CLEVELAND — Ryne Sandberg loves the Chicago Cubs.
The Cubs love Ryne Sandberg. Cubs fans love Ryne Sandberg. During nearly every home game during the Cubs’ magical playoff run this month, the Wrigley Field video board showed a package of Sandberg highlights from his time wearing the uniform, and then the camera would show a smiling Sandberg in the stands, cheering on his Cubbies.
The crowd went crazy, every single time. Sandberg’s grin grew, every single time. These were wonderful shared moments between a Hall of Famer who loves his fans and fans who love their Hall of Famer, at the intimate confines of Wrigley Field.
In the intimate confines of the visitor’s clubhouse inside Progressive Field maybe a half-hour after the Cubs had clinched the franchise’s first World Series title in 108 years with an epic 8-7 victory in extra innings of Game 7, a grin was still on Sandberg’s face.
This one was a little different, though. This grin was a combination of wonder, disbelief and unbelievable joy, to name just a few of the emotions on his face.
“I never thought it would happen,” Sandberg told Sporting News, in a voice barely more than a whisper. Tucked up against the back wall of the Cubs’ clubhouse, while streams of champagne danced through the air, Sandberg was just doing his best to soak in the celebration.
MORE: Best players never to play in the World Series
MORE: Greatest Game 7s ever
“It’s been a long time, but it was worth the wait,” he continued. “No question about it.”
The guy known just as Ryno was speaking for himself in the moment, of course, but his words echoed the sentiment of decades of former players who ached to reach that same mountain in a Cubs uniform. Sandberg played 15 seasons with the Cubs and made the playoffs just twice.
He was awesome in both of his postseason series. In the 1984 NLCS, Sandberg — who was the NL MVP and Sporting News MLB Player of the Year that season — hit .368 and stole three bases. In the 1989 NLCS, he hit .400 with five extra-base hits and four RBIs in five games. In 1984, though, the Cubs lost to the Padres and in 1989, they lost to the Giants.
FAGAN: Game 7 delivers on historic hype
“That’s one of the questions I’ve been asked most over the past 35 years, ‘When are the Cubs going to get to the World Series?’ ” Sandberg said. “And I just say, ‘Sometime?’ I didn’t know it was going to happen.”
He knows now, though. All the ex-Cubs finally have an answer to that question. Billy Williams is one of four Hall of Famers — along with Ernie Banks, Ron Santo and Fergie Jenkins — who played for the Cubs during their long playoff-less drought that lasted from 1945 to 1984. Standing on the Wrigley Field grass after the Cubs clinched their World Series trip with an NLCS victory against the Dodgers, Williams talked with reporters about what the moment meant for him, and what it would have meant for his former teammates (Santo died in 2010 and Banks died in 2014).
“You often think about them, guys who were here a long time and they wanted to see this kind of thing happen, you know, going to the World Series,” Williams said. “It’s been 108 years.”
After the decades of frustrations for the fans and players, everything finally came together.
“This is the right group,” Sandberg told SN. “They’re character guys. They’re young guys, a lot of energy. The right manager, the right president, the right owner.
I mean, everybody’s in place and that’s what it took. It took the right guys, all the way from top to bottom, to be in the right spots.”
MORE: Own a piece of history; get Cubs championship gear
After 108 years, of course, there was no chance the Cubs’ first World Series title was going to be easy.
“It had to go seven games, because the Cubs haven’t been in it so long,” Sandberg said. “So it had to go seven, and it had to go extra-innings. A nail-biter the whole way, and that’s probably the way it’s supposed to be.”
The Cubs are World Champs again, finally. For Sandberg and Williams and every player who wore the uniform from 1908 to 2015, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
