He’s Cubs’ Steadying Influence

The thing about Ryne Sandberg is that he’s just good. Period. Not too good to be true. Not spectacular. Not flashy. Just good.

They used to call ballplayers like that Old Reliable, Mr. Consistency, or Charlie Steady. A manager just has to pencil their names into a lineup and go on to his problem positions.

The skipper knows he will get nine innings of impeccable baseball out of Sandberg. He doesn’t make errors, he doesn’t swing at bad pitches, he doesn’t have to be hauled off to a rehab center, he never makes the front page instead of the sports page and he never shows up unfit to work.

There are never any temperamental outbursts and he rarely makes an error, on or off the field. He’s like a master mechanic or a skilled diamond cutter. An untemperamental opera singer. “Carmen” was announced, “Carmen” will be sung.

There have been ballplayers like this throughout the game’s history. It almost seems as if the managers stick them on second base and forget about them. And so does the rest of the game.

For instance, in any discussion of the game’s greatest players, how often does Charlie Gehringer’s name come up? I’ll tell you: not often enough. Yet, this man was one of the best. His averages were unbelievable: .371, .354, .356, .339 and .330 twice. The home runs were respectable for his time--20, 19, 19, 16. He led the league in stolen bases once. He stole only 28 but that’s what the league was stealing in those days.

He was a complete ballplayer, yet he didn’t get into the Hall of Fame on the first bounce as he should have and, if anyone proposed Gehringer as a candidate for history’s greatest, the hearer would probably frown and say: “You mean Lou Gehrig, don’t you?”

He spent his entire career in one place--Detroit. Stars did that in those days. And his most famous manager, Mickey Cochrane, once said, “Whenever the game or the season was on the line, Charlie just shifted that chaw of tobacco and went up there and hit you a double down the line.” He hit 574 of them in his career.

He was a hero in Detroit but pretty much a mystery man elsewhere. No one knew--or bothered to find out--what Charlie Gehringer had for breakfast or which car he preferred or how he stood on the tariff. He just stood there and knocked the ball off the wall.

Bobby Doerr, of the Red Sox, was a player in the same mold. He didn’t put up the numbers Gehringer did, but he made second base as secure as Fort Knox for the Red Sox for 14 years. Schoolboys know about Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb, but only aficionados can tell you about Eddie Collins or Nap Lajoie. They were second basemen.

They are a breed, a mold, and Sandberg fits it. They don’t get nicknames like The Man, or even The Lip. The only second baseman I can think of who beat the rap was Frankie Frisch, the Fordham Flash. Even in the heyday of nicknames, the great Eddie Collins never managed one. Joe Morgan was just Joe Morgan.

Second base is just not a glamour position but that may be more because of the people who played it than the position they played. Second basemen are supposed to turn the double play, move the runners along, steady the pitcher and be there when the ground ball comes along, wherever it is.

If they were golfers, they’d shoot four 69s. If they were fighters, they’d win on points. In card games, if they bet them, they’d have them. In a movie, they’d be the best friend.

Ryne Sandberg is a second baseman in the grand tradition. Second basemen should be seen and not heard. Sandberg was so silent as a rookie with the Philadelphia Phillies that he was a throw-in when the Phillies traded Larry Bowa for Ivan DeJesus.

His bat is very eloquent, though. In fact, Ryne Sandberg has hit the ball so hard and so far all his life, it is a minor mystery why he is a second baseman at all and not an outfielder. Second base is not ordinarily thought of as one of your power positions. It is a skill position. Guys who rise 6 feet 2 inches are not supposed to have the agility, quickness and speed to play the keystone. Guys named Rabbit or Pee Wee get infielders’ gloves.

Ryne Sandberg not only hits long, he runs fast. He stole 54 bases in 1985. “I try to steal 40 bases a year,” he says. Playing half his games on the Cubs’ natural grass and dirt is no aid.

“I have never played any place but the infield,” Sandberg adds. “I ran the 40 in 4.5 and I had the quickness and I always felt comfortable in an infield.”

In his case, height is no handicap. Last season, Sandberg tied a major league record for fewest errors by a second baseman in a season, five. He does not do back flips or front somersaults. He does not usually dive for a ball. Like all the great second basemen, he’s there when the ball is.

He won the league MVP in 1984 when the Cubs unaccountably finished on top in something for the first time in 39 years. The next year, Sandberg had a better year--he hit .305 with 26 home runs and 54 stolen bases--and got two seventh-place votes. Second basemen slip back in the scenery easier than most.

Sandberg is not apt to lead the league in hitting or homers. But the Cubs can’t win the pennant without him. Maybe they can’t win with him, either. But Charlie Gehringer played 11 years before his Tigers won the pennant.

That’s another thing about second basemen. They can be tall or short, fast or slow, quick or just smart. But they all have to be patient. And if the Cubs do win the pennant, they ought at least to call their second baseman Sandy.