Cubs Manager Joe Maddon has artistic ideas about baseball

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Joe Maddon has spent decades in the game and he's got a few different ways of looking at it -- and you can put six of them on your wall.

It's also a way to get an autograph of the Chicago Cubs' World Series-winning manager who has never sat down with a card company for a certified signature on a card despite a 15-year career as boss atop plenty more time as a coach and minor-leaguer. It's that time that helped bring some of these concepts to life.

"I’ve been wanting to do this for years" reads on essay on the Maddon Art website. "I’ve always enjoyed art, we all do. I’m not saying I’m an artist by any means, but I’ve always enjoyed the concepts. I believe baseball is a very artistic game and that major league players are artists, just like athletes from all of the other professional sports. For some time, I have tried to coerce Major League Baseball to utilize 'Put the Art Back in Thee Game' as a marketing campaign. I was unable to get anyone to bite, so I did it myself."

The project is a collaboration with Jason Skeldon, aka "SKEL," and there are presently six pieces available in a number of formats. Another goal with the project is to promote the arts in Chicago and raise funds for the Respect 90 foundation, which has a mission to "enrich the lives of at-risk children and families in all of the places [Maddon] and his wife, Jaye, call home: Chicago, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Mesa and Joe’s hometown, Hazleton, Pa."

The six pieces -- concepts and phrases from Maddon -- in the Signature Edition Series are 16-by-20 prints that are signed by the skipper and embossed with the artist's seal. They're $389 wth proceeds benefitting Respect 90. They're also all available unsigned as poster prints ($24.99), metallic prints ($48), open series prints ($179) and metal prints ($209).

"What you’re seeing right now in my mind’s eye is how to promote the game of baseball," Maddon said on the site. "We are trying to attract young people to the sport, whether it’s to play it, or just enjoy it and become involved. I think for the group that doesn’t want to necessarily participate, this may resonate. From the artistic component, it creates curiosity."

You can see all six pieces in the gallery below along with a short interview where he explains some specifics of the pieces and the concepts behind them.

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