This story appears in the March 27, 2007 issue of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. Subscribe to the magazine by clicking here.
Everything you are about to read is true, though at times it may sound too good to be so.
It is true that Kris Bryant was the 2013 College Player of the Year, the 2014 Minor League Player of the Year, the 2015 National League Rookie of the Year and, while playing third base for the first world championship Chicago Cubs team in 108 years, the 2016 NL Most Valuable Player.
It is also true that two months after he secured the last out to clinch the Holy Grail of sports championships, Bryant, 25, married his high school sweetheart, a girl he met in freshman English class.