Every sports franchise has a handful of games that are immortal, forever etched into the collective memory of the fanbase. For the Cubs, an organization that has existed since 1876 in one form or another, that list of legendary games is long and littered with Hall of Fame players and indelible moments. One such game turns 35 years old today.

The Cubs-Cardinals game on June 23, 1984, served as a national coming-out party for Ryne Sandberg, the Cubs’ 2nd baseman who later earned National League MVP honors following that ’84 season. Twice, Sandberg faced future Hall of Fame closer Bruce Sutter as the tying run in the Cubs’ last at-bat. Twice, he homered to the bleachers in left field to extend the game, which was later won on a walk-off single by Dave Owen. Subsequently, the game became known by a simple yet infamous moniker:

The Sandberg Game.

The feat he pulled off was incredible enough, but having it occur against the eternal rivals from St. Louis added an extra sheen to his heroics. “I could feel it from the first inning on. Even before the first pitch it was Cubs/Cardinals,” recalled Sandberg last week in an interview with NBC Sports Chicago. “I felt it in ‘82 and ‘83, but this was different because we were towards the top of the standings with the Cardinals in the same division.”

Legendary broadcaster Bob Costas was on the mic for NBC that day at the Friendly Confines, and when we caught up with him last month, he agreed that the I-55 rivalry played an important part in what occurred that day in 1984. “The fact that there’s shared history, that was part of the backdrop. It was Cardinals/Cubs on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, pre-lights Wrigley Field. The Cardinals were the perfect opponent for this to play out. Had it played out against the Phillies, would it have been epic? Yeah… but maybe not as epic.”

Another factor that helped the Sandberg Game assume such legendary status was the nationwide broadcast on NBC’s “Game of the Week.” Whereas every MLB game is easily viewable on one platform or another in today’s media landscape, the public was only able to watch one or two games a week over the air in 1984. “The game of the week truly was, for a huge portion of the country, the game of the week,” says Costas. “If you lived in a non-major league city, the only games you could see were the ones on network television. The players themselves used to call the game of the week, the game of the world; it really meant something. The focus of much of the baseball world was on that game that afternoon.”

And all those viewers saw the Cardinals pounce on Cubs starter Steve Trout, who exited in the 2nd inning after allowing seven earned runs. “I see him every year at Cubs Convention, and Steve takes a lot of credit for the Sandberg game,” jokes Ryne. “He gets a kick out of that.”

The Cubs trailed 9-3 heading into the 6th, before Sandberg capped a 5-run rally with a single into left that cut the deficit to just a single run. That meant that Cardinals closer Bruce Sutter was summoned in the 7th to help protect the slim St. Louis lead, and scoring off the Cooperstown-bound reliever was no easy task. “He had a dominant split-finger fastball with two-and-a-half feet drop on it, and he threw it hard, wherever he wanted to locate it,” recalls Sandberg. “The biggest thing about him was elevating the baseball off him - you just did not see that, because he was a dominant groundball pitcher.” The statistics back up Sandberg’s analysis; Sutter only allowed 77 home runs over 1042.0 IP in his 12-year MLB career, an average of one home run against every 13.2 IP. Knowing that the Cubs’ chances were shaky at best, Ryne recalled his feelings when he noticed Sutter warming up in the visitor’s bullpen, which was then located on the field at Wrigley down the right field line. “I mean, game’s over, no chance, he doesn’t give up the longball. All those things went through my mind watching him warm up.”

Sutter got the last out of the 7th before pitching a clean 8th inning, setting the stage for the drama to come. Sandberg led off the bottom of the 9th with the Cubs trailing by a run, and had a simple mindset at the plate. “Backs against the wall, I remember thinking it’s a no-lose situation. He’s supposed to get me out here, he’s supposed to save this game, anything else is gravy. I did get advice from the dugout to elevate the baseball. My theory of hitting, from the day I got to the ballpark to the day I left, was to aim for the top part of the baseball, resulting in squaring it up and line drives and hard grounders. That was my goal as a hitter. On that swing in the 9th, it was one of the rare times where I aimed beneath the baseball. So that ball was diving in, and I stayed underneath the baseball on that swing, resulting in the home run.”

Sandberg’s homer sent Wrigley into a frenzy, even though the Cubs couldn’t push across the winning run that inning. In the top of the 10th, Willie McGee completed a cycle by doubling home Ozzie Smith, and would later score himself on a groundout. So once again, things looked bleak for the North Siders, especially once Bob Dernier found himself facing Sutter with a full count and the bases empty in the bottom of the inning. However, Dernier worked a walk after taking a very close pitch for ball 4, and in stepped Sandberg.

Facing Sutter once again, it was not surprising to find out that Sandberg kept a very similar mindset as he dug in. “I remember the same approach as the first one. In both at-bats with the home runs, I was not down in the count. It was early in the count, which meant that he needed to throw a strike. That was another approach I had against him, to get him before he got me.” With a 1-1 count, Sandberg jumped on Sutter’s offering, and drove another game-tying homer to almost the exact same spot in the bleachers as his blast an inning before. “Same angle, same spot, it’s gone. It’s in the air, the wind’s blowing out, and here we go again. Now I was amazed, I was amazed at this. I was thinking of the whole day I had as I’m running the bases. I said, ‘this whole day, I’m good for two weeks here for stats, this is great stuff!’”

Sandberg ended up going 5-for-6 with those 2 epic home runs and 7 RBI against the Cardinals that day, and Dave Owen’s walk-off with a single in the bottom of the 11th to win the game, 12-11, has been mostly lost to history. But what sticks out to Ryne is the atmosphere at the Friendly Confines that day, an energy that had been dormant for much of the years prior as the team endured a long playoff drought. “I think it was the first time I really saw the reaction of a crowd like that at Wrigley Field, that type of jubilation all the way around the diamond in the stands, hooting and hollering and jumping and screaming, stuff flying in the air. I think that was the first game where I really saw it like that.” The 1984 Cubs brought that roar back to Clark & Addison, and nothing was really the same for the franchise once that fall’s playoff run brought World Series dreams to the fore for the first time in decades.

“Cubs baseball was totally on the rise leading up to that, but that game put it off the charts,” says Sandberg. “From that point on, no doubt about it, everything changed in all of our lives.”

And change they did, for Sandberg in particular. His performance on June 23 caught the attention of baseball fans across the country, vaulting him into the center of the national conversation. “It was just a week later when I catapulted ahead of Steve Sax in the All-Star voting. So that nationally televised game got some national votes that had me start my first All-Star game. (1984) was the start of 7 straight Silver Sluggers, it was my 2nd Gold Glove, and MVP, all at 24 years old, all really happening starting on June 23rd through the rest of that season.”

Without a doubt, Sandberg raised the bar for himself with his 1984 season, and he was keenly aware of what that meant moving forward. “After that season, reflecting back at it and the postseason run, my goals were now not to just be in the major leagues, not to continue to play 2nd base for the Cubs - it was to try to win MVP, Silver Slugger, All-Star, all those things I had won, and also get the Cubs to the postseason and World Series. All that was the goal from that point on after that, raising all my expectations for myself.”

As Costas attests, Sandberg truly launched himself into another stratosphere thanks to his performance on June 23, and the legacy of that game has only become stronger as the years go by. “I think the baseball world knew that Ryne Sandberg was a very highly regarded young player, but he really burst onto the national scene in that game. I don’t think that’s an overstatement because of the size of the audience, because of the classic quality, the setting, the two teams, the Cardinals and the Cubs with their long history, and then just the way it dramatically played out. It is not unheard of for me to be walking down the street in Chicago, and someone will yell from across the street, or someone from the backseat of a cab, ‘Hey Bob! The Sandberg Game!’ And I know exactly what they’re talking about.”

Sandberg says rarely a day goes by without someone referencing the game to him, and he has recently noticed that the knowledge of what happened that day 35 years ago has been passed down to newer generations of Cubs fans. “It feels to me like there must have been 100,000 fans at Wrigley that day. It only held 38 (thousand) at the time, but there’s so many people that have said, ‘I was at that game.’ I question that, but I think they were, on radio, replay or video or something. I’ve actually had kids come up to me that are 10, 12, 16 years old, to talk about the Sandberg game. Well, obviously they didn’t see it, but they know all about it.”

There’s no doubting the impact the June 23rd, 1984 game had on Sandberg’s career, but that day was important to the future Hall of Famer for a different, much more personal reason. “That day and that game… I’ve been asked by some players and people throughout the years, ‘When did you really feel like you were a major league player, when was that?’ They’re thinking little league, t-ball, high school, college, minor leagues, it had to be somewhere in there. It was actually right after that game. It was my 3rd year in the big leagues, and it was right after the June 23rd game where I said, ‘You know what, I belong here.’”

Ryne Sandberg certainly belonged, and there is likewise no doubt that his performance in that classic contest at Wrigley 35 years ago belongs in the pantheon of all-time great Cubs games.