Justin Steele has been through the wringer for more than a year now. A UCL tear, surgery, a long rehab, and then a flexor strain setback in April that pushed his return timeline back again. That is a brutal stretch for any pitcher, especially one who was pitching like a legitimate ace before his elbow gave out.
Then a letter from a Cubs fan named Tommy Lynch of Orland Park showed up, and Steele completely broke down.
“Be right back. Crying. Cubs fans are the absolute best,” Steele tweeted alongside photos of the handwritten note.
Lynch made a point of telling Steele that he was not looking for an autograph or a photo or anything at all. He just wanted the pitcher to feel better. “I have been a die hard Cubs fan since the moment I was born,” he wrote, before offering encouragement to a player he has never met.
This is the kind of moment that reminds you why sports actually matter. Strip away the contracts, the standings, the trade rumors, and you are left with a fan and a player who share something real. Lynch does not know Steele personally. He just cares.
Steele has earned that kind of loyalty. He made the All-Star team in 2023, put together a career mark of 32-22 with a 3.30 ERA and 1.214 WHIP across 102 appearances, and quietly became one of the more reliable starters in the National League. At 30 years old, he was supposed to be entering the meat of his prime.
Instead he has been watching his teammates from the training room. He last pitched in April 2025. The surgery went well, the recovery was on track for an early 2026 return, and then the flexor strain hit and everything got pushed back again. Anyone who has followed a rehab knows how demoralizing setbacks like that can be.
The Cubs need him back. Their pitching staff has been thin all season, with Edward Cabrera and Jameson Taillon also unavailable. A healthy Steele changes the rotation immediately. But this letter is not about baseball production. It is about a person.
Lynch understood that. He did not write about strikeout totals or ERA. He wrote about being a fan, about wanting Steele to know that people are pulling for him. That is a generous thing to do, and it clearly landed.
Athletes get an endless amount of noise thrown at them. Social media is a constant stream of criticism, second-guessing, and takes from people who have never met them. A handwritten letter cuts through all of that.
You can tell from Steele’s reaction that he needed to hear something like this. Long rehabs are lonely. The support of a fanbase can feel abstract when you are grinding through daily physical therapy sessions with no game action on the horizon. A letter makes it tangible.
Whenever Steele gets back on a big league mound, he will have this moment in his back pocket. That is worth more than any pep talk from a coach or trainer. It came from a stranger who took the time to write.
Sports connections like this one are the whole point. Tommy Lynch nailed it.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
