Ryne Sandberg remembered for how he played the game and treated people on way to Hall of Fame

ANAHEIM, Calif. — The public and private elements of Ryne Sandberg’s life came together during Friday’s memorial service at Old St. Patrick’s Church, a building that withstood the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and landed on the National Register of Historic Places.

That classical setting was a fitting way to remember the stoic Sandberg, whose name is forever etched into the city’s history as an iconic figure for the Chicago Cubs. The Hall of Fame second baseman, who died last month at the age of 65 after a battle with cancer, connected generations of baseball fans and nurtured an extended family that had grown to include 11 grandchildren.

Although naturally introverted, Sandberg performed at such a high level and carried himself with such grace that multiple local stations broadcast the funeral live on TV. The Cubs organized a public tribute outside Wrigley Field so fans could watch it on the big videoboard and visit the Sandberg statue.

“What endeared him to fans and earned him universal respect within the game wasn’t just what he did, but the way he did it,” broadcaster Bob Costas said during an emotional eulogy. “He was a flawless, all-around player, talented and fundamentally sound. The kind of player any dad or youth coach could point to and say, ‘That’s the way you play the game.’”

Inside the West Loop church, priests wore vestments adorned with the Cubs logo and 23, the jersey number the franchise had retired 20 years ago to honor Sandberg. A contingent of Cubs officials from the business and baseball sides of the organization — including Tom Ricketts, Jed Hoyer, Carter Hawkins and Crane Kenney — gathered in the pews near the front. A group of Sandberg’s beloved teammates — including Larry Bowa, Bob Dernier, Rick Sutcliffe, Andre Dawson and Shawon Dunston — sat to the side of the altar.

The guests also included Hall of Famers Billy Williams, Joe Torre, Jim Thome and Frank Thomas, Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, and Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner of the city’s Bulls and White Sox franchises. But Sandberg was mostly remembered for how he acted away from the spotlight, and how he treated people who were not famous athletes or powerful executives.

That’s where Kyle Hendricks’ thoughts drifted, even while he was more than 2,000 miles away in Southern California. Hendricks, the longtime Cub and 2016 World Series champion who’s now pitching for the Los Angeles Angels, instantly recognized Sandberg’s modesty and kindness.

“You saw that every time he came around the ballpark,” Hendricks said Friday at Angel Stadium. “His interactions with the fans, he would stay out there as long as needed, as long as possible. When he’d come around the clubhouse, he’d spend his time with the players and talk about baseball if you wanted to, but there was never any pressure coming from him. Just the most down-to-earth, regular, normal guy you could ever meet. You wouldn’t expect that to be Ryne Sandberg.”

Rev. Tom Hurley, who presided over the ceremony, described Sandberg and his wife, Margaret, as the type of people who insisted that the priest stay at their Arizona residence whenever he ran the Phoenix Marathon, whether they were home or not. They made sure to leave Hurley and his friends some bottles of wine. They opened Sandberg’s trophy room so that they could comfortably watch college basketball on TV.

After Hurley’s mother died earlier this year, Sandberg and his wife showed up to the wake on Chicago’s South Side, at a time when Sandberg was undergoing intensive treatment.

“With that magnificent smile and that beautiful heart, he lifted us up,” Hurley said. “When I think about Ryne, I didn’t have to be a fan of baseball. I was a fan of a guy who just embodied the best and the beauty of what family life was all about.”

Sandberg aged into that role gracefully, opening up in ways that he could not during his playing career, an era defined by his obsession with daily preparation and a consistent approach to handling the demands of being a superstar.

One of the narrators of that story was Costas, who called “The Sandberg Game” in 1984. That moment on national TV catapulted Sandberg, who went 5-for-6 with two late home runs off Hall of Fame closer Bruce Sutter in a wild 12-11 comeback victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

“Not only is it the signature game of an MVP season and a Hall of Fame career,” Costas said. “Not only did it serve notice to the rest of the country that the long woebegone Cubs were actually contenders. But that day and that season personified a drastically changed dynamic around the Cubs.

“Now this is not to shortchange the Cubs of Ernie Banks and Ron Santo and Ferguson Jenkins and Billy Williams. But it had been a long time since the Cubs felt relevant. And all of a sudden, so many things came together all at once. Dallas Green had remade the team. WGN had become a superstation. So now there were Cubs fans all around the country. Harry Caray had come over from the South Side, bringing with him a certain measure of energy and personality. The whole vibe around the team had changed.

“From that point forward, through good seasons and bad, it’s never gone back to what it once was. The Cubs were still beloved, sure, but now they were cool and a hot ticket. The phrase ‘plenty of good seats still available’ was seldom heard again around Wrigley Field. For the first decade-plus of this reimagining of what the Cubs were about, the face of the team, the signature player, the No. 23 in Chicago before Michael Jordan, was Ryne Sandberg.”

The Cubs unveiled their Sandberg statue last summer, on the 40th anniversary of that unforgettable game. Sensing an opportunity, Cubs manager Craig Counsell led his coaches and players to a balcony that overlooks the plaza outside Wrigley Field. In a respectful gesture that still resonates, they paused their own pregame preparations to watch the ceremony and better understand an enormous part of franchise history.

“Sometimes the only way you can do it is to be present at something like that,” Counsell said. “It’s not for Ryno’s speech, necessarily. It’s just seeing people come to honor a man, and honor a Cub. What a player can mean to the fans, you want your players to see that connection, and see what you do on the field means to people.”

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