2025s “Top” Ten Losses: Ryne Sandberg (#8)

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Argh, it’s sn*wing! The blue car is turning white quickly! I’m going to hide myself in LooeyVille’s luggage when she escapes next week! You’ve been a whole two days without sports, so I have to take care of that! Here’s another person we lost in 2025. #8: Ryne Sandberg Ryno. Let me tell you something: the Chicago Cubs didn’t have a whole heck of a lot to cheer about in the 80s, but they did have Ryne Sandberg. Sandberg started as a football recruit, signing to play at Washington State; however, the Philadelphia Phillies drafted him as a baseball player. He played one season for them before being traded to Chicago…and all the Cubs fans said, “Thank you, Philadelphia!!” The Cubs turned things around in 1984 and actually played for the pennant!!! Sandberg was named the National League Most Valuable Player that year. (By 1987 the Cubbies were back to their “lovable loser” selves, although Andre Dawson made history that year by being the first Most Valuable Player winner from a last-place team!) Ryno was one of those special people who was loved not only by Cubs fans, but by all baseball fans. He played hard, he played well, and he was a gentleman. The only real surprise was that it took three years of eligibility for him to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Sandberg was a “goodwill ambassador” for the Cubs for the last seven years of his life. In 2024 he announced that he’d been diagnosed with colon cancer. Later it was announced that it had been successfully treated. Of course, you know how that evil disease is: it came back, with a vengeance, and took Sandberg’s life in July 2025. Ryno was a marvelous baseball player and a marvelous human being. What greater legacy could anyone leave. Ryne Sandberg Born Ryne Dee Sandberg, September 18, 1959, Spokane, Washington Died July 28, 2025, Lake Bluff, Illinois (metastatic colon cancer) (age 65) HALLS OF FAME: National Baseball, 2005; Chicago Cubs, 2021 The MLB tribute to Ryno: