FINALLY, SAMMY SOSA MANAGES THE A-WORD AND DESERVES HIS PLACE IN CUBDOM
Fans don’t have to love him, but the steroids era has found measures of peace — Bonds, McGwire, Rodriguez — and the Cubs Convention should bring back memories of an intense Wrigley Field love-in
Was he a sumo wrestler? Arnold Schwarzenegger? Gargantuan and kind of gross, the man hugging me at spring training was Sammy Sosa, with a ridiculous bloat that left him over-engaged in steroids usage. He never pronounced my name correctly, but he thought I was his dude in the Chicago media. I was not, as he realized when he corked his bat and cracked too many regular-season home runs in the 66, 63 and 64 range.
A cheater, I called him.
“Do you use steroids?” I asked him one day in Arizona.
He mumbled something about a creatine shake, which generated energy and helped muscle recovery but wasn’t quite the S-word. Later, he said he took Flintstones vitamins, and when he appeared before Congress, he claimed he was “clean.” His agent told him to speak under oath in Spanish, which could have landed Sosa and Adam Katz in prison if members knew the real story of his angry English in the Cubs clubhouse.
Until Thursday, Sosa was the one implicated juicer from baseball’s steroids era who never acknowledged wrongdoing. Suddenly, a quarter-century of lying and stubborness will wane into truth. With 609 career homers and a Wrigley Field love-in that ended with a sport-agonized scandal, he chose to apologize for his performance-enhancing juicing. He didn’t employ those words, but two decades after he bolted a game on the North Side and never returned, Sosa said enough to find peace with team chairman Tom Ricketts.
“There were times I did whatever I could to recover from injuries in an effort to keep my strength up to perform over 162 games,” said Sosa, in a statement through an agency. “I never broke any laws. But in hindsight, I made mistakes and I apologize.
“I left it all on the field for the Cubs and Cub fans because I wanted to win and make the fans happy. I loved to see the fans at Wrigley in the Right Field Bleachers every home game. I understand why some players in my era don’t always get the recognition that our stats deserve.”
The A-word is enough when he can’t utter steroids. Sosa missed badly in 10 attempts with Hall of Fame voters, and to gain induction, he would need considerable help from the contemporary player committee. For now, Cubdom should be happy he’s back. It’s time. Barry Bonds returned years ago to the San Francisco Giants, to the point I was swarmed by newspaper readers upon criticizing him. Mark McGwire has been honored in St. Louis. Alex Rodriguez is a studio announcer on Fox Sports and an owner of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves. We don’t forget the needles on backsides or the nationwide outrage, but Ricketts demanded something on paper that allows him to move on.
Guess who will be the stars at the 2025 Cubs Convention next month?
Sammy Sosa will hug Kyle Tucker, who takes his place in right field.
“We appreciate Sammy releasing his statement and for reaching out,” Ricketts said in a statement. “No one played harder or wanted to win more. Nobody’s perfect but we never doubted his passion for the game and the Cubs. It is an understatement to say Sammy is a fan favorite.
“We are all ready to move forward together.”
Baseball in the ‘90s was loaded with scandals. Jerry Reinsdorf and the owners fought the union and lost a cancelled World Series, which prompted the NFL and Michael Jordan to whizz past in the American eye. Sosa and McGwire brought back homers with a 1998 derby, but the scam soon overtook the hype. Fans still loved Sammy, such as when he honored America by carrying a flag on the field after 9/11. They wanted to believe in him, even when he gave them reasons to hold noses. He needed decades. So did the Cubs.
They went on to win a Series without him in the fray. He wandered away, at one point drawing attention with skin-bleaching. He fired back, telling Sports Illustrated, “ Look at what I am today. This is my life, and I don’t take garbage from nobody. I do whatever I want.” Earlier, he told Univision, “It’s a bleaching cream that I apply before going to bed and whitens my skin tone. It’s a cream that I have, that I use to soften (my skin), but has bleached me some. I’m not a racist. I live my life happily.”
How fascinating to see Sosa back when 2016 heroes — Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, Kyle Schwarber, Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta — are long gone. This was a sound move by Ricketts, who sees hope in Tucker and wants the past resolved. In 1992, the White Sox sent Sosa to the Cubs in a deal for George Bell. He joined Mark Grace, who made sour talk about steroids and dueled with Sosa. He was on the field when Steve Bartman interfered, and a year later, he showed up late and was traded to Baltimore.
He is a Cub. He is not Ernie Banks. Welcome him, anyway, even if some of his 545 club homers were dirty and sizzled.
“We accomplished great things as a team, and I worked extremely hard in the batting cage to become a great hitter. Cubs’ fans are the best in the world and I hope that fans, the Cubs and I can all come together again and move forward,” Sosa wrote. “We can’t change the past, but the future is bright. In my heart, I have always been a Cub, and I can’t wait to see Cubs fans again.”
The convention begins Jan. 17. By then, maybe my throat will be recovered from a long-ago Michelin Man mash.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.