Cubs’ Kris Bryant laughs off backlash to ‘St. Louis is boring’ comment

MESA, Ariz. – Not everything going on in Cubs camp these days is as glum and gloomy as the gray clouds and rain showers over their practice field for Monday’s first full-squad workouts.

In fact, Kris Bryant said he got some good advice that might make St. Louis a little less boring for him and teammates when they make their three trips to the sleepy burg on the river.

“I might have to explore a little bit when I get there and find some more stuff to do,” he said. “I definitely heard some things more to do there, which I might actually get out and try to do.”

Bryant had some fun Monday morning talking about the swift and viral fallout to his “St. Louis is boring” commentary during Ryan Dempster’s Cubs Convention funny-guy talk show.

“It’s still going on,” said Bryant, who was “caught off guard” how big and fast the blowback was. “It’s like, `OK, I guess it’s good for the rivalry.’ They’ll be interesting games. But I think it was taken totally out of context. We all know that it was a comedy show with Ryan Dempster, at a Cubs Convention, trying to get fans excited for the season.

“I think it certainly did do that.”

He said he enjoyed Cards reliever John Brebbia’s “Cry me a river, loser” reaction during a radio interview the next morning – even if he doesn’t know Brebbia.

“It’s the perfect response to it. I kind of got a chuckle out of it,” he said. “It kind of just exploded. There wasn’t really anything going on. It was Cubs Convention; they had their fan fest, too, at the same time. So it was kind of a perfect storm for media attention and fan attention.”

Not everybody played it off like Bryant and Brebbia. Cards catcher Yadier Molina and many Cards fans were angry in their responses – Molina calling Dempster and Bryant “losers” and “stupid” on social media.

A St. Louis columnist tweeted a reaction Monday from a fan who spotted Molina and yelled at him: “We hate Kris Bryant!”

“I wasn’t attacking anybody. I wasn’t attacking anybody’s family, the organization or the fans,” Bryant said. “It was totally taken out of context. You’d have to ask him what he thinks about it, if he has anything say since then. But it did come off a little strong, kind of caught me off guard a little bit. But, hey, you never know how people will react to what you say. Everybody’s got a different mindset in how they approach things and what they look at. That’s how he looked at it.”

Bryant doesn’t plan to go out of his way to clear the air with Molina when the teams meet next May 3-5 at Wrigley Field.

“I mean, if he’s willing to,” Bryant said. “I don’t think I said anything wrong. So you don’t take anything back.”