Chicago Tribune
June 21, 2007
Sammy Sosa acknowledges cheers from fans as he walks back toward the dugout with his Texas teammates after hitting his 600th career home run off the Cubs' Jason Marquis.
Sammy Sosa shined shoes on the streets of the Dominican Republic as a child. In the future, only the greatest of sluggers will be able to follow in his footsteps.
On Wednesday night in Arlington, Texas, Sosa became only the fifth player to hit 600 home runs in his career — no mean feat for a kid who arrived in professional baseball undernourished and appreciated as much for his smile and his speed as anything he could do with a bat.
In the fifth inning, off Cubs right-hander Jason Marquis, Sosa took a 1-2 pitch barely into the bullpen in right-center field for the Texas Rangers. It finished an 18-year climb to a milestone previously reached only by Henry Aaron, Barry Bonds, Babe Ruth and Willie Mays, rewarding Sosa for returning to baseball after appearing to retire in 2006.
Like Bonds and Mark McGwire, Sosa will present a dilemma for Hall of Fame voters and historians because of suspicions that he fueled his late-career surge in power through the use of anabolic steroids, human growth hormone or other performance-enhancing substances that were in wide-spread use in the 1990s and, at the least, first years of this decade.
Unlike Bonds and McGwire, Sosa never has been tied even to circumstantial evidence about the use of steroids. En route to a 66-homer season in 1998, he told reporters he used nothing stronger than "Flintstone vitamins," and despite Sosa's bulk and strength, that claim never has been disproved.
Like Bonds, Sosa once raced through home-run milestones. He hit his 300th in 1999, his 400th in 2001 and his 500th in 2003, all during a historic run in which he hit 292 home runs in five years. But as his power slipped, his image crashed—largely the result of a suspension for using a corked bat in 2003—and he experienced a series of injuries. Because of this, Sosa lost his realistic chance to join Bonds in pursuing Aaron's career record of 755 home runs.
Sosa breaks his bat June 3, 2003, in a game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, exposing an illegal corked center. He was thrown out of the game and suspended eight games. He denied he used the bat on purpose, but rather that he unknowingly grabbed the bat he normally used during batting practice to put on a show for the fans.
In 2004, his final season with the Cubs, Sosa hit 35 homers in 126 games, production that so disappointed him he ducked out of the clubhouse early on the last day, angered his manager, Dusty Baker and set in motion a trade that sent him to Baltimore. He had only 14 homers in 102 games for the Orioles in 2005 and after the season decided he didn't want to play anymore.
He took a season off before signing a minor-league contract with the Rangers last winter. He said the season off had re-energized him and he has seemed to benefit from a reunion with hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo, who was his manager in rookie ball. He currently is batting .243 with 12 homers and 53 RBIs in 62 games.
Sosa began his career with Texas after being discovered at a tryout by Omar Minaya, now the general manager of the New York Mets. Sandy Johnson, then the Rangers' scouting director, offered him a contract based on his raw ability and the work ethic he saw as he watched Sosa sell oranges and shine shoes on the streets of San Pedro de Macoris.
Sosa reached the big leagues at age 19, batting leadoff and playing center field in his major-league debut at Yankee Stadium. He homered off Boston's Roger Clemens in his first week with Texas but wasn't projected to develop into a prolific home-run hitter. Otherwise he wouldn't have been traded twice in his first four big-league seasons, going to the White Sox in a three-player package for Harold Baines and then on to the Cubs for George Bell.
Sosa had homered only once every 24 at-bats in his first six seasons but learned to drive the ball consistently as he settled into his big-league career. His breakout season came in 1995, when he homered 36 times in a season that was reduced to 144 games by the player strike that wiped out the World Series the year before. He made his next big jump in 1998, the second year that he worked with hitting coach Jeff Pentland.
While it was McGwire who wound up with the single-season homer record of 70 in '98, Sosa challenged him to the final day of the season. He briefly led on the final Friday, when he hit his 66th homer before McGwire would pile on five in St. Louis' season-ending series against Montreal. Sosa followed up that season with 63 homers in 1999 and 64 in 2001.
Sosa never seemed to stop growing while with the Cubs, seemingly reporting to camp bigger every spring. His physique and the ease with which he hit home runs led to suspicions that he was using steroids or other performance-enhancing substances but the whispers didn't stop the Cubs from signing him to a $72-million contract in the spring of 2002, keeping him off the free-agent market.
None of his former teammates ever has accused Sosa publicly of steroid use, but Mark Grace frequently has stopped just short.
"I can only say when the allegations and suspicions arose, it didn't surprise me," Grace said in 2004.
A long way from the summer of 1998 lovefest, Sosa is sworn in before a Congressional hearing on steroids on March 17, 2005.
Jim Riggleman, who managed the Cubs in 1995-99, admits he now has his doubts but never investigated where Sosa got his bulk.
"I think I was very naïve about what happened back in those days with steroids, and whatever," said Riggleman, who is now the field coordinator for St. Louis' farm system. "That subject never came up at the time, only Mark McGwire's [androstenedione], which was legal. … We looked at it like Sammy was doing something to maintain his weight, maybe he had something going like Mark does. The big thing at the time was creatine. We felt like the guys who were big and strong, maybe they were using creatine. … Steroids for us were more under the radar."
Pentland insists Sosa was a product of hard work and natural ability, not steroids.
"Sammy was a good player who got better through our work," said Pentland, now the Seattle Mariners' hitting coach. "He was very diligent. … He might have been the hardest worker I've ever had, actually. His body, he had tremendous flexibility, not just strength. He was never hurt. He played every game. Those things tell me he wasn't on steroids, from what I hear."
Frequently calling himself "a gladiator," Sosa hated being out of the lineup. He avoided the disabled list for an eight-year stretch when he was at his peak, twice playing the full 162 games in a season.
Sosa goes into his signature hop after knocking out his 64th home run on the final day of the 2001 season in -- what else? -- a Cubs loss. He is the only player to hit 60 or more home runs three times.
Sosa's first-inning sprints in front of the right-field bleachers and kisses to the television cameras were popular with fans at Wrigley Field. His home runs contributed to the Cubs annually outdrawing the White Sox despite taking a pounding in the standings. The Cubs won only one division title in the Sosa era, and it was pitchers Kerry Wood and Mark Prior who supplanted Sosa as leading men that season.
Sosa's image crashed when he was caught using a corked bat against Tampa Bay's Geremi Gonzalez in 2003 and even his good health left him in '04, when he suffered the embarrassment of going on the DL after hurting his back while sneezing.
Sosa rarely bonded with teammates. Enjoying the perks of celebrity, he seemed to mix better with celebrities and world leaders than utility men and minimum-wage relievers. That lack of popularity left him without many allies when his production slipped, making him an easier target for reporters and fans.
When he ducked out of the clubhouse early on the final day of the 2004 season, an unnamed teammate demolished Sosa's boom box, which for years had played loudly in the clubhouse. Sosa's value had fallen so much that the Cubs were forced to pick up $17 million of the $25 million in earned in 2005, when he played for Baltimore. The Cubs had become the third team to trade him away.
"The honeymoon was over," Grace said at the time. "He let them down. Other than Ernie Banks and Ryne Sandberg, there was not a more sacred Cub than Sammy. But Sammy is no longer the begotten son, and he has nobody but himself to blame."
Sosa remains the Cubs' all-time leader with 545 home runs, 33 more than Ernie Banks. Hack Wilson is the only hitter in franchise history with a higher slugging percentage but Sosa's legacy also includes a club-record 1,815 strikeouts.
progers@tribune.com
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