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Ryno Sells the Couch…
Fishpo31
Member Posts: 2,619
66 years old. Played football and baseball against him in HS, (he signed with the Cuog to play QB). Played in college with several friends of his, so hung out a little bit with him as well. RIP…
Comments
That’s horrible. I was in Cooperstown yesterday and was wondering why Ryne was absent and that they highlighted him. I’m friends with the family and deeply saddened by this. His brother is a longtime Olympia resident and a former coach of mine. His nephew, a former major leaguer and successful coach, was a classmate of mine. I’m shocked by the news, but I guess I was somehow informed by MLB Commissioner Manfred’s statement yesterday.
*Correction: he was 65
It's Ryne not Ryan
Random clip from the Jim Rome Show
I don't remember much about how he played - probably in part because he was stuck on the Cubs. I just remember that he was good and I never understood how he and Mark Grace could be stuck on such shit teams for the majority of their careers.
Guys on baseball cards that I collected as a youth are now dying. "Not good!"
I was just thinking the same re: people dying. When George Brett dies I might just quit baseball.
I need to find my binder of good cards. I know I had a 1983 Topps and maybe a Donruss rookie card of Sandberg. Google doesn't think they're worth much but still...
I remember being enthralled with Sandberg as a kid and that he could hit 40 HRs as a 2B (before roids). He could do it all as a 5 tool player and had a career WAR of 68. Not bad for a pick in the 20th round!
What was he like to hang with? Did he love chugging beers and eating chicken like Wade Boggs? Boggs is another all-time favorite.
He was very quiet, humble and unassuming. I remember a few times when he was at our place when we had people over, and it developed into a “party”…beer, girls, loud music, typical early 80’s college debauchery. He would be sitting on the couch, sipping a beer, reading a 6 month old Sports Illustrated by himself. Really shy, which was surprising for a DI qb commit-turned pro baseball player.
There are some pretty good stories about his scouting and signing…
A close family friend worked for the Cubs at the time, and brought his boss in to see Ryno. His boss aired him out…”You pulled me up here to see this dog”…the friend resigned on the spot, and the “boss” apologized to him for years after.
Sandberg was such a great athlete, and did things so easy, it looked like he was going half speed. Scouts would work him out at Spokane Falls CC, and would start out having him run the 60 yd dash. He would run it, and they would re-measure (sometimes 2-3 times) and make him run again, with encouragement to “run hard this time”…IIRC, he ran about 6.5, every time, in high grass.
I heard several guys say that he had MLB range as a HS SS, rounding and running through balls in the 6 hole that most couldn’t even get to, much less backhand.
He slid because of the football commitment, so the Phillies took him in the 20th. They brought the big boys in for a workout, and one said to the area scout (RIP, Harp) “this guy’s better than the guy we took in the 2nd round, give him 2nd round money”…csb
That NC team was stacked - Chris Henry, Dave Frigaard, LHP named Jackson if I recall.
Got my ass kicked more than a few times at the old downtown YMCA playing hoops against Sandberg. Few years older than the Throbber so that wasn't unusual but he could hoop a bit too.
They were loaded. When I was a senior, we played NC in a preseason tourney championship game, televised on public access in Spokane. All anyone talked about was how great NC was, and we run ruled them. I think I got Henry 3 tims, he couldn’t hit a slider…