won the first game of the trip but lost the next four before going home happy after Arrieta’s no-hitter Sunday night in a 2-0 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
“It works both ways,” Maddon said. “If you won, it makes it better. And if you lost, it’s, ‘Let’s put this behind us and move on.’ I see it as a ‘Win-Win-Win’ as Michael Scott (Steve Carell’s character on ‘The Office’) would say.”
Arrieta’s fashion choice was a moustache-emblazoned onesie. Second baseman Starlin Castro went with a Super Mario Brothers ensemble.
Superhero-themed pajamas were popular, with closer Hector Rondon sporting a Superman onesie and reliever Pedro Strop going for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles outfit.
Maddon has made the “themed” road trips a staple of his managerial style from the start of his time with the Tampa Bay Rays. The team-bonding exercise breaks up the monotony of baseball’s travel schedule and promotes team unity.
Earlier this season — Maddon’s first with the Cubs — he declared a “Blackhawks” road trip in honor of Chicago’s Stanley Cup victory. Players were encouraged to wear Blackhawks jerseys or other gear.
On another trip, the attire was limited to sports coats with chinos — or shorts.
The pajama party wasn’t quite timed properly, Maddon admitted, with Southern California experiencing a heat wave.
“I really thought that by this time of the year here, it was going to be cooler at night and they would play perfectly,” he said. “Bad call.”
Pajama night came after Arrieta put the Dodgers to sleep in a 12-strikeout performance. He issued one walk and had one batter reach base on an error.
“Everybody who plays this game wants to accomplish great things,” the right-hander said. “You think about that all the time as a kid. You see other people do it, and you want to be a part of something like that. It’s hard to put that into words right now.”
