Ryne Sandberg was the Cubs’ Joe DiMaggio. He was elegant and precise in everything he did, from his batting stance, which could have been copied from a Little League primer, to his efficient rounding of the bases on a triple to his fleet patrol of the field. And, like DiMaggio, for all his greatness he had an uneasy relationship with fame. Sandberg retired prematurely at 34 while going through a divorce, and although he returned to put a nice little coda on his career, finishing in 1997 with more homers than any second baseman in history, when he quit again he seemed gone for good.
“I know he wanted to get back in it, and he had talked to me about being the manager here,” Hendry said. “And I told him I was going to get somebody who’d already done it before. I certainly had a lot of respect for him. I encouraged him, if that’s the path he wanted to take, to think about doing something different than just coming to spring training.”
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When Hendry and the new manager, Lou Piniella, called up Mike Quade, the manager of the Cubs’ Triple-A team in Iowa, as the Cubs’ third-base coach this season, the other minor-league managers moved up a notch. This left the job open in Peoria–four levels removed from the majors–and Hendry offered it to Sandberg. Sandberg broached the subject with his wife, Margaret. By now their kids were grown and out of the house.
“This is basics,” he said. “This is basic baseball. The guys hustle. They’re out here to learn. . . . It’s fun.” Sandberg admitted that he’s even embraced the travel. Baseball’s economic boom has trickled down to the low minors, and life there is better than it was 30 years ago. The tour buses are comfier and come equipped with DVD players, and the teams stay at Best Westerns and Holiday Inns. “It’s all part of it. We travel as a team. . . . It’s with the guys every day. It’s on the buses. It’s watching movies. We get off and we go and get ready to play a game.”
The Chiefs weren’t exactly stocked with talent for Sandberg’s managerial debut. Baseball America, the bush-league bible, ranked only pitcher Mark Pawelek among the Cubs’ top ten minor-league prospects, and he was sent down to Boise, Idaho, after he opened the season struggling with his control. Baseball Prospectus was slightly more charitable, pegging third baseman Josh Lansford (son of longtime major leaguer Carney) and catcher Wellington Castillo as promising players. The Chiefs hit the season’s halfway mark last month at 31-38 and placed only pitchers Jake Renshaw and Alex Maestri in the Midwest League all-star game.
“He’s kind of laid-back,” Camp continued. “He’s not on us all the time, like some guys can get a little too pushy. In the middle of the game he’s not down our throats over something stupid. It’s 140 games, so you can’t drill it in over one game.”
