You know you’ve made it big when you have a particular game named after you and everybody understands the reference.

The 40th anniversary of “The Sandberg Game” is on Sunday and the Cubs will honor Ryne Sandberg with a statue at Gallagher Way outside Wrigley Field. Sandberg will join Fergie Jenkins, Billy Williams, Ernie Banks and Ron Santo as the only Cubs players with statues outside the ballpark.

“The Sandberg Game” was so monumental, it has its own Wikipedia page and an article about it on the official Baseball Hall of Fame website.

It was a nationally televised broadcast as the Game of the Week on NBC on a Saturday afternoon with Bob Costas on the call. The Cubs were in the midst of a memorable 1984 season and Sandberg hit 2 home runs late to help give his team a thrilling victory.

At one point in the game, the Cubs were trailing 7-1 and went into the bottom of the 9th losing by a run when Sandberg hit a game-tying homer off former Cubs closer and Hall Famer Bruce Sutter.

Then in the bottom of the 10th, Sandberg erased an 11-9 deficit with another homer off Sutter – this one a 2-run shot. The Cubs ended up winning on a Dave Owen walk-off single in the bottom of the 11th.

Sandberg finished with 5 hits and 7 RBI in the Cubs’ 12-11 win over the Cardinals.

“It was crazy because there was a lot of people leaving there before Ryno hit the first home run,” said catcher Jody Davis on an episode of the Cubs Weekly Podcast earlier this year. “And me being a catcher, I was going crazy trying to figure out how to get [Cardinals outfielder] Wille McGee out. He hit for the cycle that day and if it wasn’t for Ryno, it would be the ‘Willie McGee Game.'”

Bob Dernier was the Cubs’ leadoff hitter in that game and when he came up with 2 outs in the bottom of the 10th inning, he knew he had to do whatever he could to get on base.

“[I’m like] I gotta get this guy another at-bat,” Dernier said on an episode of the Cubs Weekly Podcast. “I’m facing this Sutter guy. He goes 3-0, which you can’t walk me – not with him on deck. That’s just stupid.”

Dernier broke down the at-bat pitch-by-pitch as he ultimately drew a walk from Sutter and set the stage for Round 2 of Sandberg’s heroics.

The win moved the Cubs’ record that season to 37-31. They went on to finish 96-65 and in first place in the NL East. However, things fell apart in the playoffs as they lost to the Padres in the National League Championship Series.

Still, “The Sandberg Game” was a moment that put the 1984 Cubs on the map nationally.

“It was just a great game and we kept fighting back,” Davis said. “It was a game that at that point in the season, I think everybody – all the fans in Chicago started to think that we could compete and it just steamrolled from there and everybody starting thinking we can win and just a ton of fun.”

While that game was a springboard for the team in a lot of ways, it didn’t change the fact that the 1984 Cubs believed they had something special well before June 23.

“We all felt as players that we could compete and hang in there but after the ’69 season, I think a lot of the fans started to doubt,” Davis said. “We heard that down the stretch too: ‘oh, they’re gonna blow it like the ’69 bunch.’ That was just crazy how that happened for those guys in ’69.

“The veteran leadership of Sarge [Gary Matthews], Larry Bowa and then the younger guys like myself, Ryno, Lee Smith, Leon Durham, Keith Moreland, we just had great years and played really good team baseball. We were really close and wanted to win. It was just so much fun.”

At the Cubs Convention in January, fans get to interact with their favorite players from the 1984 team on an annual basis. Davis, Dernier, Sandberg, Rick Sutcliffe, Matthews and others are regular attendees.

“We got a chance to do something special and although we didn’t quite complete the deal,” Dernier said, “40 years of Cubs Conventions and stuff, I still get the favorite son treatment.”