He has become just “Sammy,” like Reggie was Reggie and Babe was Babe, that kind of Sammy. Like Cher is Cher and Madonna is . . . well, surnames are gratuitous in the bright, brave new world of Sammy Sosa, even on a night in which he strikes out four straight times.
Not even Mark McGwire is just Mark. Big Mac maybe, like Sosa is Slammin’ Sammy, but not just Mark.
On my way into Qualcomm Stadium Tuesday night I am stopped and asked to settle a domestic argument. The media credential makes me an authority.
“Tell me,” a middle-aged woman asks, “wasn’t there a Slammin’ Sammy before this one? I’ve got a bet with him.” She motions toward her husband.
No, I say, there never has been another Slammin’ Sammy and there never will be another one. The husband holds out his hand and she drops two quarters into it. I know Slammin’ Sammy Snead will understand. He would have denied it himself for four bits.
I wasn’t entirely untruthful. There is slammin’ and there is slammin’. Hitting a stationary ball with a square surface can’t compare to whacking a spinning ball that is part menace and part illusion and no friend to the purpose. This with a rounded stick.
“And Sammy makes it look easy,” Mark Grace said. “That’s the frightening thing.”
Frightening?
“I don’t think people realize how hard this is,” Grace said. “62. I mean 62. That’s a lot of home runs. And it’s not done. I tied my career mark with 16 and that means it takes me 5 or 6 years to get 62. A lot of guys play every day (and) never hit 62 in their lives. Teams have won a World Series and only hit 62 for a season. Whole teams.
“And I’ll tell you another thing. Sammy should have five or six more. In the first two months at Wrigley Field, that wind was tough. It blew in every day. Sammy doesn’t need the wind blowing out to hit home runs, but I can count five or six when the wind was blowing in that would have been home runs in any other park.”
Each Sosa plate appearance is accented by jittery flashbulbs throughout the stadium, a waste of film and f-stops, for Sosa does not hit a ball far enough forward to get out of the batter’s box.
San Diego pitchers Sterling Hitchcock and Dan Miceli will be less remembered for making Sosa look mortal than if either had given up an historic 63rd home run. McGwire was homerless also for the night, leaving things exactly where they were, except the Cubs are tied with the Mets in the wild card race after losing, 4-3.
The local paper headlined the arrival of Sosa. “Here Comes Sammy,” it said, not a warning but a welcome, this in a town with a division already clinched, with a few notables of its own–Tony Gwynn, Kevin Brown, Andy Ashby, Greg Vaughn and Wally Joyner. Vaughn hit his 49th home run in the fourth inning.
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But here comes Sammy, and when Sammy appears for the first time on the field, late for pregame stretching because of the obligatory news conference, this could be Chicago. The fans shout his name, the cameras aim nowhere else and Sammy has to pick his way through the media, back in nuisance numbers now.
Sosa has apologized for making the media wait in a lockerroom large enough to house the San Diego Chargers but inadequate to handle Sosa’s interview. Sosa does not apologize to his teammates for being tardy. They understand and appreciate how Sosa has handled all of this, making what could be a large distraction and a great annoyance into an amiable sideshow.
“Let’s suppose Sammy was a different kind of person,” Grace says. “Suppose all this pressure bothered him. We would have to shoo everybody away from him (Albert Belle’s name was not mentioned). We would have to be jerks and that would be a whole different scene.
“But Sammy has handled it so well, we can focus on what is important.”
Someone asked Grace if Sammy defines the Chicago Cubs.
Grace wants to be gracious. Sosa has no better front man, in the lineup and in the media, than Grace, but he has to allow that the Cubs had been around for a few years before Sammy got here.
Still, that is how the game is introduced, Sammy Sosa and the Chicago Cubs against your Western champion Padres. Sammy’s name above the logo? Not even Ernie got that.
Sammy gets a brief moment of honor before the first pitch, a handshake from a deputy mayor and Sammy’s image 60 feet tall on two stadium TV screens. When the No. 62 appears on the screen, it is large enough to be seen in Escondido.
Sammy got smaller notice in Chicago hitting homers 61 and 62.
“What happens if he hits another homer tonight?” Grace wonders before the game. “Are we going to stop the game and all go crazy? This is a very, very strange situation.”
The problem does not arise. Even Sammies have nights like this.