Ryne Sandberg, Chicago Cubs Hall of Famer and MLB Legend, Dies at 65

I was at The Ryne Sandberg Game.

It was June 23, 1984. The Cubs—who sat atop the Central Division with an NL-leading record of 58-34—were hosting the second-place St. Louis Cardinals, their despised rival. Then 24-years-old, Sandberg was in the midst of a killer season, on pace to compile a career-best WAR of 8.5.

That WAR, my friends, is an elite number, as borne out by the list of MLB position players who posted a single-season 8.5:

Nap Lajoie – 1904 (age 29)
Tris Speaker – 1913 (age 25)
Joe Cronin – 1930 (age 23)
Babe Ruth – 1932 (age 37)
Joe Medwick – 1937 (age 25)
Henry Aaron – 1967 (age 33)
Willie Wilson – 1980 (age 24)
Ryne Sandberg – 1984 (age 24)
Alex Rodriguez – 1998 (age 22)
Albert Pujols – 2004 (age 24)
Albert Pujols – 2006 (age 26)
Robinson Canó – 2012 (age 29)

Ruth. Aaron. Pujols. Sandberg. Heady company.

No wonder the man we called Ryno was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2005.

As for the game in question—a game so monumental that it elicited its own Wikipedia page—my best buddy and I were sitting in the left field bleachers, and it was magical, and I didn’t take it for granted then, and I don’t take it for granted now.

Let's turn it over to Chicago Tribune baseball scribe, Paul Sullivan:

One game. One man. A million memories packed into nearly four hours of baseball on a hot summer day at the corner of Clark and Addison.

“So very few games have a name,” broadcaster Bob Costas told the Tribune. “There’s the Pine Tar game, which was the year before. This was a signature game of what turned out to be a Hall of Fame career.”

Trailing 9-3, the Cubs put up a five-spot in the sixth, pulling within one run on Sandberg’s two-run single off Neil Allen. It was a 9-8 game in the ninth when Herzog brought in Sutter, the former Cubs pitcher and best closer in the National League. In 45 1/3 innings over 27 outings, he had a 1.19 ERA and had allowed three home runs.

Sandberg, leading off, drilled a home run to left field on a 1-1 pitch to tie the game and turn Wrigley Field into a mosh pit of flying beer. Cubs closer Lee Smith, famous for his snail-like walk from the bullpen to the mound, entered in the 10th and served up a single to Ozzie Smith and a go-ahead double to McGee, who completed his cycle. The Cardinals added an insurance run to take a two-run lead into the bottom of the inning.

With two outs in the bottom of the 10th, [the game’s play-by-play announcer Bob Costas] announced McGee as the “Player of the Game” and began reading the credits. Uh-oh.

Sandberg hit the 1-1 pitch. Sutter immediately reacted in dismay, knowing it was gone. The ball sailed deep into the left-field bleachers to tie the game again as pandemonium broke loose.

The Cubs punched in a run in the 11th. Ballgame. (For what it's worth, Sandberg's numbers that afternoon—two dingers, five hits, six RBIs, two runs scored—would've made for one helluva DFS play, to the tune of 47 DraftKings points.) And the 12-11 win set up permanent residence in the baseball section of our cortexes.

The game was always in Ryno’s cortex because Chicago fans didn’t let him forget about it:

“Hitting two game-tying home runs off of Bruce Sutter, that was a feat that I know never happened in his career, being the dominant groundball pitcher with a pitch (the splitter) that would drop 3 feet at home plate. It was just unnatural to hit, let alone elevating two balls into left field for game-tying home runs in those moments.

“It was really the only two swings that I believe in my whole career that I aimed a half a foot underneath the baseball, the reason being that we were down and there was nothing to lose in that situation and everything to gain. And that’s the plan that I went with. As it turns out, it was just something totally different that I hadn’t done before.

“Forty years, to have fans come up to me and talk about that game as if it just happened just a few years ago.”

On January 24, 2024, Sandberg posted the above on his Instagram page, and Cubs Nation was devastated, with thousands of his social media followers offering up notes of love and support.

Eight months later, Sandberg dropped a second health announcement on IG:

In December of 2024, the cancer returned, then, six months later, the 65-year-old succumbed to the disease.

ESPN reported that, “[Sandberg] was surrounded by his family when he died at his home.”

If you never had the opportunity to watch the 1984 MVP perform live and in person—if you never saw him light up Wrigley Field—here’s the next best thing.

Little wonder that the baseball world is gutted by the too-soon loss of this legend.