It was glimmering out there for Ryne Sandberg, the same destination for a very different test of endurance and will. He had made it to Cooperstown as a player. Now, he wanted to make it as a cancer patient on the way to recovery.
And he did. Sandberg – a 1978 graduate of Spokane’s North Central High School – was one of the 14 Hall of Famers who gathered on May 25 at Doubleday Field for the East-West Classic, a recreation of the old Negro Leagues All-Star Game. He didn’t play, but he won.
“The timing was good for this trip, so I had this on the calendar, kind of penciled in,” Sandberg said behind the batting cage before the game. “Then I got good news last week, so it freed me up to come up here. And this is a well-needed getaway. This is a special place to come anyway, and my wife also needed a break; she’s had her hands full as well. We always love coming here.”
Sandberg, 64, announced on Jan. 22 that he had been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer. In the four months since, he has chronicled his ordeal on Instagram, posting messages through six rounds of chemotherapy.
In a social media post last week, Sandberg revealed that PET and MRI scans on May 20 revealed “NO detection of Cancer!” He said he would soon begin several weeks of radiation treatment and that while some daily symptoms remained, he was having “semi normal good days” and felt blessed and grateful.
“It’s a battle and it changes your whole life and your calendar for that year or more – for the rest of your life,” Sandberg said in an X post. “So I have an appreciation for that, and also I have a mentality to not take anything for granted and enjoy everything in life – the day-to-day, basic things and the little things that I enjoy. I maybe appreciate and enjoy those moments a little bit more.”
Sandberg, a three-sport star at NC, was named to Parade Magazine’s high school all-America football team. He signed a letter of intent to play quarterback for Washington State before opting to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies after being selected in the 20th round of the 1978 MLB draft. Sandberg made his MLB debut with the Phillies in 1981 before being traded to the Cubs prior to the 1982 season.
Sandberg – who made 10 All-Star teams in a row from 1984 to 1993 as the Cubs’ second baseman – threw out the first pitch in Chicago on opening day. (He bounced it due to double vision, he said.)
Another honor awaits.
On June 23, the Cubs will unveil a statue of Sandberg outside Wrigley Field. The date marks the 40th anniversary of a breakout performance so renowned that it has its own Wikipedia page: the Sandberg Game.
Facing the rival St. Louis Cardinals on that golden Saturday in 1984 – before 38,079 fans on the North Side and a national TV audience on NBC’s “Game of the Week” – Sandberg went 5 for 6 with seven runs batted in. He belted game-tying homers off another future Hall of Famer, Bruce Sutter, in both the ninth and 10th innings.
The Cubs won in 11 innings, 12-11, and by the end of the month they had risen to first place in the National League East. They finished on top for their first postseason berth since 1945, and Sandberg was named NL Most Valuable Player.
The game – called by Bob Costas, who will introduce Sandberg at the statue unveiling – gave Sandberg a new self-image. A 20th-round draft pick who’d been traded away by the Philadelphia Phillies in 1982 after one career hit, he welcomed the responsibilities of stardom.
“It changed my whole career, really got me on the map,” Sandberg said. “And it was very much a team thing, because the rest of the season, after the All-Star break, Wrigley Field was sold out, which you didn’t see in ’82 and ’83, my first two years.
“And then being so young – I was just 24 years old when all that happened, and that was kind of my new standard for my remaining years, which was 13 more years. So you got the whole thing: MVP-type seasons, silver bats and Gold Gloves, getting to the playoffs and World Series, those were all goals and they all happened, or got a taste of it, in ’84.”
The Cubs fell just short of the World Series, dropping a heartbreaking NL Championship Series to San Diego. But Sandberg’s steady, all-around excellence at second base earned him a plaque at the Hall in 2005 and a strong support network for the fight of his life.
“I have so much appreciation for my former teammates and the baseball world, the baseball fans, the Hall of Fame members, neighbors, friends, everybody that reached out with good wishes,” Sandberg said. “It was off-the-charts incredible.”
