Remembering The Sandberg Game 40 Years Later

CHICAGO (June 23, 1984) - When Ryne Sandberg shocked the baseball world by retiring in the middle of the 1994 season, he said he did it because he no longer enjoyed the game.

“I quit because I didn’t like my job anymore,’’ he wrote in his 1995 autobiography Second to Home. “I couldn’t make myself play baseball another day.’’

But as Sandberg sat out the rest of 1994 and all of 1995 - turning his back on a contract that had been paying him $7 million per year - he realized something. He hadn’t quit because he stopped loving baseball, he quit because his personal life - always thought by the public to be perfect - was in turmoil.

Over the next year-and-a-half, he went through an acrimonious divorce, fought out a tedious child custody negotiation, got remarried, and came to understand that he needed to play baseball. Most of all, he needed to play so that his children, 13-year-old Lindsey and 11-year-old Justin, could see him play.

“I just want my kids to experience me enjoying baseball, so we’re all going to do this together,’’ Sandberg said after announcing in October of 1995 that he was rejoining the Chicago Cubs for the 1996 season. “This is what I do. This is what makes me happy, and I want to share it with my kids.’’

So the Sandberg children spent many a day at Wrigley Field that year watching their dad play, and for a 36-year-old, dad had a pretty good year. There were moments of greatness, moments when Sandberg flashed the quick and powerful swing or the graceful fielding skills that made him not only the best second baseman in baseball, but arguably the game’s best player in his mid-80’s prime.

Unfortunately, Lindsey and Justin never got to enjoy one of those performances that had been almost routine in the 1980s and early 1990s when Sandberg could take games over, squeezing the life out of opponents.

For instance, the day against the St. Louis Cardinals 40 years ago this week - forever dubbed “The Sandberg Game’’ - when Sandberg dazzled 38,079 Wrigley sunbathers with five hits and seven RBI, including two game-tying homers that helped lift the Cubs to a memorable 12-11 victory.

“Even before this game, I said he was the best player in this league,’’ said St. Louis manager Whitey Herzog. “And today he was the best I ever saw. He is the kind of player who not only can turn a game around, but he can be an inspiration to all his teammates, if not all of baseball.’’

It was a glorious summer on the North side of Chicago as the Cubs - led by Sandberg and Rick Sutcliffe - won the NL East and earned a trip to the postseason for the first time since 1945. And though the Cubs didn’t move into first for good until Aug. 1, this game may have been the first indication to long-suffering Cubs fans that they were in for quite a ride.

“Something about that game seemed to give us the confidence and the respect we’d been lacking,’’ Sandberg said. “The Cubs were not the lovable losers from Chicago anymore. We were for real and the Eastern Division was ours for the taking. We felt like we couldn’t lose, and we carried that feeling with us for the rest of the year.’’

The NBC Game of the Week cameras had barely been turned on when St. Louis broke to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first. Ozzie Smith drew a one-out walk from Steve Trout, and scored on a two-out single by George Hendrick. But the Cubs answered in their half of the first when Bob Dernier led off with a single against Ralph Citrella, who was making his first major league start, then stole second and scored on Sandberg’s single to left. The Sandberg Game had begun.

The Cardinals then erupted for six runs in the second, knocking Trout out of the box and the Cubs seemingly out of the game, and by the top of the sixth after Willie McGee’s two-run homer, St. Louis was up 9-3.

It was at this point that things began to get interesting as the Cubs produced five runs in the last of the sixth. “We battled back to within 9-8 and all of a sudden it was one of the most exciting games I’d ever been involved in,’’ said Sandberg, who chipped in with a two-run single.

With one out in the seventh, Herzog called on his ace closer, Bruce Sutter, to put out a Chicago fire, and he did so. Sutter was in the midst of a remarkable season where he would go on to set a major league record for saves (45) and post a microscopic ERA of 1.54, but normally, Herzog never used him more than an inning or two.

However, with the Cardinals still clinging to their one-run lead, Sutter strode to the mound in the bottom of the ninth looking to end the game, and the first man up was Sandberg who had gone 1-for-10 lifetime against Sutter. His luck changed, though, as Sutter served up a flat split-finger fastball and Sandberg launched it into the bleachers in left field for a game-tying home run.

“I was going up there thinking about pulling the ball against Sutter, but I wasn’t even thinking about hitting one out,’’ Sandberg said. “As I was getting ready to leave the dugout, a couple of the older guys gave me a hint. They said he had a great split-finger, and it would come down and in hard to a right-handed hitter.

“As I walked to the plate, I thought, ‘Nobody expects me to hit this guy, so I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.’ I said to myself, ‘Open up and swing inside.’ I opened up and swung inside, and boom. It was gone off the bat and I knew it. I reached second base, but I couldn’t even feel my feet, I was floating on air. I could hear the fans, sort of in the distance, but I was in a fog.

“I hit third base and our third base coach, Don Zimmer, was as excited as I’d ever seen him. And as I crossed home plate, I could feel the ground shaking. I don’t remember ever feeling that great during a baseball game. It was one of those moments where you’d look at it on tape after the game and not really remember even being there. It was too incredible.’’

Gary Matthews followed with a single, stole second, and moments later, it looked as if he would be sprinting across home plate with the winning run when Keith Moreland lined a shot up the middle. But Smith, the wizard of Oz, ranged over and made a sparkling stop, then threw Moreland out at first.

“What I want to know is how come everything I hit on that side of the infield is caught by Ozzie,’’ Moreland said. “When I saw Ozzie get it, I just threw up my hands on the way to first base. I said, ‘What do I have to do to get a base hit?’ The guy’s amazing.’’

In the 10th, Chicago manager Jim Frey turned to his closer, Lee Smith, hoping he could shut down the Cards and let the red-hot Cubs offense win the game. It didn’t work out quite the way Frey envisioned as Smith singled to left and scored when McGee doubled, completing a cycle. McGee took third on a groundout and scored on pinch-hitter Steve Braun’s grounder to first.

Sutter, back out for his fourth inning of work, retired the first two men and the game looked over. In fact, a few years later, NBC broadcaster Bob Costas admitted that at this point, McGee had already been named the player of the game for becoming the first Cardinal since Lou Brock in 1975 to hit for the cycle.

Not so fast. Dernier worked the count full against Sutter, then somehow laid off a very tempting fastball and gratefully accepted a free pass when umpire Doug Harvey called the pitch a ball. “The 3-2 pitch to Dernier, we thought we had him struck out,’’ said Herzog. “But Doug said it wasn’t. Porter didn’t hold onto the ball and that makes it tough for an umpire to call a strike. Then comes Baby Ruth.’’

Baby Ruth would be Sandberg. With a 1-1 count, Sutter fired another split-finger fastball that didn’t do what it was supposed to and Sandberg pounced on it again, roping it over the fence in left for another game-tying home run.

“I made two bad pitches and both went out of the park,’’ said Sutter, who had never allowed one player to hit two home runs of him in the same game.

Said Sandberg: “I floated around the bases again, kind of in shock. The guys were jumping on me and high-fiving me to the point where my hands hurt. We were acting like we had won the pennant, and the game wasn’t even over yet.’’

But it was moment later. The Cardinals went meekly in the 11th and after all the drama, the Cubs won it in rather anticlimactically. Leon Durham walked, stole second and took third on a throwing error so Herzog had reliever Jeff Lahti intentionally walk two men to set up a force at home. Instead, Lahti then unintentionally walked pinch-hitter Dave Owen to force in the winning run.

“To go up there and think I’m going to hit a home run again is unbelievable,’’ said Sandberg, who was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005. “For the rest of my career, fans would come up to me and ask me about the ‘Sandberg Game.’ I don’t how Bruce Sutter felt about it, but it changed my life forever and took my career to a whole different level.’’

Sandberg wound up being voted the NL MVP that season as he batted .314 and enjoyed the only 200-hit season of his career. He led the NL in runs scored with 114, tied for the league-lead in triples with 19, and he had 19 homers, 84 RBI and 32 stolen bases. His .993 fielding percentage was the best of any player at any position in baseball, earning him the second of his nine gold gloves, most ever for a second baseman.

The Cubs finished with a 96-65 record and won the NL East by 6.5 games over the Mets. However, the team that hadn’t won a World Series since 1908 didn’t get a chance to try to break that drought. After winning the first two games of the NL Championship Series at home against the Padres, the Cubs dropped three in a row at San Diego. The Padres were then beaten by the Detroit Tigers in the World Series.

⚾June 18, 2005: Derek Jeter was never much of a home-run hitter, but for some reason, there was a big deal being made over the fact that nearly 11 years into his career, he had never hit a grand slam. But finally, after 5,770 at-bats, it happened. "It feels good. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel good. I thought I'd never hit one," he said with a smile after taking Joe Borowski of the Cubs deep at Yankee Stadium, one of two homers he hit in the Yankees’ 8-1 victory. Over his career, Jeter hit .321 and drove in 225 runs with the bases loaded in his career but this would end up being his only grand slam.

⚾June 22, 1941: Joe DiMaggio took care of two things when he hit a sixth-inning home run which helped the Yankees beat the Tigers 5-4 at Yankee Stadium. It extended his hitting streak to 35 games, but it also lengthened the Yankees streak of hitting at least one home run to 18 consecutive games. That broke the MLB record of 17 held by the Tigers. The record is long gone and the new mark is 31 straight games by the 2019 Yankees

His homer broke a 2-2 tie, but the Tigers went back in front in the eighth when Pinky Higgins hit a two-run homer off Red Ruffing. However, the Yankees rallied to win in the ninth when Red Rolfe hitting a tying home run with two outs, then Tommy Henrich was hit by a pitch, took third on a double by DiMaggio, and scored on Joe Gordon’s bases-loaded walk.