There are well-deserved accolades pouring in from every corner of the baseball community about one of the greatest second basemen of a generation. On June 23, 2024 when Ryne Sandberg’s statue was unveiled at Gallagher Way I wrote about that ceremony, and genuinely wasn’t sure I needed to say anything else today.
But this morning before work I headed to Wrigley Field to pay tribute to the man who sparked my love for the game and reflected a bit on how much Sandberg’s quiet, steady work ethic impacts
me, even now. I thought I’d share a much more personal reflection on 40+ years of Cubs fandom and Ryne Sandberg.
For thousands of kids who loved baseball in the 1980s and 1990s there were two choices for teams you could watch every day. The Atlanta Braves were on TV almost every night on TBS and the Chicago Cubs were playing day baseball almost every afternoon on WGN.
I grew up in a family where baseball set the cadence of many days. My dad played wiffle ball with me and my brother in the living room until my mom worried we were going after the ball so hard we might break something. We moved the game outside. The field expanded from our yard, to the neighbors’ yard, to the street, and eventually to the Little League fields where my dad would later coach and my brother would play. I would learn to keep score at those Little League games. I later got my first shot as a PA announcer there as well. And when we came inside from baseball, if there was a game on TV it was the most likely thing to be on in our house.
Early on in this story, on June 23, 1984 I fell in love with the Cubs and Ryne Sandberg.
When something catches my attention I have a tendency to go all in. Baseball was no exception. I recorded Cubs games on our VHS and ran downstairs to watch them from start to finish, begging people not to tell me what happened. I pored over books about baseball history, records and stats. I’m sure I was already asking my dad if my favorite player, Ryne Sandberg, was a Hall of Famer before their heartbreaking loss to the Giants in the 1989 NLCS.
I remember how nervous I was when there was a chance Sandberg would no longer be a Cub in 1992. And I remember the sense of elation and pride in my favorite team when they signed my favorite player to then the largest contract in the history of the sport.
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Sports IllustratedI’ve thought about that moment in 1992 a lot over the years. I was 13 years old, the perfect age to turn on my team if they betrayed my trust in them. There’s a non-zero chance I would have gone the route of my brother who was a Braves fan, then a Yankees fan, then a Mariners fan, before settling on being a Yankees fan again as an adult. It made the sting of losing Greg Maddux to the Braves a few years later tolerable, although unpleasant.
As I cried harder than I’d like to admit near Ryno’s statue this morning with a few dozen people milling around paying their respects, I thought of the last time I cried so hard over my original favorite player — the first time he retired from baseball. It was such a shocking moment, but one that made sense in the context of a man who prided himself on showing up, every day, doing all the little things right:
“I am not the type of person who can be satisfied with anything less than my very best effort and my very top performance,” Sandberg said. “I am not the type of person who can leave my game at the ballpark and feel comfortable that my future is set regardless of my performance.
”And I am certainly not the type of person who can ask the Cubs organization and Chicago Cubs fans to pay my salary when I am not happy with my mental approach and my performance.”
I remember talking to my dad about it, and being gutted that this early exit from the sport might impact Sandberg’s Hall of Fame case. But my dad has a similar quiet, consistent work ethic and a similar commitment to excellence through dedication and showing up. I don’t remember what he said to me, but I remember it put baseball in perspective. I decided to keep showing up, first for the Cubs, but eventually for other pursuits as well.
When I entered high school, competitive debate caught my attention with a spark similar to the one baseball lit in 1984. It would eventually become my vocation. As luck would have it, as I embarked on that journey, Ryne Sandberg was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
It was 2005, in the height of the steroid era and a couple of years before the Mitchell Report dropped. Ryne Sandberg, not exactly known as a great orator, used his moment in Cooperstown to deliver a speech that American Rhetoric lists as one of the greatest speeches of all time:
The entire speech is excellent, but this jumped out at me and stayed with me:
The fourth major league game I ever saw in person, I was in uniform. Yes, I was in awe. I was in awe every time I walked on to the field.
That’s Respect.
I was taught you never, ever disrespect your opponent or your teammates or your organization or your manager and never, ever your uniform. Make a great play — act like you’ve done it before. Get a big hit — look for the third base coach and and get ready to run the bases. Hit a home run — put your head down, drop the bat, run around the bases, because the name on the front is more — a lot more important than the name on the back.
That’s Respect.
I don’t know how many debaters came through my classroom and programs, but most of them saw that speech at least once. The ethos of respect and what it means to drive your day, your conduct, your decisions and your work has been a guiding principle for my life and work. About 10 years ago my best friend framed that quote with a picture of Ryno at the plate — it hangs on my wall where I see it as I work every day.
As a little kid I dreamed of being Harry Caray when I grew up. I lived for day baseball, Wrigley Field and Ryne Sandberg making great defensive plays. As a teenager I tried my hand at play-by-play on camcorders parents set up at my brother’s Little League and Babe Ruth games. I got my first bylines at 13 covering their team when they made it to the Western Regionals of the Little League World Series. But every now and again, I sit in awe that as an adult I am privileged to work in two fields I love fiercely.
Last year as I stood on the field after being in the scrum of reporters at Ryne Sandberg’s statue unveiling, I thought about his words from the dais: “It’s amazing what can happen when dreams meet hard work.” Nine-year-old me could never have imagined covering a beautiful day like that. Today as I stood in the same spot remembering one of my heroes, I was profoundly grateful a bit of that lesson worked its way into my life. Respect, Ryno. Rest easy.
Paying respect to the greatest second baseman I ever saw. pic.twitter.com/BBN4W3T7rO
— Sara Sanchez (@BCB_Sara) July 29, 2025
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- Today in Cubs history: Ryne Sandberg’s first retirement
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