The 1984 Cubs: The Team That Made Chicago Believe Again

There's a generation of Cubs fans for whom 1984 is the season. Not 2016 — that came later, and by then most of them had learned not to trust the feeling that things were finally going to work out. No, for a certain kind of Cubs fan, the one who was old enough to watch that summer but young enough to still believe completely and without reservation, 1984 is the year that everything was possible before it wasn't. It's the year that Ryne Sandberg became Ryne Sandberg. It's the year the Cubs looked like a team of destiny for about five months and then broke your heart in exactly the way Cubs teams break your heart — suddenly, completely, and with a ground ball through the first baseman's legs.

I love the 1984 Cubs. I love them in the complicated way you love something that hurt you. Here's the full story.

How They Were Built

The 1984 Cubs didn't happen by accident. Dallas Green — who had managed the Philadelphia Phillies to a World Series title in 1980 — took over the Cubs front office in 1981 with a mandate to rebuild from the ground up. Green was aggressive, opinionated, and not particularly interested in the Cubs' tradition of losing. He made moves. Some of them were brilliant. One of them was the most lopsided trade in the franchise's history.

In 1981, the Cubs and Phillies agreed to swap shortstops — Larry Bowa to Chicago for Ivan DeJesus. Routine enough. But Green, who had been managing in Philadelphia and had seen a young Ryne Sandberg in the organization, insisted on a throw-in. The Phillies agreed. Sandberg came to Chicago as a virtual afterthought, and the rest is what this whole site is about.

Green also acquired Bob Dernier and Gary Matthews from the Phillies before the 1984 season — two outfielders who immediately improved the top of the lineup and the defense. And in June, he made the move that put the rotation over the top: trading for Rick Sutcliffe from the Cleveland Indians. Sutcliffe, who would go on to win the NL Cy Young Award that year despite only pitching half the season in the National League, was the final piece that turned a good team into a great one.

The Roster

The Season by the Numbers

Month by Month

The 1984 Cubs weren't a team that jumped out of the gate and coasted. They built. They got better as the pieces came together, peaked when Sutcliffe arrived in June, and were essentially unstoppable through the summer months. Here's how it looked:

June was when it all clicked. Sutcliffe made his first start as a Cub on June 13 and went on to go 16-1 for the rest of the season. The Sandberg Game happened on June 23. The Cubs went 20-7 that month and never really looked back. By the All-Star break they were in first place and playing like a team that knew it.

Rick Sutcliffe and the Trade That Changed Everything

You cannot tell the story of the 1984 Cubs without spending real time on Rick Sutcliffe because the trade that brought him to Chicago was the single most important transaction of the entire season. Dallas Green sent Joe Carter — who would go on to hit one of the most famous home runs in World Series history for the Blue Jays in 1993 — and Mel Hall to Cleveland in exchange for Sutcliffe, Ron Hassey, and George Frazier.

Sandberg's MVP Season

We have a full article dedicated to the Sandberg Game and another to his overall career, but it would be wrong to write about the 1984 season without acknowledging what he did that year in full context. The MVP award was not a consolation prize. It was not a popularity contest. Sandberg was genuinely the best player in the National League in 1984 and it wasn't particularly close.

The counting stats — .314, 19 home runs, 84 RBI, 32 stolen bases — were excellent. The defense was historically good. Six errors all season at second base. A Gold Glove. But the thing that the numbers don't fully capture is what Sandberg meant to that lineup as the engine of everything. He batted second, he got on base, he created havoc on the basepaths, and when the situation demanded something big he delivered it. The Sandberg Game on June 23 was the extreme example but there were quieter versions of it all season long.

Clinching the NL East

The Cubs clinched the NL East division title on September 24, 1984, with a win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was the first division title in franchise history and the first time the Cubs had been in the postseason since 1945. Thirty-nine years of waiting ended at Wrigley Field with a crowd that included people who had genuinely started to wonder if they would ever see this moment.

The celebration was everything you would expect and deserved after nearly four decades. People cried. Players cried. The neighborhood around Wrigley turned into one long party. For a few days it felt like the beginning of something sustained — like the Cubs were done losing and a new era had arrived.

The NLCS — San Diego and the Gut Punch

The Cubs faced the San Diego Padres in the 1984 NLCS. Best of five. The Cubs won the first two games at Wrigley Field and needed just one win in three games in San Diego to reach the World Series for the first time since 1945. They won zero of them.

Games 3 and 4 went to San Diego. Then came Game 5. The Cubs led going into the seventh inning. And then a ball went through Leon Durham's legs at first base. The Padres scored. The runs kept coming. San Diego won 6-3 and advanced to the World Series. The Cubs went home.

The Legacy

The 1984 Cubs matter for reasons that extend beyond that one season. They proved that the franchise could be competitive again. They gave Chicago a second baseman who would define the next decade and earn a Hall of Fame plaque. They showed that the right front office moves — the Sandberg trade, the Sutcliffe trade, the Dernier and Matthews acquisitions — could transform a losing organization quickly. And they gave a fanbase that had been starved of meaningful October baseball for nearly four decades something real to hold onto.

Most of the players on that team are still talked about on the North Side. Sandberg's number hangs from the foul pole at Wrigley. Sutcliffe threw out a first pitch at the 2016 World Series, full circle from the team that started the resurgence. The 1984 Cubs didn't win it all but they started something — a belief, fragile and constantly tested, that the Cubs could be the Cubs without the losing being the main story.

It took another 32 years to finish what they started. But they started it. That matters.