Forever Young

Ryne Sandberg died this week, too young, at age 65.  Prostate cancer.  So sad and so hard to believe.

Hall of Fame MLB player (2005).  10 time MLB All-Star, 9 time Gold Glove winner at second base, and 8 time Silver Slugger award winner.  Without question, one of the best second baseman of all time.  A stellar defensive second baseman with surprising power at the late.  He won an MVP award in 1984.  

Always a quiet, unassuming player, Sandberg was the consummate Chicago Cub during his 15 season with the club (1982 - 1987).  In 1984, the year he won the MVP he led the Cubs to the playoffs for the first time since 1945, he hit .314 with 200 hits, 19 home runs, 84 RBI, 19 triples, and 32 stolen bases.  At the time, it was one of the best offensive seasons ever for a second baseman.

For me, Ryne Sandberg was forever young.  I feel like I lost part of my youth with his dying.  Why?  I'll explain.

In the late 1970's and early 1980's, Because there was no internet, no smart phones, and no MLB Network, a true baseball fan like me got all of his baseball news from the box scores int he Tennessean or the Nashville Banner, my weekly issue of The Sporting News or, to a lesser extent, Sports Illustrated.  There was very little baseball on television other than the Game of the Week.  For highlights, there was This Week in Baseball.  

I'm not sure when we got cable television in our house, but I'm guessing it was 1979 or 1980.  Suddenly, I could watch the Atlanta Braves on TBS, the New York Mets on WOR, or the Chicago Cubs on WGN.  For a baseball nut like me, this was heaven on earth.  Best of all, the Cubs played only day games, so every day in the summer, I could watch them early and mid-afternoons.  It was perfect.

Ryne Sandberg arrived in Chicago from the Phillies in 1982 in one of the most lopsided MLB trades of all time.  Ryne Sandberg and Larry Bowa for Ivan DeJesus.  Sandberg was young, tall, ruggedly handsome, and quickly became a superstar for the Cubs.  Batting second in the lineup, behind center fielder Bobby Dernier, he became part of "the Daily Double," a moniker invented by the Cubs' iconic announcer, Harry Caray.

Everything came together in the spring and summer of 1984, as the Cubs streaked to the division title it the National League East.  They finished 96 - 65 and I swear, it seems like I watched everyone of their games on television.  The Dodgers were still my team but I fell in love with that Cubs' squad in large part because I was able to watch them every day on WGN.  

So many of the Cubs' players, like Ryne Sandberg were young.  I was, too, as I turned 18 years old that summer.  Everything was so new.  Baseball games on cable television every day?!?  The Cubs on the way to their first division title in 39 years.  It was all so exciting. 

Anything was possible.  For the Cubs and, of course, for me.

In many ways, it was an endless summer, the last one for me.  I was working the night shift at Wal-Mart, partly because it allowed me to sleep in and wake up in time to watch the Cubs' home games on television.  17 years old and working the night shift?  Why not? 

Everything changed, of course, as my friends started to drift off to college at the end of the summer.  Neil to Vanderbilt.  Jay to University of Virginia.  Doug to Auburn.  Me, and so many other, to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.  I didn't know it then but things would never be as simple, as innocent, as they were in the summer of 1984. 

It seems like every time I watched a Cubs' game that summer that Ryne Sandberg was getting an extra base hit in a key situation.  A home run or a triple.  Or turning a key double play, as Harry Caray shouted "Cubs Win!  Cubs Win!" It was, to be sure, a magical summer for the Cubs.  

As summer ended, I packed for college.  My mom and my next door neighbor, Warren Gilley, moved me to Knoxville.  He was like a second father to me, gone so many years now.  Later, he told me buy mom cried all the way back to Cookeville after they dropped me off and helped me unload my belongings into my room on the ground floor of Reese Hall.  

As I began going to classes on the Hill and adjusted to life on my own for the first time, the Cubs kept winning.  They clinched the division and played the San Diego Padres in the first round of the National League Playoffs.  No doubt, this was the year the Cubs were going to break the curse and win their first World Series title since 1908.  It was going to happen.

The Cubs took a 2 - 0 lead in the best of five game series.  I still remember, like yesterday, that someone in Reese Hall made a sign out of making tape in their dorm room window after the second game of the division series.  

"GO CUBS!  WIN ONE MORE!"

As any Cubs' fan knows, the Padres swept the Cubs in the last three games of the division series, then lost in the World Series to Kirk Gibson and the Detroit Tiger, in five games.  

The guys in the dorm room left that damn sign up all year long.  By winter time, the making tape had faded but it was still there, sadly.  As I trudge through the Presidential Courtyard on my way to class in the bitter cold, I would look up and see the sign, a reminder of what could have been.  A reminder of what should have been.  

For me, Ryne Sandberg always has remained frozen in time. 24 years old in the summer of 1984.  He had his whole life ahead of him.  I had my whole life ahead of me.  Nothing could stop him, or me.  Certainly not age or illness.  Ryne Sandberg and I were going to live forever.  

Now, so many years later, I've learned that nothing lasts forever.  

I'm older, obviously.  My mom has been gone more than five years.  I've lost friends and colleagues, too.  

And this week, I lost a part of my youth, and innocence - maybe the last part - when Ryne Sandberg died at age 65.  

Farewell, Ryno.