Family meets baseball idol Sandberg

INDIANAPOLIS (WTHI) - Darrell Skaggs, of Terre Haute, has been taking his two sons to Chicago Cubs games for more than 25 years.

“My family has been Cubs fans since 1985,” said Skaggs. “We took our boys, at that time they were 7 and 5 years old, to their first Cubs game and we go to a Cubs game every year.

From the very beginning, the Skaggs boys picked out a Cub that stood out from the rest and for every Cubs fan at that age they wanted to be Ryne Sandberg.

Last year, the streak of family trips to Wrigley Field ended because Darrel was battling breast cancer. But even cancer couldn't keep Darrell from his Cubs.

“The Cubs have just been part of our family and even when I was recovering from cancer last year, I would do a lot of TV viewing of the Cubs games.”

Now that he's recovered, Darrell decided to try and make the Cub experience extra special for his boys this year. So when the AAA team that Sandberg manages came to town to take on the Indianapolis Indians, you know dad had a plan.

“I thought, ‘well I'll see if I cant do something to pull some strings to maybe get the kids to meet with him,’ so I contacted the Iron Pigs and I got an email back from Ryno and he said he'd love to meet with us. A representative from the Indianapolis Indians called me on the phone and took us into the dugout and [they] said just have a seat and Ryno will be here in a little bit. My son is like, ‘wow this is so cool.’”

“On the walk there my heart was beating out of my chest just knowing that I was getting ready to meet my idol,” said Darrell’s son Jeff. “What the family has been through and everything I think it was a moment that went very well and they seemed to be pumped up.”

And even the legend himself was pretty amazed when he was introduced to little Seegan Sandberg Scaggs, a 2-year-old Cubs fan named after Ryno.

“You know, just to think that the namesake is out there and the generations of my fans that are out there to name their kids and their grandsons after me is, you know, it's an honor for me,” said Sandberg.

Three generations of die hard Cubs fans with 25 years of baseball memories to remember; the most recent being a few minutes with an idol that they'll never forget.