The 47 Best Players from the 1998 Chicago Cubs - Introduction

The 1998 Chicago Cubs are my favorite baseball team ever. In fact, they may be my favorite team ever in any sport. With this being the 20th anniversary of that team, I am going to do the biggest and best salute that I can and rank all 47 players that played for that team from worst to best.

Now, best does not mean most valuable, as then I could just give you a WARP list and call it a day. Instead, think of best as someone calling their dog the best. All dogs are the best dogs, and all of these guys are the best too, from #1 all the way to #47. So think of this best list as based more on the joy they provide rather than discernible value.

I'm going to warn you in advance. Glenallen Hill is going to be way higher than any reasonable person could expect (like, so high that you will scream obscenities at your computer screen when you see it). Also, relievers are going to be ranked fairly low, but to be fair, the Cubs relievers weren't the most exciting group outside of a hard-living closer.

But this is just a preview article. I can't give away all the good stuff quite yet. Just know that this team was special. Nobody expected anything out of them, and this was before it was cool to go to Cubs games, so the stadium was usually only half full. The team lost the most beloved announcer in history less than two months before the start of the season. Oh, and they had an outfielder go from good to the man who helped save baseball with home runs and an injectious, wait, did I say injectious? I meant infectious personality.

But yeah, this team was awesome. The list starts tomorrow with a reliever the Cubs acquired right before the deadline. As a hint, I doubt that reliever had to get new housing after the trade.