John Antonoff for the Sun-Times
MESA, Ariz. — New Cubs manager Craig Counsell appeared so anxious and scared Wednesday, the day pitchers and catchers reported to the team’s spring-training facility, he might as well have been sipping an umbrella drink while nodding off in a folding beach chair.
Nobody looks or sounds calmer and cooler than Counsell, a 53-year-old in a 33-year-old’s body, a man who smiles warmly when he speaks, always seems to know just what to say and do and walked through his first real day of Cubs camp as though he were strolling along Klode Park Beach back in Whitefish Bay, Wis.