By Roger Grossman
News Now Warsaw
The famous military leader George Patton once said, “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men live.”
I think a lot of Cubs fans have been struggling with that sentiment over the last two weeks after Hall of Fame second baseman Ryne Sandberg passed away on July 28 at the age of 65.
Sandberg had announced in January of 2024 that he had prostate cancer and then alerted us that fall that he’d been given the “all clear” by his cancer doctors.
But this past winter, it was back, and it had spread.
Sandberg had joined the Cubs in spring training, and during that time many of his old teammates came to Arizona to see him and spend time with him.
As the Cubs season moved into July, more and more of the 1980s and 1990s Cubs players found their way back to Chicago. They came to the ballpark, almost to a man, wearing some version of Sandberg’s No. 23 jersey.
They were telling us that something was up, and they knew it.
They had come to say their “goodbyes” to their friend and teammate.
And on that warm July day, Ryne Sandberg slid into eternity’s home plate.
The lazy thing to do here in my space today would be to rifle off his career accomplishments and his stats; his Gold Gloves and All-Star Selections, his career batting average and everything else.
Numbers can be very cold and hard, and they rarely give you the full picture of what a player did or who they were.
For Sandberg, the old line “you had to be there to understand” totally fits.
Sandberg came to the Cubs from Philadelphia in 1982. He was the kid who was thrown into a deal that involved the Phillies getting younger at shortstop by sending veteran Larry Bowa to Chicago for Ivan DeJesus.
Sandberg was sent along with Bowa because the Phillies just weren’t sure where they would put him. Sandberg was a natural second baseman, but the Phillies had messed around with him at third base.
Either way, Philadelphia had Manny Trillo (who also played for the Cubs) at second and future Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt at third.
He was going to rot at Triple-A.
And so, he became the pot sweetener in the “Larry Bowa” trade with the Cubs.
What he brought with him to the North Side of town was an old-fashioned work ethic that not only made him better, but it made everyone around him work harder to get better too.
His grasp of the fundamentals of every aspect of baseball almost made him seem robotic. He was as dependable a baseball player as I have ever seen and as the game has ever known.
He would go months without making an error. He was so good with the glove that a ground ball hit to the right side of the pitcher’s mound and more than 30 feet off the first base bag was guaranteed to be an out. You didn’t know what it would look like when he did it, but you took for granted that he was going to get to it, catch it, and hit the first baseman in the heart with the throw.
He was also very smooth at making the pivot for double plays. At a time when taking out the second baseman was the primary objective, he would step through the base path or lift a leg at just the right time to avoid contact. And if none of those were going to work, he had this little hop that he would do to avoid the runner barreling in on him.
He was a second baseman who hit for power and hit for a high average at a time where that position on the field was primarily a defensive position manned by a 5’8” tall guy with two-steps-in-front of the warning track power.
He was not the fastest runner, but his read on a batted ball was as good as there was. He was an excellent base stealer because he knew when to go.
He never got doubled off, and he never got picked off.
He never complained about anything. You never heard him talk about contracts or money. He never doubled into the ivy and then beat his chest or pulled up his shirt.
He just played. He played and gave us everything he had. And it was plenty good enough.
As a Cubs fan, he was our guy. He was someone that everyone in the league respected and admired, and we were proud of him.
When the old guard started coming around this summer, wearing their Sandberg gear, it was our warning that it wouldn’t be much longer. And it wasn’t.
And now he’s gone, and with him went the beautiful way he went about his business.
As the tears roll down my cheeks, let us take General Patton’s advice and not mourn the loss of the dear man forever known as “Ryno”.
Instead, let us be grateful that we saw him play, and that he wore our colors.
