Ryne Sandberg was my childhood idol and I will miss him immensely. Here's why

Another day, another hero lost.

It’s been a bad two weeks for us children of the 1980s.

On Monday, July 21, we learned Malcolm Jamal-Warner of The Cosby Show fame had died.

The next day, heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne was gone. And two days after that, wrestling icon Hulk Hogan was dead.

However, when I learned of Ryne Sandberg’s passing late Monday July 28, this one hit me the hardest.

Sandberg was my hero growing up. I had wall posters, all his baseball cards, an autographed baseball, his Starting Lineup figures and more. In fact, I still have all that. Much of it was displayed in my childhood room on a wall I called my "Ryne Shrine."

Here’s why Ryne Sandberg meant so much to me

My dad was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan growing up in New York. He was embittered when they left to go out west, he hated the Yankees and he didn’t really give the Mets much thought.

We moved to Florida when I was 4 in 1981.

We began watching Cubs games together on WGN when I was 11 in 1988, a time where we didn’t have a Major League team in Florida.

I immediately gravitated to the amazing Mr. Sandberg.

I can still here the crack of the bat and Harry Caray’s voice: “There’s a drive! Way back!! It might be!!! It could be!!!! IT IS!!!!!! A home run!!!! Ryne Sandberg!!!!!

Sandberg played second base so effortlessly, and unlike many of his contemporaries, he was quiet, not showy and just went about his business.

It’s kind of funny because he was the complete opposite later in life as a major league manager. He was fiery and got thrown out of games for arguing quite often.

Ryne Sandberg's rookie card

I remember wanting his Topps 1983 rookie card so badly. I had his Fleer and Donruss cards, but in my mind, they were inferior. A baseball card shop in Rockledge, Florida, named “Bases Loaded” got the card in, and it cost $25 in roughly 1989.

I can recall giving my grandmother the money — she thought I was nuts — and she drove from Merritt Island to Rockledge to get me the card.

It just so happened the new Beckett price guide had come out that day and the card had notched up to $33. My grandmother called me from the store to tell me the bad news. I didn’t have the extra $8.

When she got home, I remember her handing me the card. She had paid the extra and gotten me the prized card.

I still have it, encased in a hard shell, within arms reach of where I’m typing this column.

I remember the thrill of 1989 when the Cubs, led by animated manager Don Zimmer, made the playoffs only to lose to San Francisco.

I remember being crushed when Sandberg retired midway through the 1994 season.

And I remember being elated when he returned prior to the 1996 season.

I was a freshman at the University of Florida, and I can recall walking through the office of our dorm area and seeing a TV mounted in the corner showing ESPN with a banner saying Sandberg was coming out of retirement. I was elated.

I had to see Ryne Sandberg play in person

That summer, I made it a point to go to Miami when the Cubs played the Marlins. I went with my parents and my best friend, Chris.

Before the game, Sandberg was signing autographs and I laid on top of the dugout — Chris holding my legs so I could reach out farther than anyone else without falling — trying to get the autograph. Sandberg was called into the dugout when he was just a few feet away and I never got it.

That Christmas, my dad got me an autographed Sandberg ball to make up for me missing out on getting his signature.

Sandberg did give me one gift on that trip, though: he hit a home run on June 1, 1996, in a game the Cubs won 5-4 in 10 innings. We also saw the game the next day and he smacked a double.

Sandberg was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005, and I remember his speech, stumping for Andre Dawson’s election, and saying he’d give Ron Santo his vote from the Veteran’s Committee.

I always wanted Sandberg to get a shot at managing the Cubs, but instead, the team that originally drafted him — the Philadelphia Phillies — made him their manager in 2013.

In 2015, while on a work trip to the News-Journal in Wilmington, Delaware, the leadership group there took us to a Philadelphia Phillies game — the stadium was less than an hour away — and I got to see Sandberg manage. The date was June 17, and I’m glad I saw it. He resigned from the position nine days later.

I already hated cancer. I hate it more now

In January 2024, Sandberg announced that he had begun treatment for prostate cancer.

After months of intensive chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Sandberg was declared cancer-free in August 2024.

Unfortunately, on Dec. 10, 2024, Sandberg announced that the cancer had returned and spread to other organs. He died at his home in Illinois on July 28, 2025, at age 65.

I lost my dad to cancer in 2004. I lost my boyhood hero Ryne Sandberg to cancer this week.

I can only hope that somewhere in the Great Beyond my dad gets a chance to meet Ryne Sandberg. He’d probably tell him the same stories I just told you — about a dad and his son bonding over baseball and the impact one person can make on so many lives.

Thank you, Ryne Sandberg. Thank you.

Walters can be reached at [email protected]

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Ryne Sandberg filled my childhood with amazing memories | Tim Walters