MILWAUKEE – Craig Counsell has only been managing the Chicago Cubs for a year and a half. He still has no issue remembering his favorite day with the team.
It was a lovely summer’s day. The Cubs were about to play the Mets. Counsell still brought the entire team to the side of Wrigley Field facing Clark Street.
He wanted to show the team how the Cubs immortalized Ryne Sandberg.
“I was thinking about the day the (Sandberg) statue was unveiled,” Counsell said. “That’s my favorite day as a Chicago Cub.”
Now, after his passing, these memories and lessons ring on in the present-day members of the Cubs franchise.
Big picture view:
Sandberg was never a stranger. His playing days ended in 1997, but he still had a chance to spend time with the team.
Even when he was battling cancer, Sandberg made a point to visit the present-day Cubs at their Arizona complex during spring training. That time spent left a mark on a Cubs team that had plenty of aspirations of contending in 2025 with a reshaped roster.
That team recounted how lucky it was to have a team legend around them.
“It’s just a reflection of how much the game of baseball and the Cubs family really meant to him,” Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner said. “He’s someone that could easily made it all about him and earned every right to do that right with the career that he had. But, it just came from a place of wanting to be around the field, be around the game, still talk the game, ask questions, keep learning.”
Ryno’s visit with the team energized the Hall of Famer, even facing the treatment and adversity ahead of him.
In Cubs history, there are only a handful of players who make up the greatest ball players the franchise has ever seen. This includes Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, Ron Santo, Fergie Jenkins and Sammy Sosa. Only Sosa was more recognizable as the Cubs moved into the modern age than Sandberg.
Seeing that kind of franchise icon and showing what one person can mean to an entire franchise is not common.
“That doesn’t happen very often,” Cubs infielder Dansby Swanson said. “I’m so grateful to have met him and been able to interact with him.”
Remembering Ryno:
The Cubs will now take each field with a patch on their jerseys that has “23” and Sandberg’s signature on it. The patch will remain on the Cubs’ jerseys for the rest of the season.
Sandberg’s influence will always be visible in the near future for this team.
The Cubs were also in the clubhouse and warming up pregame with shirts that read “Fo23ver,” also meaning 23 forever.
“We’re lucky to play in an organization that has an incredible history,” Hoerner said. “His legacy and, and impact is something that should be forever.”
Sandberg also changed the perception of what a second baseman could be.
As the NL MVP at just 24-years-old, he led the league in triples in 1984 and had a .314 batting average. In the 1990 season, he led the National League with 40 home runs. He wasn’t a second baseman who collected bases.
He changed what modern-era second basemen could be.
“As far as what you can control within the game as far as effort and gratitude and playing for the fans and for your teammates I think he really set a great example of that and always emphasized that,” Hoerner said. “As far as like his profiles a second baseman, he kind of was part of expanding people’s vision of what a second baseman could be as far as the glove and the speed that were traditional for that position, but also hitting for power.”
It wasn’t always on the diamond, though.
Counsell reflected more on Sandberg the American Family Field’s opposing team dugout.
He recounted how great of a player Sandberg was, but also how everyone had a Sandberg story. There was always a way he impacted others away from the game. It’s what Counsell remembered fondly Tuesday.
“That’s the recognition of a great life lived,” Counsell said. “We were lucky. We were very lucky.”