family, baseball, and quiet moments that spoke louder than words.
CHICAGO – Ryne Sandberg was a great baseball player. Tall, smooth, swift, athletic, deftly powerful, he made playing second base look so easy that you figured you could do it.
Why would he ever make an error? He hardly ever did. From June 21, 1989, to May 17, 1990, he went 123 games without committing a single one for the Chicago Cubs. Five-hundred-eighty-four chances to screw up and nope. At the plate, it was the same smooth discipline combined with torque-generated strength and speed that let him hit 40 home runs one year and steal 54 bases another.
That was the thing about him with his grace and ease on the field–he was so fluid and serene that he was hard to fully appreciate. Great athletes always make what they do look easy. From gymnasts to quarterbacks, the best of the best have the movements, the mindset totally locked in, which frees them up to be creative and bold and great.
I’ve thought a lot about Sandberg in the past, and, like so many other baseball fans, I’m deeply saddened by his death from prostate cancer a week ago.
He loved the game so much — his triples (19 in 1984) and runs scored (eight years of 100 or more) showed how much he valued the art of getting as close to scoring as possible, of setting up his teammates to win games, to simply do the obvious: outscore the opponent. And, of course, we know about his defense and his astounding nine Gold Gloves and seven years of leading the league in assists.
But what I often thought about was how uncomfortable he was with being grilled by the media after games, even—nay, especially — when it was he himself who had been the hero of a Cubs win. He didn’t like talking about himself. He didn’t like to brag. He didn’t want praise or wild adulation. And he didn’t need to analyze the game he had just played or explain baseball minutiae or tell jokes about teammates or simply revel in the splendor of his gifted existence. He was the locker room opposite of Pete Rose.
There were marriage issues, and when Sandberg first retired in the middle of the 1994 season, it was oddly premature, abrupt, and soon accompanied by an acrimonious divorce. He came back at age 36, with a new wife—his childhood friend and wonderful supporter, Margaret – and it seemed there was a new bounce of joy in his step. In fact, there was. As quiet and decent as Sandberg was, Margaret, with three kids of her own to add to Sandberg’s two, was the perfect amendment to his newly stable life.