Ryno Redux : After 17-Month Retirement, Sandberg Returns to Cubs Refreshed and Ready for Comeback

How invigorating retirement was for Ryne Sandberg, who spent his 17-month exile from baseball discovering things he never seemed to have time for in the previous 17 years.

Sandberg went skiing for the first time and fell in love with Utah’s powdered slopes. He went water skiing in the summer.

There were Wiffle ball games, basketball games and touch football games with his kids. He played golf year-round near his Phoenix home and even caddied for his friend Mark Calcavecchia in a professional golf tournament.

“I had no idea what I was missing,” Sandberg said.

Until that day last September when he sat in Wrigley Field watching the Chicago Cubs, in the thick of the wild-card race, play a key late-season game.

There was Harry Caray singing during the seventh-inning stretch, there were legions of Bleacher Bums beyond the ivy-covered outfield walls, and, much to his surprise, Cub players who actually seemed to be enjoying themselves on the field. It was almost intoxicating.

“The competition, the excitement, the challenge . . . that’s what I missed the most,” said Sandberg, a 10-time all-star selection and the National League most valuable player in 1984. “It all hit me during that trip to Chicago the last week of the season.”

So did a comment during the game from his new wife, Margaret. “I think you want to come back,” she said. Sandberg’s reply: “I do?”

Margaret could tell Ryne was as lost without baseball as Caray without glasses. Her nudge soon turned into a family-wide shove, with the couple’s five children, all from previous marriages, strongly endorsing a comeback.

On Oct. 31, at a news conference in a Chicago hotel, Sandberg announced he was returning to baseball, becoming the second Chicago sports icon with the jersey No. 23 to retire and unretire in the previous two years.

Four months later, Sandberg is back in Mesa’s Fitch Park training with the Cubs, a 36-year-old second baseman preparing for his 14th major league season with all the enthusiasm of a 21-year-old rookie.

“This is all new, it’s a lot of fun, it’s not the old drag it used to be,” said Sandberg, who played no baseball during his retirement. “I got rid of the cobwebs by working out all winter, and since my mind is so refreshed, this has been fairly easy.”

Sandberg might think differently the first time Atlanta’s Mark Wohlers zips a 95-mph fastball past him. The nine-time Gold Glove winner is in great shape and has looked smooth defensively.

“It’s a pleasure watching him field ground balls,” Cub Manager Jim Riggleman said. “He never seems to get a bad hop.” But the biggest test will be facing major league pitching for the first time in almost two years.

“The hitting is the thing you don’t know about, and we won’t know until June or July because Ryne is a notoriously slow starter,” Riggleman said, alluding to Sandberg’s career .235 April average. “But if his bat comes around anywhere near where it was, he’s going to be a huge addition to this team.”

Sandberg’s sudden retirement on June 13, 1994, was like a civic loss for Chicago, which was still mourning the retirement of basketball legend Michael Jordan when Sandberg quit.

But Sandberg, who had given so much to the city, simply had nothing left to offer. His 15-year marriage to his high-school sweetheart, the former Cindy White, was falling apart, he had major philosophical differences with then-General Manager Larry Himes, and he thought instability in the organization--he played for 13 managers in 11 years--was dragging the Cubs down.

Preoccupied with so many off-the-field problems, Sandberg, a career .289 hitter, was batting only .238 with 24 runs batted in in 57 games. What’s more, the Cubs were in last place.

Fed up with it all, Sandberg walked away from the game with $16.1 million left on the four-year, $28-million contract he signed before the 1993 season.

“I am not the type of person who can leave my game at the ballpark and feel comfortable that my future is set regardless of my performance,” Sandberg said at his retirement news conference.

“And I’m certainly not the type of person who can ask the Cubs’ organization and fans to pay my salary when I am not happy with my mental approach to the game.”

Unable to salvage his marriage, Sandberg was divorced a few weeks after his retirement announcement. For about a year, he said he felt “somewhat dead, somewhat in jail,” but his outlook began to change with his courtship of a family friend, Margaret Koehnemann, who had also endured a painful divorce.

The two were married Aug. 19, forming a new family with five kids, ages 11-15, three from her previous marriage and two from his. Then came the September trip to Chicago for an awards presentation, the visit to Wrigley Field, and the subsequent decision to return for a mere base salary of $1.5 million this season.

“My wife saw something in my eye that told her I was thinking about coming back,” Sandberg said. “We have a great relationship, and her being so positive about the comeback has made it that much easier.”

So did a conversation with Jordan after a Bull game in January. “His advice was to have fun and enjoy the game,” Sandberg said. “We both went through similar things, similar pressures, and I think we both lost sight of the fact that the game is supposed to be fun.”

Sandberg looks as though he’s having much more fun now than he did in 1994. “When he retired, he looked beat, pretty tired of the lifestyle,” Cub shortstop Rey Sanchez said. “Now he looks new.”

Chuck Wasserstrom, the Cubs’ media information coordinator, said Sandberg seems much more comfortable, relaxed, upbeat.

“I don’t know what was in his mind the last few years [before he retired], but he wasn’t happy,” Wasserstrom said. “We’ve hit him with so many media requests this spring, you keep expecting him to say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do that.’ But he’s done everything, and he seems to be having fun.”

Wasserstrom expects Sandberg’s return will be an even bigger story for the Cubs’ season opener April 1 against the San Diego Padres in Wrigley Field.

“It’s going to be a madhouse,” he said. “Maybe not the same as Jordan’s return, but it’s going to be wild.”

Said Sandberg: “I expect it will be pretty special.”

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On the Rebound

A look at players who have sat out seasons during their career and how they did when they came back:

TED WILLIAMS

(Sat out 1943-45, WWII)

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Year G AB H HR RBI AVG 1942 150 522 186 36 137 .356 1946 150 514 176 38 123 .342

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JOE DiMAGGIO

(Sat out 1943-45, WWII)

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Year G AB H HR RBI AVG 1942 154 610 186 21 114 .305 1946 132 503 146 25 95 .290

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RON GANT

(Sat out 1994, broken leg)

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Year G AB H HR RBI AVG 1993 157 606 166 36 117 .274 1995 119 410 113 29 88 .276

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DAVE WINFIELD

(Sat out 1989, back injury)

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Year G AB H HR RBI AVG 1988 149 559 180 25 107 .322 1990 132 475 127 21 78 .267

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TONY CONIGLIARO

(Sat out 1968, beaning)

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Year G AB H HR RBI AVG 1967 95 349 100 20 67 .287 1969 141 506 129 20 82 .255

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BO JACKSON

(Sat out 1992, hip replacement)

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Year G AB H HR RBI AVG 1991 23 71 16 3 14 .225 1993 85 284 66 16 45 .232

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