CHICAGO — Alex Bregman’s five-year, $175 million deal will go down as one of the biggest contracts in Chicago Cubs history.

The way it went down will be remembered for how it was announced.

Talks began almost as soon as the offseason began on Nov. 6, 2025, at 4 p.m. Central time, but a deal wasn’t consummated until the afternoon of Jan. 10, 2026.

“Literally, the first second free agency opened, we knew that the Cubs wanted our family to be here,” Bregman said.

But after two months of waiting while the Boston Red Sox — his current team — and others showed interest, Bregman finally agreed to make Wrigley Field his new home. A few minutes remained in the third quarter of the Chicago Bears-Green Bay Packers wild-card playoff game at Soldier Field when MLB Network insider Jon Heyman tweeted that Bregman had signed with the Cubs.

Certainly there were a few people who celebrated the Bregman news, but most everyone else in Chicago was giving their undivided attention to the Bears.

Bregman was at his Arizona home with his wife, Reagan, when the tweet hit the fan.

“Reagan and I were getting dinner when the deal broke in the fourth quarter,” Bregman said Thursday during his introductory press conference in Chicago.

“And we had the game on, and I said ‘This could go one of two ways. I hope they come back and win.’ ”

Fortunately for Chicago, the Bears did come back and win, making it a win-win day for Cubs and Bears fans. Some even credited Bregman for the comeback, suggesting the karma of his signing seeped into Ben Johnson’s game plan.

“I certainly wasn’t planning on having that news break during the Bears game,” Cubs President Jed Hoyer said. “I was sitting at home watching the game with my boys.”

Of course, Hoyer was the one who actually got the deal done the day of the Bears playoff game, so he did have a little control over the timing. But I digress.

“We sign Alex in the third or fourth quarter of the Bears game on a Saturday night,” Hoyer continued. “You never quite know when deals are going to get done. It wasn’t ideal timing, but it ended up kind of perfect. I think they were down 21-6 when the news broke.”

I was at a Bears watch party with White Sox fans, who were not the least bit interested in Bregman, the Cubs or Heyman’s tweets, so safe to say not everyone in Chicago was excited about the signing.

Bregman said an hour before the Bears game that negotiations were “getting down to the final hours” between Hoyer and his agent, Scott Boras.

“Scott and Jed were talking back and forth, and Reagan and I were getting excited,” he said. “Reagen was looking at places to live in Chicago, and I was talking to Scott. As soon as it was official, we went out and grabbed dinner together and celebrated. Actually went over to (Jameson Taillon’s house) right after and hung out with them and talked about the Cubs and how much we were looking forward to playing together on the same team.”

Dansby Swanson texted Bregman from a wedding, and Bregman spoke to Pete Crow-Armstrong, Ian Happ and other new teammates.

Boras was at his home in Southern California when the news broke. When I asked Boras about the curious timing, he said he and Hoyer “literally got off the phone when we completed our deal, and I had to call these teams (that missed out). I called the teams (executives) and they then called their owners. And guess who immediately called so-and-so and so-and-so because they wanted to move on to the next player?”

So “so-and-so” were the culprits?

“Literally, within 45 minutes, boom-boom-boom, I’m getting all these calls (from reporters), all these guys that are after me,” Boras said.

Hoyer presumably got the same calls from so-and-so and so-and-so, though he did not elaborate on his Saturday night.

Boras said the timing of the breaking news wasn’t really surprising because of the way most news leaks happen. No mea culpa to hear here.

“When you notify a team you’re not coming there, or teams in this case, they immediately say ‘Hey we’re (out),’ ” Boras said. “And then it gets out through the back door instead of the front door.”

Bregman said he had been thinking about the Cubs since the first day of free agency in November, though the rumors didn’t seem to percolate at the general managers meeting in Las Vegas when Boras met with the media and revealed his latest puns on the potential free-agent destinations of his many clients.

Boras’ bad puns are a tradition at the offseason baseball meetings, but he couldn’t remember the pun he had selected for Bregman’s free agency. So he pulled out his phone and eventually found it in his notes and read it out loud: “Every October it’s Alex in Wonderland, a bregularly scheduled program.”

Bregularly scheduled? Are you embarrassed to admit you wrote that? “Yes, I wrote that,” Boras admitted.

Now that the Bregman signing is over, we can return to our irregularly scheduled Bears playoff run, already in progress.

Bregman is from New Mexico and said he grew up a Brian Urlacher fan and watched Bears games like everyone else there. He and his father, Sam, made a trip to Chicago in 2016 to watch the Bears, Bulls and Blackhawks.

Sam Bregman is a district attorney and a Democrat running for governor of New Mexico. According to Politico, his launch ad had him riding on horseback and saying “New Mexico is under attack by Elon Musk, his puppet Donald Trump and the Republicans in Washington.”

Alex Bregman has been in town all week, attending Blackhawks and Bulls games at the United Center. He needs to hit The Wieners Circle before he leaves, but he said after the Cubs Convention, he plans on attending the Sunday’s Bears-Rams playoff game, where wind chills will be around zero if he’s lucky.

“Hopefully stay warm,” he said.

No matter. After an eventful offseason, Alex finally found his Wonderland.

Was there ever a doubt?

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