Sammy Sosa inherited hallowed ground, right field at Wrigley Field. So, he can do it no other way.
“I have to work hard, and take it like a man,” Sosa said Wednesday, a day the Cubs had designated to honor the past. Instead, they are forced to ponder the future.
Andre Dawson, who is nothing short of baseball royalty, doesn’t play here anymore. And now, Sosa is gone, out for four to six weeks with a broken bone in his hand. Even on a shiny afternoon when the Cubs want to smile, they can’t.
Now we’ll see what they’re made of, how deep or how thin. There aren’t many franchises that could survive an injury to a man with 40 home runs and 100 runs batted in. Few rosters allow for that, and the Cubs surely are among the marginally talented masses, though they participate in a pennant race, such as it is.
What a day for those denizens of the right-field bleachers, as if they haven’t suffered enough. Minutes before the game against Florida’s Marlins, Dawson appeared to tip his cap and salaam, in the same fashion the fans adored him during six seasons with the Cubs.
Andre excelled in Montreal before he came to Chicago and after he disappeared to Boston, then home to Miami. But to The Hawk, Wrigley Field was the place. It overwhelmed him. Better yet, it reminded him that baseball can be fun, even if you lose more often than you win.
Perhaps Sosa is feeling those vibes now too. He is more animated than Dawson, who always smothered his emotions, almost to a fault. But nobody led by example better than Dawson, a giant of a presence, whether in uniform, in civilian clothes or peeking over a spring-training fence, as he did in 1987, when he wanted the Cubs so badly, he made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.
Sosa was the pet project of Larry Himes, the general manager who regrettably presided when Dawson learned he was expendable. Sosa was as raw when he came to the Cubs as Dawson was forever elegant. Sosa opened the 1993 season in right field, the same turf Dawson graced through 1992.
More Top Picks Flashlights
Only lately do you see similarities. Dawson will go to Cooperstown because he did everything right. And now, with all that unbridled enthusiasm, Sosa seems to be embracing the details of greatness too. There are ways other than a home run to move runners along and the cutoff man doesn’t bite.
Dawson is from another era, Sosa is thoroughly contemporary. Yet there was Sosa promising Wednesday to stick around, to get healthy while helping his teammates in any way possible. Perish the thought that Sosa has to log as many hours in the trainers’ room as Dawson, but The Hawk couldn’t have said it any better.
Dawson, with 12 operations on his knees, never announced he would take it like a man. He didn’t have to. He’s the classiest athlete we’ll ever see. But now, here comes Sosa, drilled Tuesday by a pitcher who couldn’t find the plate, responding as Dawson might have.
The Hawk dearly craved a World Series, but he hit only .105 for the Cubs in the 1989 playoff against San Francisco. He was hurt. Yet, he was there. More than ever, Sosa has joined the program. He’s not playing baseball for the numbers, he’s playing for the team.
Were Dawson capable, he might even be envious of Sosa, who is 27, in the prime of his baseball life, and a Cub. Dawson came here a bit late and left far too early. That needn’t be Sosa’s legacy, not if he respects the game as completely as the legend before him in right field.
Andre Dawson became a man before he could become a child. He was born when his mother was 15, and she never did marry his father, who took off on his own. Now, with a fracture that will heal before he knows it, Sosa says he will do everything he can be and lend the hand that isn’t broken.
If Sammy Sosa ever strays, if he ever forgets what it’s all about, he should think about Andre Dawson, who said farewell to Wrigley Field on Wednesday. Nobody did it better than The Hawk, but the man who succeeded him is trying. Beneath the right-field bleachers, there is hope.