by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–Jon Lester was the biggest prize in the 2014 Baseball Winter Meetings, which concludes tomorrow in San Diego. The lefty considered one of the best pitchers in baseball pitched for two teams this season. The Boston Red Sox and the Oakland Athletics and combined for a record of 16-11 with a 2.46 earned run average in a total of 32 games he started.

In the little time that he spent with the Athletics he was the consummate professional, one guy that has the ability to inspire others to win, a guy with tremendous pride and tremendous humility at the same time. The Cubs,Red Sox,Giants, Dodgers and maybe another mystery team were bidding for Lester. On Wednesday morning he chose the Chicago Cubs, even though the San Francisco Giants were willing to give him another year on the contract and about $13 million more.

Lester got a six year deal worth $155 million, to work for his old boss an friend Theo Epstein, now the General Manager of the Cubs, previously with the Boston Red Sox, were Lester won two rings in 2007 and 2013. The San Francisco Giants were offering Lester seven years and $168 million.

So as we can see, not everything comes down to money in life. Lester said about the deal and about the Cubs, “The thing I liked about ’em is it wasn’t forced and it wasn’t a sales pitch,” Lester said after his meeting with the Cubs. “It was like, ‘This is what we can do.’ I don’t want BS. I don’t want show. I don’t want glitz and glamour. I don’t want to walk out to the field with your name and number on the JumboTron. I’m not 18 anymore. I want you to tell me what you can do for me and my family.”

Jon Lester who was born in Tacoma, Washington, and is a cancer survivor, lives with his family in Atlanta, Georgia and although among the three teams most serious to hire him, Cubs,Giants and Red Sox, the Giants offered the better “pitching park”,there is no doubt AT&T Park is much better of a pitching park than Fenway or Wrigley, he chose to work for a team that hasn’t won a World Series since 1908, instead of one that has won 3 World Series the last 5 years.

The Cubs have a new look, with general Joe Maddon as manager and they have one of the youngest and most talented groups of stars in the game: Javier Baez, Anthony Rizzo, Starlin Castro, Kris Bryant and Jorge Soler among others eager to report in a couple of months to the spectacular Spring Training facility, anybody who visited there knows what I am talking about. The Cubs have the best and most modern Spring Training facility.

The Cubs are the oldest currently active U.S. professional sports club, continuously existing in the same city for their entire history. They are one of the two remaining charter members of the National League (the other being the Atlanta Braves). Since Chicago did not have a fully operating White Stockings team for two seasons due to the Great Chicago Fire, differences continue to be voiced when considering the elder status of this ball club: Although the Braves have played for more consecutive seasons, the Cubs hold the distinction of having been founded a full season earlier (Cubs in 1870 and Braves in 1871).

Whatever you believe about the Chicago Cubs, there is little doubt of their fans commitment to this club. The very first time I visited Wrigley Field, Chicago, there was a souvenir store right across the street from the park with awning that read: “being a Cubs fans is a lifelong commitment”, that store is still there and the Cubs fans generation after generation are still there supporting their team, which has played in Chicago only. Jon Lester is part of the new look with manager Joe Maddon that will try to change that loosing mentality in the Windy City.

Back when I was broadcasting Seattle Mariners games, I remember the first time a young Jon Lester visited Safeco Field with his Red Sox uniform, he gave a private press conference to the Seattle media and he was as popular in Seattle as he was in Boston at that time, well known in the Seattle-Tacoma area for all his conections with the local community of Puget Sound. This week,when he made the decision that he didn’t want to take the Giants offer, he personally called the Giants to thank them, as he told them. He didn’t have to do that, but that is the type of man that Jon Lester is.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for Oakland A’s baseball and does News and Commentary each week on http://www.sportsradioservice.com