Soccer meets baseball: How training with a goalkeeper helped Cubs’ Patrick Wisdom at third base

Cubs third baseman Patrick Wisdom makes a leaping catch during a Cubs Spring Training game versus the San Francisco Giants at Sloan Park in Mesa, AZ. 02-25-2023.SURPRISE, Ariz. – Take a freeze frame of Patrick Wisdom’s leaping catch in the Cubs’ spring training opener, and he almost looks like a goalkeeper.

He was robbing the Giants’ Blake Sabol of a base hit, elevating to snag a line drive over his head. But replace the baseball with a soccer ball, and he could have been a goalie making a last-ditch effort to push a shot over the crossbar.

Wisdom took advantage of that crossover in the offseason, working with former professional goalkeeper and coach Ben Dragavon, who is based near Wisdom’s…