Cubs to Honor Ryne Sandberg by Wearing Nameless Blue No. 23 Jerseys Saturday
Just when I think I’m starting to get over the loss, something comes up that makes me mourn my late hero all over again. Like being out of town on the first day of school and seeing that my son wore the Ryne Sandberg jersey he got at Wrigley following the statue dedication ceremony last summer. It’s the 1980s home pinstripes with no name, just the No. 23 on the back.
One of the coolest parts of that event was seeing all the current Cubs players and coaches lining the adjacent stairwell at Wrigley to watch. You just knew they all held a great deal of respect for the franchise icon, and not just because his number flew from a flagpole. It wasn’t about what he used to be in a Cubs uniform, but who he was as a person.
Cubs president of business operations Crane Kenney joined 670 The Score Thursday morning to talk about the ongoing Cubs for a Cure Radiothon (donate here) and how the team will be honoring Sandberg’s legacy.
“We talked about baseball, we talked life, we talked about what was happening at Wrigley,” an emotional Kenney explained of his last meeting with Ryno. “And then I could see him after about 30 minutes starting to fade, and I said, ‘Hey, Ryno, listen, I’m gonna run.’ And he said, ‘No, no, I gotta get up.’ And so, with Margaret’s help and his cane, he stood up and made himself as tall as he could be.
“And he said, ‘Hug me,’ and I did. And he said, ‘I love you.’ I said, ‘You know I love you too.’ And I said, ‘I’ll see you again. I’ll come back and see you again.’ And he just looked with a twinkle in his eye, and he said, ‘It’s okay.’
Kenney barely got through the recollection of that meeting, and just thinking about listening to it has me puckering up a little bit. He then went on to discuss the very special nod to Sandberg coming up this weekend. In addition to the patches on their jerseys and stencils on the field, Cubs players will all be celebrating the legacy of an all-time great.
“So on Saturday, we’ll wear — and it’s funny, we actually talked about this when I was visiting up at his house last week. We were talking about jerseys, and when we designed his statue — thank God we got that done last year — we asked him what jersey he wanted to wear. He always said the blue pullover, his favorite jersey was the blue pullover…He said, ‘I love the jersey with no names on the back.’
“His view was always that you play for the name on the front of the uniform, not the name on the back. He was such a team guy…So as a tribute to Ryne on Saturday, we’re going to wear the blue jerseys — we don’t have pullovers anymore, so they do have buttons on them — but no names on the back. Every player will wear No. 23, and then we’ll auction those jerseys off to raise money for cancer research as part of Cubs for a Cure.”
Man, that just hits me so hard in the feels. I don’t know how much it’s going to cost, but I plan on bidding on a jersey when they’re available. Even though I’m sure they’ll all end up way out of my price range, I have to at least try.
