Ex-Cub Kyle Hendricks in no rush to figure out what comes after baseball; says, ‘Not knowing, it’s awesome’

A year ago on April 13, Kyle Hendricks had his first rough go with his boyhood team, the Angels, taking it on the chin in Houston for his first loss of his only major league season pitching for anyone other than the Cubs.There would be more games like that in the ensuing months, enough that when Hendricks hit the finish line with an 8-10 record and 4.76 ERA at age 35, he decided to shut it down for good, calling it a career with a 105-91 record that probably didn’t do justice to how excellent he’d been at his finest in 2016 and for four or five seasons after that.But the whole lot was enough for him. Now 36, he’s enjoying what he calls a “transition stage” in Arizona, where he’s a stay-at-home dad to his and wife Emma’s 2-year-old son, Luca.“I would love to grow the family, but right now, really it’s just nice to not have everything be crazy,” he told the Sun-Times. “Your whole life being baseball, it’s always just go, go, go. I feel so lucky, all the experiences I had.”Those who covered “the Professor’s” Cubs tenure, which lasted 11 seasons, saw the bookish, whip-smart Ivy Leaguer as a natural to move into coaching or even onto a front-office track after his pitching days, but Hendricks isn’t sure that’s for him.“It’s amazing to me that people even thought that, but my dream was to be a player,” he said. “You know the game comes to an end at some point. You’re still so young. At that point, you’re blessed with what you get.”But maybe?“I’m not writing anything off, for sure,” he said. “But I knew I was going to be a player. Now, not knowing, it is awesome. Of course I love baseball, love the game,...