Ryne Sandberg

I stopped following baseball a long time ago, but Ryne Sandberg is one player I always had a lot of respect for. Sad to hear his cancer has returned and spread.

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/cubs-hall-of-famer-ryne-sandberg-announces-his-cancer-has-relapsed-spread-to-other-organs-173108387.html

I didn't appreciate him enough. I was an Alomar guy, and the second mini-peak of Sandberg's career overlapped with Alomar's first few years. I always assumed Sandberg benifitted a lot from his park, and that Alomar was the better player. None of which has anything to do with why you started this thread--obviously, I wish him the best. He certainly maintained his reverence from fans post-retirement a lot better than Alomar did.

afaict Sandberg was the better player if we're talking about his 162 game avg value, surely the better fielder and maybe dead even as a hitter.

For their careers, Sandberg comes out ahead, yes. If you lop off their last few seasons--Alomar to 2001, Sandberg to 1992--he still does, but it's very close:

Sandberg: 5.7/162 (5.2 oWAR, 1.0 dWAR)
Alomar: 5.4/162 (5.4 oWAR, 0.5 dWAR)

It comes down to a point that has long been debated: how good was Alomar defensively? I think most people who saw him regularly during his prime feel that WAR comes up short, but bias, eye-test, etc.--I don't know the right answer there.

I saw Ryne Sandberg play a bunch on WGN in his prime, he could do it all. Those summers in the 80s as a kid were about playing home run derby then going and watching afternoon Cubs games.

Ryno was so good in 1984.

Sandberg along with Brandon Phillips had the most range of any second basemen I saw play.

One thing I remember was how much some players looked up to him. Rafael Palmeiro loved playing with Sandberg and I vaguely recall one local journalist saying he mentioned that when expressing his anger about being traded. (This was around the time Palmeiro was more or less established as a Hall of Fame shoe-in but right before that went into the toilet for obvious reasons.) And I believe Greg Maddux said the same - he was reluctant to leave the Cubs in 1989/1990 and said playing with Sandberg was a big reason why he wanted to stay. At least it worked out for the better for Maddux.

Ugh, I just had my memory refreshed about those rumors re: Palmeiro and Sandberg's ex-wife, so maybe I misremembered the trade anger? (I thought Dave Martinez was the guilty player but I guess there was more than one man?)

As I've posted before, I saw (on TV) his legendary '84 Saturday afternoon game where I think he hit two extra-inning HR.

Close:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3PAecW2Xvo