Shawon Dunston said he was a “wild” young shortstop – a few years removed from a tournament in Johnstown – when he arrived in the major leagues in 1985 and encountered an established star in new Chicago Cubs teammate Ryne Sandberg.
Sandberg was coming off a big 1984 campaign that saw him collect 200 hits, including 19 home runs and 19 triples, while scoring 114 runs and driving in 84. That most-valuable-player season also saw Sandberg win Gold Glove honors as the National League’s top fielding second baseman.
“I knew who I was playing with at second base,” Dunston said. “I knew he was a hall-of-famer, but he was one of us.”
Dunston and another ex-Cub, first baseman Mark Grace, visited with Sandberg this past spring. Sandberg was sick at the time.
“Ryne was doing really well, but we knew something was up,” Dunston said.
Sandberg died of cancer July 28 at age 65.
‘How to be a professional’
Dunston remembered his friend in an interview from Arizona, where he lives and where he is helping coach new draft picks for the San Francisco Giants organization.
“Ryno was the complete opposite of me when we were playing together,” Dunston said. “I was kind of wild and out of control, but he was calm. He let me play free, let me be myself.
“He was really good, but he was quiet.”
Dunston played with the Cubs from 1985–95 and also in 1997, including a team-record 11 opening-day starts at shortstop.
Sandberg played 2,151 games for the Cubs – many of them alongside Dunston in the middle of the infield.
“We didn’t talk much when we played. We just played,” Dunston said, “and he lived by example. He taught me how to be a big-leaguer, how to be a professional – Ryne and (outfielder) Andre Dawson. …
“They taught me to be humble and to respect the game. They always said, ‘If you play well, you’ll make money, but remember that it’s not what baseball can do for you. It’s what you can do for the game.’ ”
Dunston also played for San Francisco (1996, 1998, 2001–02), Pittsburgh (1997), Cleveland (1998), St. Louis (1999, 2000) and the New York Mets (1999) in an 18-year career.
When they entered the Chicago Cubs Hall of Fame together in 2023, Grace called Dunston “probably my favorite teammate I ever had. Shawon was fun, and yet, the most serious.”
Dunston was known for his strong arm, which was at times erratic when he was young.
“The most famous Cubs double-play combination ever was Tinker to Evers to Chance,” Grace said in 2023. “My first couple of years with the Cubs, it was Sandberg to Dunston to Addison Street, but Shawon Dunston had the greatest gift hanging out of his right sleeve that I’ve ever seen in my life.”
New York City to Johnstown to the pros
Dunston played in the 1981 All American Amateur Baseball Association Tournament in Johnstown as a pick-up player with Brooklyn.
He was a rising senior at Thomas Jefferson High School.
“They asked me to go,” Dunston recalled. “I remember thinking, ‘I’ve never been out of New York,’ but they treated me like I was on their team for the whole year.”
Raphael “Papo” Lozada was a teammate on that Brooklyn team, and later served as co-manager of the 1994 Youth Service League franchise that won the AAABA championship.
“When Shawon played for us, he was three years younger than me,” Lozada said. “He became our starting third baseman.
“I knew I was watching a special player when he came to play for us. He was three years younger than most of us, but he was so good. Another guy who was like that was Manny Ramirez.”
Dunston recalled playing a AAABA game at Franklin Field, but not ever making it to Point Stadium. Brooklyn went 1-2 in the 1981 tournament – falling to New Orleans (12-4), defeating New Brunswick (6-4), and then losing an elimination game to Milford (15-11).
Baltimore beat Detroit 8-4 in the championship game that year.
“That was the best tournament I ever played in,” Dunston said. “The pitchers were very good. Back home, you would run into a good pitcher now and then, but in Johnstown, everybody was like that.
“Going there was a little different. People were talking about this guy and that guy, or this team is really good, but we were good, too, now.”
Dunston played in all three Brooklyn games in the 1981 tournament, per the AAABA annual report. He had three hits, two of them doubles, in 14 at-bats – with a run batted in, a stolen base and two runs scored.
“I’m glad I went,” Dunston said. “That tournament got me a look.”
That “look” paid off a year later. Dunston said he entered his senior year of high school hoping to catch on with a college program, but he batted .790 and was the first overall pick in the 1982 MLB draft by the Cubs.
“The No. 1 pick? From New York? That didn’t happen,” Dunston said.
He reported to the Cubs spring training facility in Sarasota, Florida – his second trip outside New York City.
Dunston was picked ahead of future star pitcher Dwight Gooden (No. 5 to the New York Mets), and was the first of four shortstops taken in the top seven picks, including Augie Schmidt (No. 2 to the Toronto Blue Jays), Spike Owen (No. 6 to the Seattle Mariners) and Sammy Khalifa (No. 7 to the Pittsburgh Pirates).
Barry Bonds, Bo Jackson and Barry Larkin were all picked in the second round, but none of them signed with their selecting teams. That was not Dunston’s final connection with Bonds.
On later facing Gooden, Dunston said: “They talk about (Pirates ace) Paul Skenes. Dwight Gooden was that guy before Skenes. Gooden was the toughest pitcher I ever faced – him and Nolan Ryan. Ryan wanted to intimidate you, but Gooden had my number. He dominated. He was just different.”
Barry Bonds and the Benz
Bonds went on to become baseball’s all-time and single-season home run king.
Dunston shared a story from Bonds’ record-breaking 2001 season, when he smashed 73 home runs.
“Barry was the best player I ever played with or against,” Dunston said. “He was our generation’s Willie Mays. He had the brain. He was always under control.”
In 2001, both were playing for the San Francisco Giants.
Bonds came out to the field early for the May 19 game in Atlanta to stretch with the other players – which he seldom did. Dunston said he teased Bonds, and predicted the slugger would break the single-season home run record that year.
Bonds, who had 17 home runs at the time, said he didn’t think he could catch Mark McGwire’s mark of 70 home runs.
Dunston recalled saying: “You’ll break the record, and if you break the record, you have to buy me a Mercedes-Benz.”
That night against the Atlanta Braves, Bonds hit three home runs, Dunston said. Bonds had six for the three-game series.
After he broke the record Oct. 5 against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Bonds asked Dunston: “What color Benz do you want?”
Dunston recalled responding, “Nah, I was just teasing.”
But Bonds bought Dunston a Mercedes anyway – and it remains a reminder of that special summer.
“Still to this day, I have that car,” Dunston said. “It has 100,000 miles on it. It’s my Barry car.
“He didn’t have to do it. It was just a joke.”
‘Proud to be from Brooklyn’
Baseball is a family affair for Dunston.
His son, Shawon Dunston Jr., was drafted by the Cubs in the 11th round of the 2011 MLB amateur draft out of Valley Christian High School in San Jose, California. He played professionally until 2024.
Dunston has three daughters, one of whom – Jasmine Dunston – was named director of minor league operations for the Chicago White Sox in 2022.
Dunston returned to Brooklyn this summer to see his mother and visited with Lozado and other friends from his youth.
“I’m so proud to be from Brooklyn,” he said.
Growing up, Dunston said, he spent every day at a nearby baseball complex during the summers, playing on different teams, watching older players in other leagues.
“I would go to the ballpark at 9 in the morning and I wouldn’t go home until 9 at night,” he said. “I just played and watched baseball all day. They called Chris Mullen a gym rat. I was a baseball rat at the park. I just loved it.”
He still does – now coaching new draftees and passing on the lessons he gleaned from Sandberg and others.
“I never had a job,” Dunston said. “If you call baseball a job, you’re crazy.”