MILWAUKEE — The picture is still vivid in Ian Happ’s mind.

It was pregame in April a few seasons back, and he was slumping – a common trend for Cubs players at Wrigley Field, where the cold weather and winds can suppress offenses.

How would he snap out of the funk?

Then, Cubs icon Ryne Sandberg came up to him.

“He told me his career numbers in April and that he always came out of it,” Happ said Monday night in the visitors’ clubhouse in Milwaukee, just hours after the passing of the Cubs icon.

It’s an anecdote that speaks to who Sandberg was as a person. He loved — no, he adored — the game of baseball. It had done so much for him, and he played the game with such a passion and love that endeared him to millions of fans.

“I think he’s kind of the blueprint for what it means to be an amazing Cub,” current Cubs second baseman, Nico Hoerner, said. “I think as far as the way he carried himself, obviously through his career and everything he achieved, but just how selfless he was in his time with us, too.”

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Sandberg achieved almost everything a player could want in this historic game. He was a 10-time All-Star, won nine Gold Gloves, took home the 1984 NL MVP award and he redefined what a second baseman could be, playing elite defense and hitting for power to go along with blazing speed. He was immortalized both at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum and with a statue outside historic Wrigley Field.

“It’s a sad day for the Chicago Cubs,” manager Craig Counsell said. “He was a great Cub. I’m grateful that we got a chance to get to know him this spring.”

Sandberg announced in January 2024 that he had been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer, and seven months later, he announced his cancer was in remission. Last December, he announced that the cancer had returned, but he still made every effort to be around the park and the Cubs.

He attended Cubs Convention a month later, signing autographs and meeting fans at the annual fan fest. In February, he flew out to Mesa, Ariz., to be at the beginning of spring training and meet the 2025 Cubs team that he was just so giddy for.

“Talking to Rick Sutcliffe about that a lot, I know he was doing everything he could to be there, and I think he did feel better when he was there, but I don’t think it was easy for him to be there,” Counsell said. “I think it’s one of those — it’s an environment that made him feel better, and it makes you feel good that you can provide that. It really does.”

He brought some of his gloves to Arizona to bring to Hoerner so the two could talk shop.

“He just, more than anything, wanted to talk about baseball and things that we were doing that were different than what they did then, and things that he saw,” Hoerner said. “He never came from it with an angle of having everything figured out. He just wanted to be on the field and talk about the sport that he loved and that loved him, honestly.”

He met with mainstays like Happ and Hoerner, talked with the coaching staff and interacted with some of the new faces in camp, too.

“I got to meet Ryno for the first time this spring, and he treated me like I had worn a Cubs uniform my whole life,” Matthew Boyd, who signed with the team this offseason, said. “I think that just spoke to who he was for this organization, as an ambassador of the game of baseball. It’s a loss, and we’re going to miss him. There’s not really words for it.”

That’s how this team will remember him as a man who loved not only America’s Pastime, but the Cubs organization as a whole and would do anything to help the players who donned the blue pinstripes.

“He loved being there, and you knew how much he loved being a Cub,” Happ said. “And we’re really lucky in this organization to have legends that want to come back and want to be around.

“He was a special man, and I miss him very much.”