“The reason I am here, they tell me, is that I played the game a certain way, that I played the game the way it was supposed to be played.” -Ryne Sandberg on his induction into Cooperstown, the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame
I had begged my mom to let me try. I was nine, and I lived and died with every Cubs win and loss.
Who am I kidding? I still do. Back then it was the most important thing in the world to me, and even now it’s still in my Top 5 most days.
After hours of whining, pleading, and making promises my nine-year-old self could never keep, my mom finally relented. Down in the basement, on our old rotary phone, I must have dialed the number WGN kept plastering on the TV two hundred times—only to get the same busy signal over and over. I wasn’t the only Cubs fan desperate to get tickets to something our grandparents barely remembered: October baseball in Chicago. I never did get to talk to a human being. I finally had to give up.
By then, I must have watched Harry Caray and Steve Stone call a thousand Cubs games. If the Cubs were on, it was must-see TV for this kid, and thanks to WGN, they were always on.
It was early October 1984—My favorite team in the whole wide world was just days away (I was sure of it!) from advancing to their first World Series in nearly four decades, and I was glued to every pitch.
The Cubs had won the first two games of the National League Championship Series, but the Padres took the next two. Game 5 was a winner-take-all for a trip to the World Series.
Chicago’s season had been magical. The roster felt balanced, and it seemed like everyone was having a career year. The turning point came about two months into the season, when they traded for Rick Sutcliffe—“The Red Baron.” Once he joined the Cubs, Sutcliffe went 16–1 with a 2.69 ERA, became the unquestioned ace, and earned the 1984 NL Cy Young Award.
But as much as Sutcliffe was a difference-maker, it was the Cubs’ young second baseman who was the heart of the team, and he had captured my heart. Ryne Sandberg became everything I wanted to be. He played with grace and consistency, never seemed to make an error, and could hit, run, and do everything in between. I knew his stats inside and out, and I couldn’t wait for my Little League coach to give me a shot at handling the “keystone” like Ryno.
Just three months earlier, Sandberg had put on what I still consider the greatest game in Cubs history—“The Sandberg Game”—on June 23, 1984, at Wrigley Field. On the nationally televised Saturday Game of the Week, I watched every pitch. The Cubs came back from multiple deficits to beat the Cardinals 12–11 in 11 innings. Sandberg tied the game twice with home runs off future Hall of Fame closer Bruce Sutter—once in the 9th and again in the 10th—before Dave Owen won it in the 11th. That day, I knew it was going to be a special season.
But back to Game 5. It felt like Christmas, my birthday, and the 4th of July all wrapped into one. We had the Red Baron, the soon-to-be Cy Young winner, on the mound. We had Ryno, the soon-to-be NL MVP, batting second per usual behind the dynamic lead-off Bobby Dernier. And for the first six innings, it was going according to script. The Cubs led 3–2 heading into the bottom of the 7th, with Sutcliffe pitching well.
Then it unraveled. The Padres opened with two baserunners—one on a weak single, another on a bunt single. We needed a double play. The Padres gave us the chance: a slow roller to first baseman Leon Durham. To this day, I still don’t know what happened. The ball slipped right through his legs—the infamous “Gatorade Glove Play,” after Durham had accidentally spilled Gatorade on his mitt earlier in the inning. The tying run scored, the Padres tacked on three more, and the Cubs’ season—and my nine-year-old heart—were crushed.
I don’t have a ton of vivid childhood memories. Not for bad reasons—I just don’t tend to be too nostalgic… unless it’s about the Cubs. But I remember that afternoon clearly. I remember the final out. I remember crying—no, bawling—for what felt like hours. It was like someone had kicked me in the gut, stolen my dog, and burned all my baseball cards in one motion. I can count on one hand the times I cried that hard as a kid. That was one of them.
I’m not nine anymore. I have somewhat better control of my emotions now. But tonight hurt more than I’m willing to admit. And I’ve probably cried more than I expected.
Tonight—July 28, 2025—my childhood hero, Ryne “Ryno” Sandberg, passed away after a long battle with cancer. He loved the game of baseball, but he loved his family more. He cherished the Wrigley faithful, but he always put respect for the game first. He was a ballplayer’s ballplayer.
At the time of his retirement in 1997, he held the record for most home runs ever by a second baseman, along with more Gold Gloves, Silver Sluggers, and All-Star appearances than anyone else who had ever played the position.
For Cubs fans, he belongs on our 5-man Mount Rushmore alongside Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ronny Santo and Fergie Jenkins. He is forever a Hall of Famer—but more importantly, he’s forever the guy who did it right every single day and represented blue-collar Cubs fans the way we hoped someone would. He was the best, and I will always be thankful for the way he shaped my childhood and deepened my love for my lovable losers, the Chicago Cubs.
My only wish is that he could have been on the field in 2016 when the Cubs finally broke the curse and won it all.
RIP Ryno. I’m so thankful for every day we got with you.
Thanks for letting me share this piece of my heart with you. If stories like this connect with you—about sports, life, and the lessons we take from both—I share them every week at CoachMattRogers.com. I’d love for you to stop by, read more, and maybe share your own memories of Ryno with me.
